Flightofbumblebee

Hi, I am landing at CDG at 11pm on the 18th Dec and then flying out again at 7am on the 19th Dec. As my flights are not on one ticket (easyjet) I have to go through customs, exit the airport and then re-check in. I thought that by the time I got my luggage and went through customs it would be midnight. I will then have 5 hours before I need to be lining up to check in again. I was planning to sleep at the airport (in the check in hall?) But I have heard/read that it is very dirty and unsafe with the homeless etc. Is this correct? Then I thought I could find a hotel near by and see if I could use a room for only a few hours or even just sit in the foyer so that I am safe. What do you think? I am a single female traveller from Australia...need some advice!!

dutyfree

The IBIS hotel by CDG is safe,clean and inexpensive so if you want some down time with a shower I would go there. I maybe wrong but I don't think that any airport these days is letting homeless people hang out on a regular basis-some airports here in the states don't allow you to sleep overnight either.

tomboy

If you sleep in the airport, how will you wake up at 4 AM?

StCirq

Airports don't let homeless people sleep there - where did you read that? Maybe people waiting overnight for flights look homeless, but they're probably just folks like you, sleeping on their baggage and whatever. Anyway, it wouldn't necessarily be unsafe to sleep at the airport, but for heaven's sake if you can afford it get a hotel room for a few hours' decent sleep. The Sheraton is right IN the airport, but it's pricey.

Flightofbumblebee

I've slept/snoozed in many airports across the world...and yes I too probably looked 'homeless'...

Tomboy - waking at 4am is veyr easy to do in an airport or anywhere in fact...I have a travel clock with an alarm.

StCirq - I read about the homeless etc on a few websites (travellerspoint, golden pillow - it's a website that rates sleeping in airports...quite interesting) alas, one cannot believe everything on the internet

I have sussed out the surrounding hotels...I will have another look at the Ibis CDG. I have also emailed a few of the hotels (including the sheraton) to see if I can get a room for a few hours...).

Worst case scenario...I get a hotel! Nothing like a shower and a little pillow time. Would anyone know what sort of cab charge I would be looking at?

Thanks for your help too! Muchly appreciated.

avalon

Most airport hotels have a shuttle service.

lincasanova

some cdg hotels charge for the shuttle and their hotels are a distance. I stayed at a very very cheap hotel I got on the Ryanair website one night with same scenario. It had a free shuttle and was under 60E. See if they have anything and then check hotel's own website to see if it is cheaper. Sometimes it IS cheaper to book through a third party website, sometimes not.

jkbritt

The Ibis is really close to CDG. There are two, get the one for Roissy airport. See: http://www.ibishotel.com/gb/hotel-14...al/index.shtml

I have stayed overnight at CDG. Yes, there are bumbs walking about all night. One of us had to stay awake, we took turns, to make sure our luggage did not disappear. Ibis is much better. We did it the second night of our adventure.

kerouac

There used to be a homeless problem at CDG, but the airport was cleared out years ago.

Your cheapest option would be the F1 hotel which is now something like 29€. It is in a big Accor complex with its own shuttle bus (Suite Novotel, Ibis, Etap & F1 all together) -- basically, it is the option of paying 120, 80, 50 or 30€ which is, as far as I'm concerned, a very intelligent arrangement on the part of Accor.

klondike

We use Ibis, personally, but any of the above is preferable to toughing it out in the public area of CDG!

You won't have to worry about waking to missing luggage; you'll definitely sleep better and you can get a wake-up call so you don't accidentally oversleep and miss your flight!

When we were young and poor traveling with a eurail pass, we spent the night at the train station somewhere along the French-German border (Sarrebourg?)because the youth hostel was full that night. Anyway, every hour the same policeman would come and rapp the bottoms of our feet to wake us up, ask to see our papers (the same ones he had looked at the hour before)and leave us for another hour. Obviously took sadistic pleasure each time. I could see this happening to you, especially if they are trying to keep CDG "cleaned up". Rent a room; you won't regret it.

jkbritt

Kerouac, how far is the F1 for CDG? I looked for one last year and could not find it. Also, where would the shuttle bus loading be.

kerouac

It is part of the airport complex area, right next to the freeway going into Paris.

Here is the link, but I have to apologize about the price. They have been upgrading the F1 chain and this one now costs 39€! (Toilets and showers are in self-cleaning pods in the corridor, I must point out. Not at all a problem as far as I am concerned for a very short stay, but people who need to pee in the middle of the night and are adverse to the, uh, 'sink solution' might need to stay in the Etap next door.)

http://www.accorhotels.com/fr/hotel-...dg/index.shtml

The Accor shuttle drives past all of the terminals. I must confess that I don't know the exact stops since I live in Paris and don't pay much attention to it.

Meanwhile, it is next door to the Marriott, so if you see the Marriott shuttle passing by.... you know what you can do.

BigRuss

You should take a nap on your flight to Paris and stay up all night. That said, I agree that you should go to a hotel, shower, relax, etc.

Staying up all night shouldn't be too difficult, you're an Aussie.

suze

If you can afford a room, get one!! It will be well worth the price, especially reading here you can get something for 50-60 euro with shuttle to/from the airport.

I wouldn't care if there were or weren't homeless people wandering around, I can't sleep in a chair in a public place. I'd happily pay for a couple hours or rest or at least privacy and a hot shower.

RedStater

<<If you sleep in the airport, how will you wake up at 4 AM?>>

One carries a small travel alarm clock, of course.

I had seven overnight hours in Boston like this recently - it didn't seem worthwhile to leave the airport and find a hotel for such a short period. I found a quiet part of the public lounge, pulled the sleeping bag out of my dufflebag, and slept soundly on the floor until 0530, when the bustle of the reopening terminal awoke me. No one bothered me. Not a very pleasant night, to be sure, but better than wasting effort and money for just a few hours in a hotel, I think.

suze

RedStater~ I could be wrong, but I think it's probably fair to say, most people don't have a sleeping bag to pull out of their dufflebag as they're passing thru an airport in Europe!

travelgirl2

Two years ago we bid on Priceline for a CDG airport hotel and got the Sheraton Paris Airport CDG for $118. You can't be sure which hotel you will win when bidding on a particular region on Priceline. However, when I checked www.biddingfortravel.com, that hotel was being won a lot so I figured there was a decent chance that's what we'd win.

It was attached to the airport, so we woke up in the morning and strolled over to check in for our flight. Could not have been easier. The web rate at the time was $288.

kerouac

My one gripe with that would be to spend such a short time there for $118. For a full day, why not?

Judy

Perhaps you can access the lounge associated with whatever airline you are flying.

travelgirl2

kerouac - I see your point about the $.

What I was thinking was: With just 5 hours, how could I maximize my sleep time? It would be great to just walk over to the hotel, check in and go to sleep. (But then, I really need to sleep or I feel terrible for a day or two.)

I'm curious if the Sheraton has some sort of an hourly rate.