Touchdown in Dublin (Dublin Airport (DUB))

Member Name: GuruOnAMountain

Product:	Dublin Airport (DUB)
Date:	17/09/06 (500 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Only airport in Dublin, handy tourist info and good transport links into city.

Disadvantages: Crampt and badly laid-out.

I decided on a long weekend to Dublin with some friends in August and so I found myself onboard a plane that zoomed into Dublin airport on a dreary, dismal weekday morning.

My friends and I sleepily stumbled off the plane and followed the herd of people making their way out the airport and soon realised that we'd flew into a gate that was quite a distance from anywhere. We seemed to be walking for miles and still hadn't reached security! There was a moveable conveyer belt type walkway, but it only ran in the opposite direction to the direction we were going in, so we had to make use of the old boot leather. We just found the whole experience rather funny, but I suppose it could be a major issue to someone with limited mobility or parents travelling with tired children.

The baggage collection area was rather large for what seemed to be a relatively small area, and it was bustling with people, but after elbowing our way through the crowds, we collected our cases and off we went.

Thankfully, we knew we couldn't get too lost making our way from the airport out to the city as unlike other cities such as Paris, Dublin only has one airport. I certainly can't fault it for transport links, either.

There was a travel information area near an exit, so we trundled up to it and we're given helpful info, a map and we even bought our bus tickets there and trundled outside where there was a row of bus stances and timetables. Buses into the city were extremely frequent and relatively cheap. I think our bus tickets cost about 1 euro 80 cents, but the expresses buses cost more. However, even though our bus wasn't an express, we found ourselves at our destination in about 20 minutes, although our accommodation was outside the city centre. It would probably take the best part of an hour to get into the city centre using a non-express bus from the airport.

On our return flight out from Dublin we'd more time to explore the airport. We arrived and headed to check-in, but the airport was packed and there was no room to move. Eventually we found our check-in desk, but the desks seemed to be arranged in a circular arrangement instead of in a row and this led to some rather confused queues forming. Airport staff didn't seem to be sure of who should be standing where and people were so tightly packed together that passengers who had already checked in were left with no choice but the try to squeeze past those still queuing in order to move away and this caused real problems when a wheelchair user had checked in.

Worse of all the check-in staff all seemed to be foreign. Of course, this is more the fault of the airline than the airport, but the seemed confused, clearly didn't understand English as well as they should have for the job they were doing and we're quite rude and stressed.

The sign posts for the departure gates were also not as clear as they could have been, but eventually we found our way to security. They weren't half as stringent here as they had been in Glasgow. In Glasgow we'd had to remove our shoes (this was not long after the planned bombings on board British flights had been foiled) and there were also random frisks, but neither of these happened in Dublin.

Once through security there was a row of shops. There was quite a good selection of shops and had time permitted I could've quite happily wandered through them for quite a while. Of course, being duty-free the prices were pretty good, too, but again this area was extremely crowded. It was as though the aiport was far too small for the number of people it served.

We soon discovered that our departure gate was gate A which was the same one we'd arrived at. There were other gates which apparently didn't have the same long walk, but I think the majority of flights arrive and depart from A, so prepare for the trek.

At our arrival at our gate we were basically inside a bit empty hall, and when it was time to queue for our flight there was no announcement, but a Ryanair steward shouted out that the flight was about to board, although I imagine this could be difficult to hear if you hadn't been close by at the time.

All in all, Dublin airport gets you into and out of Dublin relatively easily, but it isn't the most spacious of airports or the best laid-out.

Summary: Dublin's only airport.