Sleeping in Airports blog

This review of the airport in Prague came into the site a few years ago.  To be perfectly honest, I can’t imagine this really happened as the airport rates fairly decently overall, but it makes for an interesting travel writing adventure to say the least.

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After visiting Prague in the Czech Republic for a week it was time to leave. After probably the most hair raising journey to the airport of my life by a disabled taxi driver - who really shouldn’t have been at the wheel.

Anyway, on arrival at the terminal the weather turned for the worse and it started to snow. We got through to the departure lounge and were informed of a delay of 2 hours, seeing as i had been clubbing all night i settled down to sleep listening to my mini disk player. I chose a bench to sleep on made of savage cast iron, and started my uncomfortable slumber. I awoke 3 hours later to see the barrel of an AK47 in my face, and my mates all hand cuffed lying on the floor. I was roughly thrown on the the most horrifically filthy floor and cuffed too, on the floor i managed to identify a decaying rat carcass in the corner.

We were all separated and hustled into separate rooms, i was shouted at in chec for about an hour and then cavity searched, not once but twice… after my raping (and walking fairly awkwardly) I was left in a room by myself for a while so i fell asleep, again. I awoke to a massive woman built like a big outdoor toilet who batted me around the head with a metal detector, which broke, so she shouted at me even more and in fact was joined by a shifty man in a suit who also shouted at me for a bit, i think they just took it in turns. again i was left in this cupboard size room that was easily as cold as ice, and again fell asleep or began to die of hypothermia, either way i lost consciousness.

eight hours later we were released one by one and we gathered at our original seats to work out what just happened. It was still snowing hard so our flight had not left yet so that was good.
On chatting to my mates it turned out one of them was roaming the lounge holding his CD player he walked past the gift shop and the guards assumed he had stolen it and arrested all of us, and cavity searched us for it to. not sure why really. luckily our flight was soon cleared to go and we were happy to be leaving, we were escorted to the plane by armed guards, which raised a fair few eye brows and meant everyone stared at us the whole flight. nice place really.”

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Indiscreet Eye….., originally uploaded by rogilde.

Thanks to Margaret Catherine for this fun read!

“Man is the sum of his appetites: what has conventionally been termed free will is but the expression of those. He should nay, must be permitted to do as he likes, when he likes, where he likes. Any other state of affairs is in direct contradiction to observed human nature, and is psychologically unhealthy.* It is, therefore, the role of society and government to enable the fulfillment of fundamental appetites in a manner as comfortable and safe as possible. While European governments are demonstrably ahead of America in this regard, there remains work to be done. There must be removed that lingering inequality by which a mere portion of the populace enjoys full privileges to the envy and resentment of the rest.

In light of this, Rome-Fiumicino airport must remove and replace all benches that have armrests, not only half, so that everyone who wishes to may stretch out and sleep. Additionally, those seeking to sleep on the window ledges beneath the air-conditioning returns must be provided with blankets. Special requests arising from the fact that one’s ledgemate is not sleeping, but rather sleeping it off, must also be accommodated. (Noisy escalator repairmen and Internet kiosks that eat your money are transitory matters, and will not be further addressed herein.) While the proffered recourse to a 24-hour cafe is appreciated, it ultimately is as weak and inadequate a substitute as the caffe latte on hand there.

In sum, the true desire of all those remaining overnight in Fiumicino is to sleep. While some manage this, a disheartening proportion enjoy no success.

Penned by Margaret Catherine
The 30th day of April, 2009
3:30 am

*Symptoms of psychological imbalance resulting from enforced insomnia include auditory hallucinations of ‘Funkytown’ at 3:00 am. The Italian love of American 80’s music, however, is a subject for another time.”

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IMGP2229.JPG, originally uploaded by Nathan Barton.

Contributed by python
Getting stuck in Broome during the cyclone season is a perfectly normal event, but in this case not only was there a cyclone, but our plane was stuck on the other side of Australia waiting to be fixed.
Broome airport seems to have been designed by someone who only ever visited there in the dry season. The waiting area (which is also the eating area) is nearly all open to the sky and there’s nowhere else to wait. For fifteen hours we sat in a hole in a square donut huddled against the walls on hard metal chairs trying to minimise the splash effects from the all-day, all-night downpour that left the streets flooded.
Broome is never a good town to wander around after dark, even in a cyclone, so there was little choice. This is not an airport to spend a night, or even a day. Get out of there as fast as you can and remember to take your own food: the one food outlet closes early, opens late and charges like a hungry crocodile.

For those of you who are new to the sleepinginairports.com blog, every now and then I will showcase a useful or entertaining airport review sent in by one of the site contributors.  In this edition, let’s have a look at Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine….because I’m sure you all are planning trips there one day.

Contributed by rossbd
Well, let me take you back 50 years. In their defense there is no good reason to visit here unless you know someone here, so they are just a old soviet type serviceable airport. At arrival you are led off the plane and papers checked before boarding the bus. The bus then travels maybe 50 yards and I swear the same guy checks your papers again as you get off.  He must run along side!  You are then lead up stairs thru a corridor last painted by Stalin himself and straight to a small room for passport control. It was like being herded like cattle. There is absolutely nothing there to distract you. Then on to baggage claim and customs which is no hassle, but again there is nothing but that. The second you walk out of customs you are in the meeting area which is the size of my bedroom and then outside. There is NO margin for error!!  On departure they have a small bar. coffee area and hard few seats. It is not much better once you pass passport control or customs in the boarding area. Only a small duty free and sudo-bar type place. All hard seats, all no-nonsense all typically soviet era. It not bad, you will feel safe, but if you are looking for a pleasant experience, forget it. It is what is is!!! If you wish to travel back in time, you can do it by just a visit here. Just don’t expect much at all.

