Part 37: Air France lounge in Terminal 2F of Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG)
Time to wrap up this trip report with the last few instalments! On my inbound journey back to Norway I selected flights with relative long layovers (4 hours each in CDG and AMS) as it sounded the safest bet in case of delays. Of course, while last time the terminal change at CDG on my way from Amsterdam to Moscow via Paris took like forever, it went incredibly smooth on the day I had the most time planned for it. Going through security/passport control went fast, the wait for the inter-terminal bus was just two minutes, and before I knew it I was in terminal 2F. It is the terminal where the intra-Schengen flights depart from Air France, as well as for KLM on which I was flying. It was also the single terminal at CDG which in my opinion did actually look rather cool.
The Air France dungeon can be reached by taking the escalator down.
The lounge can hardly be described as beautiful and is rather functional. It consists of two levels, the main level, where also the toilets and showers are located, and one floor further down. Food and drink offerings (breakfast at the time I entered the lounge) were identical at the food stations located on each floor.
Top floor of the Air France lounge
On my arrival, the top floor was packed to the brim and every seat was taken, while here were quite a lot of seats available downstairs. It got much more quiet later on in the afternoon, but why would you eat while standing on the top floor while there are proper seats and tables down? I guess most people are just too lazy to walk down a set of stairs? That said, the seats on the top floor are quite a bit more secluded than the bits downstairs, where some parts felt more like a school canteen.
The downstairs part of the lounge
It being France, the breakfast spread was entirely continental [croissants, cold cuts and the like]. While not groundbreaking, the quality and offering were certainly decent. No champers though, unfortunately! I grabbed something to eat and sat down at a table downstairs while waiting for the lounge dragon to call my name to take a shower (which she estimated would take in between 45 to 60 minutes given the morning traffic).
After one hour, my name was called through the intercom system and I reported to the lounge dragon upstairs, who gave me the keys to my shower room. The small amenity package and the shower were both absolutely adequate. The shower room was clean and quite large and it was certainly refreshing to fresh up after the long mid-haul flight. My apologies for the lousy pics below but I suck in getting the right angle in such spaces to do justice to it's true size.
After the shower it was time for some elevenses, combined with a glass or two of decent French wine. It might also have been four or five glasses, as spending four hours in the lounge was in the end quite long.
Even though they were putting out some lunch dishes [shrimps] I decided to stick with some cheese and meat with my glass of red, and some dessert. Quality was again good.
In short: The Air France lounge is acceptable for a short layover of two hours maximum or so, at four hours I got bored as it is quite a drab, functional affair. Showers however are great, friendly staff kept the lounge clean at all times, and the food quality is much better when comparing it to let's say the KLM lounge at Amsterdam.
Next up: Two dreadful KLM flights and my hate/love affair with the Dutch national airline.