The Frustration Of Airport Shuttles And Rideshares At Paris CDG
I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Milion Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information. After three flights in economy class, I just wanted to get to bed…
We should have just slept in the terminal at CDG Airport…the hassle of trying to get to the Marriott CDG via shuttle and then Bolt was not worthwhile.
We arrived in Paris at just after 11 pm into Terminal 2D and headed out for the shuttle to the Marriott CDG, just in time to catch the last one departing at 11:15 pm. The pick-up point is the bus stop area between Termianl 2B-2D and we were out on the curb at 11:13 pm.
It initially looked like the exit was closed, but we just had to walk down the hall (carefully stepping over homeless people sprawled out in the terminal…see, it’s not just an American problem) before stepping outside.
The sign even listed our hotel:
But no bus showed up. I messaged the hotel on the Bonvoy app and was told teh shuttel was coming. But by 11:40 pm it was clear it was not coming and by 11:45 pm the front desk told me…there were no more shuttles.
So I ordered a Bolt, which perhaps I should have done from the very start considering it was only 10.60€, but it was less about the money and more about the schedule…we were at the bus stop at 11:15 pm…
Anyway, there was a road closure that began at midnight outside Terminal 2 and that meant we had FOUR drivers cancel on us…
Finally, at 12:20 am, our Bolt driver pulled up and we made the short journey to the hotel.
We reached the hotel at 12:30 am, checked in swiftly, and were in our room by 12:35 am…with the alarm set for 5:00 am.
What was the point? I guess for Augustine it was worthwhile because he went right to sleep, but it was during US work hours and I stayed up all night and worked.
Honestly, we should have just stayed in the terminal and slept there. As we stepped off our LOT Polish flight, we saw nice couches that would have been just fine and probably given Augustine an extra hour of sleep and saved me a whole lot of stress.
It was one of those nights where it honestly made sense just to stay in the airport ahead of our early morning flight…
Would you have gone for the hotel or stayed in the airport?