Originally Posted by
besunman
1. If you will be flying in from Paris and you are able to have your bags transferred to UA without collecting them this is a reasonable option.
You will have to do a walk from the A terminal to the B terminal which can take 10min (some people complain about this) and you will have to go trough security which will be probably very busy as July is the holiday month in Belgium. And afterwards you will need to present yourself at a UA counter for an additional check (do this before you go to the lounge, which is located on 1 floor higher, when you pass security 100m further there is a white stair this will guide you to the lounge).
2. If you take the train and just spend the night at the hotel near the train station I would opt to take the same evening a train to the airport and stay at a hotel near the airport. (as mentioned before the train station is not a very good neighberhood and certainly not if you have a obvious laptob bag with you).
3. As for the UA counter, you will have access to the priority check in lane. I think check-in starts around 7 AM Securty fast lane is for first, business class and GS members only. Boarding is done strictly and timely so 50min in advance of departure time.
All in all BRU is a relaxed airport, but as you are traveling on a holiday month expect that economy class of your plane will be full (C and F probably empty) and that security lanes may be longer than usual (also do not forget in BRU all international traffic leaver between 9AM and 12PM).
If you need additional info let me know
The most-important thing, which I now know, is that BRU bears no similarity to either CDG or LHR- airports that are kinda fun once you know you're way around, but a potential nightmare for the first-timer.
My son and I will be taking the train from Grenoble into Paris (we're following the Tour de France, with our bikes, of course!) and the plan had been to spend an evening in Paris either Saturday or Sunday, but right now it looks like we're better off spending Saturday night in Grenoble (so we can get a shower after a long day on bikes) and take one of the morning trains into Paris. We'd then head with our luggage to Paris Nord, where I understand there is a luggage facility, ditch the bags, watch the 'Tour finish, then take the 9pm train to Brussel.
From what you're saying, we'd be better off staying at an airport hotel? Are there hotels more-or-less directly connected to the airport? The original plan had been to stay at the Ibis Midi which is directly across from the train station, which I figured would be a relatively-safe situation.
Thanks, appreciate all the help, and thanks to the mod for moving this to the right place. I'm not quite sure of the etiquette in terms of resurrecting old threads.
