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| - This airport is fine, a solid 3 stars, but there are some things about it that make it extra freakout inducing. I think the main thing is that it's easy to feel lost. You'll have long stretches of hallway and huge cavernous rooms where the signs indicating the next stop on your trajectory (customs, baggage, etc) are not visible, tucked around corners. Instead, everywhere you look there are red Sortie signs, except you know you can't actually Sortie by any of those directions, that would be chaos, those are for emergencies. Exits everywhere but no actual exits make my brain weep and melt, especially if I've been stuck after landing on the tarmac sucking fumes from an Air France jet that's been in my plane's parking spot for an hour.
When I arrived at Dorval airport this Monday night at about 8:30pm customs was completely full, thousands of people in line, but no info desk or official person in sight. A girl in front of me was in total panic mode because she had to wait in the line before being able to ask anyone her questions about her connecting flight. To their credit, the few people actually working the customs desks stayed friendly, professional and prompt and the line moved quickly.
In general, Dorval airport is a lot like most: over-priced food, a hodge podge of industrial design from decades past... and it's better than some in terms of it's proximity to the city, walkable size and solid wifi. Just practice your calming mantras and deep breathing and you'll be fine.
Ah and one more note - because this airport is in the middle of a highly residential area NO planes can land here after 1am. If you get delayed, you're getting rerouted. Good luck with that.
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