Just thought I'd share my recent CDG experiences:
In October, flew Continental into 2A, arrived a bit early (5:45) but then waited 1/2 hour for the jetway to be attached. I really wanted to walk to 2F to catch our connection to TLS, but we were shuffled down a stairway into a tiny waiting room and ended up in a line for a bus. When I asked a French airport official if I could walk to 2F, she said it wasn't possible. So, we got on the bus, trundled around to 2F and then sat around waiting for our 10:45 flight to TLS. On the return trip, we were flying MRS to TLS. For some reason, they could not book us onto the connecting flight in CDG. He said he would send a telex, but I don't think he did. We had a little over an hour to catch the Continental flight out of 2A, so we made sure NOT to take the pokey bus, but ran as fast as we could through the terminal. They had closed ticketing for the flight when we got there but with much commotion and running back and forth to a little closet area, we got a boarding pass and were off at a run when I realized they had only booked one of us. We just caught them closing up shop and got the other boarding pass. Meanwhile, armed soldiers were herding everyone out of the area (we still don't know why). When we got to Newark connecting to BOS, our luggage wasn't there so we had to have it delivered a day or so later.
In November, I was trying to get to Prague, but couldn't get on the same connection with my husband, so booked a separate flight on Lufthansa. I was so nervous about finding my way to Terminal 1, that I gave myself 3 hours to get there. Even though I once again ended up on the bus that took an agonizingly long time (well about 20 minutes) to get to T1, I still ended up with 2 1/2 hours to spare. If I had found the CDGVAL, I'm sure it would have been better. It was confusing going to T1 as they started talking about Satellite 1 or 2, but I asked for Lufthansa and got off at the right spot. Coming home, Air France was on strike and we were rebooked direct to JFK, so no CDG nightmares.