The next time you fly, don’t forget to include your airport review to the site.  CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR AIRPORT REVIEWS.

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Originally uploaded by snaebyllej2

(Contributed by Tangerine) “My worst airport experience yet. I had 6 hours to kill before my flight to Bristol in the afternoon, and after travelling 20 hours from Auckland I scoured tiny, jam-packed Bergamo for an armrest-less seat to get some sleep. I found one right at the back of the airport near the wall, but as soon as I got cosy and closed my eyes a guard appeared from no where to prod me awake, tell me off in Italian and point in the direction of Milan. Sleeping is strictly banned at Bergamo, you aren’t even safe sleeping with sunglasses on or next to a friend who is awake - no one escapes the guard’s wrath. Check-in is hell, the staff are lazy and unhelpful. The check-in lines stretch forever and no one queues properly, so line up really early. I waited for 3 hours in customs in the “Non-EU passport” queue. It took so long that my bags were ordered off the flight which waited for me and two other “non-EU” passengers for 1.5 hours while we tried to get through customs. Finally an air hostess came down and managed to squeeze us through militant customs. When we finally walked up the plane steps the pilot greeted us to say “No, you’re too f**ing late” as if it was our problem that we weren’t born in Europe, but eventually let us on board. The second experience at Bergamo was an over-nighter. The airport closes at night so expect to be led (or kicked out) to the refugee-camp style, cold, hard, concrete floored room outside the airport. Don’t go there, this place will even taint your desired destination. AVOID BERGAMO!”

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I’ve never slept in any train stations, but I must say that after reading many of the reviews you’ve sent in, I certainly wouldn’t try it alone.  It seems to be a more popular thing to try in Europe, but I think only for the brave…..as you’ll discover reading this gem.

(Contribued by Iwmimi) My friend was to meet me in Copenhagen in the middle of my trip in the Nordic and I was supposed to pick her up at the bus stop outside the railway station in the early morning. Having limited budget, I decided to stay a short night in the station since I arrived at 11pm and will leave at 6am.
There is less than 10 benches there and not other seats. It’s impossible to sleep in the platform as it’s freezing cold. But the main lobby isn’t any better also. I was frozen even though I wear all clothes I have (including a down coat) and stayed in my sleeping bag.
There’re loads of drug addicts or drunken people around. I was waken up at around midnight as somebody poured beer onto my sleeping bag. I was too scared to yell at them and just wipe that off and continue to sleep.
Then somebody woke me up at 1am and ask me where did I put my luaggage. I lied that I locked them in the lockers. And he told me that the station is gonna close and suggested me to go to his place. I declined with a trembling voice and he left with a few swear words.
At 2am I was waken up again, this time by the security. The station was closing and I was thrown out to the freezing street in Copenhagen. Lots of drunken people were vomiting at the entrance.
Shivering and scared to death, I wandered around and found a BurgerKing which opens till 6am. I got in, bought a Burger and started writing on my travel diary. I pretended to be a travel writer getting ideas in the middle of the night so as to prevent being kicked out.
Then I got my friend’s message that she’ll be arriving at 9 instead of 6…
I went back to the station at 6 and tried to continue sleeping. This time the station looks more safe and clean but I was waken again at 8am that sleeping is not allowed in the station. So I got up and walked around until my friend finally arrived.
(My friend couldn’t regconize me, she said I looked terrible.)
Buddies, for the sake of you life, better go directly for the overnight fast food shops to chat with people there if you really need to stay over night there.

Do you have any sleeping in airport or train station experiences to share?  Send them in here.

READ MORE ABOUT SLEEPING IN THE COPENHAGEN TRAIN STATION

I know I add a lot of negative stories here to the airport spotlight feature, but they just tend to be the most entertaining.  Here’s a nice airport experience that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when reading it.  Thanks to Papa Whiskey for sending this one in.

We were a group of four people travelling via Addis Ababa Airport to Djibouti. Our flight from Europe landed about midnight in Addis, and our connecting flight with Ethiopian Airlines departed at 9am the next morning, so we decided to spend the night at the airport.

We were able to check in our luggage after our arrival (well, there was a place near the passport control marked with a sign “connecting baggage”, where all the connecting luggage for Ethiopian flights got the destination sticker and was put together on a large pile; but it worked out fine!).
So we ended up on the airside just with our cabin luggage. There were benches with relatively hard plastic cushions, but with no armrest, so everyone was able to sleep flat and outstreched.

Then a big surprise: a policeman walked up to us, and positioned himself about one metre away from us, watching us. After about 5 minutes, i asked him whether everything was okay. He told me that of course everything was okay, but his job is to protect the people here at this airport, so he is going to stay here so that “nothing bad is going to happen to European tourist visiting this beautiful country”.

He woke us up at 7am, to tell us that his shift is now going to end and he had to leave us. I invited him for a Coke at the bar (Coke is something quite extraordinary because of the price compared to local income), he accepted it very happily and we chatted for some minutes.
Also without our personal guard I would not have had the feeling, that the airside of Bole Airport is in any way insecure. It is a nice new building, providing all the necessary infrastructure on a basic but for Africa unexpected high level (shops, bars, internet…), although at very “European” prices, for expample 2 Euros for a Coke with would cost you 10-20 Eurocents outside. Inside the Airport, they do not accept Birr, only EUR or USD.

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