Airport hotels at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
A lay-over at an airport can be horrible, expensive and boring at the same time. Most business men prefer a daytrip when travelling, they take an early morning flight outbound and a late afternoon or early evening flight back home. Unfortunately it’s not always possible to sleep in your own bed after a day full of meetings, so you are forced to stay a night in the city to take the early morning flight back home so you can have a productive day. Let’s take Paris for example.
City hotel versus airport hotel
Of course, when you want to hang out with your business partners and have a drink or two; a hotel in downtown Paris is your best choice. However, sometimes you are travelling alone and maybe you don’t like your business partners. In that case an airport hotel could be a good choice. The traffic jams during the morning rush hours on the ringways of Paris can really cause you a nervous breakdown, so why bother and just consider an airport hotel at Charles de Gaulle airport.
The pro’s of an airport hotel are, of course: the location and the efficiency. Airport hotels are designed for ‘hit and run’ nights; quick and efficient. City hotels focus on ‘experience’, ‘design’ and ‘holiday’. Also when having a long lay over between two flight and airport hotel can be a good option for you to take a shower and fresh up a bit.
Location of Paris CDG airport hotels
Basically, on Paris CDG airport, you have three options:
1. Expensive: The Sheraton Airport Hotel just oustide Terminal 2F and 2E. This hotel is actually 100 meters situated from the check in desks. Having said that; you really pay for the location. The rack rate for this Sheraton is € 220 per night.
2. Low-cost: The ‘cheap’ airport hotels outside of Paris CDG airport, where you need to go by shuttlebus or taxi.
3. Good value for money: The ‘Roissypole’ hotels between terminals 1 and 2. Those hotels are located on the airport terrain, in our opinion actually the best value for money.
Roissypole hotels at CDG airport
The hotels are all located next to the so called CDGVAL and RER-trainstation. The CDGVAL is an automated shuttle train which runs between Terminal 1 > Car Park 1 > Roissypole > Car Park 2 > Terminal 2. The CDGVAL runs every 4 minutes and the journey from start till end takes 12 minutes. The RER-trainstation offers direct commutertrains which brings you within 35 minutes and for just 5 euro to the Eiffel Tower.
All familiar hotel brands have an hotel here at Roissypole or they are building one. We stayed at the new IBIS Styles hotel (see review here) in this area, but there is also a standard IBIS hotel, an Hilton, a Pullman, a CitizenM, a Novotel, and at the other side of the taxiway you’ll find the Mercure.
The Hilton is the most expensive of all hotels mentioned here above. They charge you about € 175 per night, just a little less than their neighbours of the Pullman who let you stay in their hotel fora bout € 150. For this price a swimming pool is included in those two hotels.
The standard IBIS, the Mercure and Novotel charge you just below € 100 per night. The CitizenM and IBIS Styles just over that amount.
All hotels, except for the CitizenM offer a few rooms with direct platform and runway view (the Northern Runway.) CitizenM used to have runway/platform view, but the HolidayInn which is due to be completed by 2018 is blocking the view now. The Novotel also doesn’t offer runway view, however, almost all rooms facing South are offering a view on Terminal 2.
All rooms from level 3 and up in the Hilton, IBIS, IBIS Styles and Pullman have the best view on the runway and the platform of Terminal 3 (and a bit of Terminal 1).
Both the Hilton and the Mercure have rooms which gives you a view on the iconic Air France Concorde. One of the famous Concordes is displayed on a roundabout between these two hotels. The Hilton and Pullman both have indoor swimming pools.
