Originally Posted by
elCheapoDeluxe
I'd trade the light years better N gates for having connections that didn't require a train ride.
Never really understood the hate for the train at Sea-Tac. They come every couple of minutes, and the whole loop can't take longer than about 3 minutes. From one end of the system to the other, even with two connections, it would be difficult to spend more than 15 minutes on them. If you're on Alaska/Horizon, it's going to be more like a maximum of 5, total. It doesn't even qualify as "inconvenient".
The crowded gates aren't good, but I find that to be very manageable. Mainly by not even going to my gate until close to boarding. So it's either a lounge, a restaurant, the central terminal seating, or the first quiet gate I see on the way there. Which is pretty much the same as what I do in PDX, or anywhere else. I do enjoy that Portland is a more laid-back experience, but it really isn't enough to prefer one over the other.