As I reflect upon the YOTELAIR Lounge at Paris Charles DeGualle (CDG) my emotions are mixed. On the one hand it was so comically bad that it was cute. On the other hand, it did serve its purpose after a long flight.
YOTELAIR Lounge Paris (CDG)
After arriving in Paris from Los Angeles on Air France, we faced a dilemma: not enough time to really do anything in town before our train to Basel, but still a bit too early to go to the train station.
Thus, we decided to stop by the YOTELAIR Lounge, a Priority Pass Lounge located in Terminal 2E Hall L. We did not have a connecting flight, but were able to walk to this lounge from our arrival gate. This lounge is open 24/7 daily and is accessible to Priority Pass, Lounge Key, Lounge Pass, and Diners Club members.
Inside Hall 2L, follow the signs down a very long hall to the end, where you will find the lounge (it was very crowded when we arrived and even more crowded when we left 40 minutes later).
To be clear, your Priority Pass card does not entitle to use the hotel portion of this space: that is available only for additional purchase. But you do have access to the lounge portion as well as complimentary beverages and snacks.
When I say the lounge is comically bad, in part I mean in comparison to Plaza Premium, which offers a similar concept of lounge + hotel.
The food was limited to packaged snacks and you had to ask for whatever you wanted: noting was put out. Hotel guests have access to the lounge, but have to pay for the snacks. Everything was packaged and processed so we just skipped it.
There was also a drink station which was self-serve and included canned soft drinks (including Red Bull), a water tap, coffee machine, and tea bags.
There are two main seating areas divided by a hallway which leads to the hotel rooms.
The lounge was fairly crowded and some of the guests were really a piece of work when it came to manners:
We knew it was time to go when my daughter picked up my wife’s cup of coffee and began to drink it…
Bathrooms, by the way, were out of order. I wonder if they still are?
While the lettering falling off the drink case and the out-of-order restrooms might be pretty bad, on the other hand I did appreciate a place where we could sit down and regather for a few moments ahead of our journey Into central Paris.
That’s the dilemma with these lounges – they are pretty bad, but better than nothing.
CONCLUSION
We were soon on our way into Paris, but I was thankful that we could just stop and gather ourselves in that lounges. We didn’t eat any of the junk food and the coffee was not great, but at least we had a chance to hydrate and relax for a bit ahead of the rail portion of our journey.
Couldn’t you have done the same thing—sit and gather yourself —at an airport cafe? Probably with better food and coffee too.
That’s what I did the 2nd time ever I went to CDG; at least the concourse had some PlayStation demos at the time. The Club looks like a First Class lounge in comparison.
Was disappointed since this lounge was my first lounger ever in Europe after having been through quite a few in Asia (and they were excellent, esp. for first timers)
That’s the problem at CDG – I can’t think of a single nice café or coffee shop there. Even LHR is better.
A coke and a bag of chips from Relay satiated me at the time. Lounges are cool but I’m super low maintenance too when it comes to these things, and yes CDG is garbage in many other ways. There was a time last year when I preferred CDG over AMS for SkyTeam connections but once AMS meltdowns stopped I want to aim for the latter again.
If you say you walked from your arrival gate, how did you get there without clearing passport control? If you have checked bags, were you concerned about leaving them unclaimed on the carousel?
We did choose to leave the bags at the carousel, but I think this lounge is non-Schengen, isn’t it? We certainly went through passport control at some point, but my thought was it was after this point.
“We knew it was time to go when my daughter picked up my wife’s cup of coffee and began to drink it…”
Oh dear…her first coffee, and it wasn’t barista made…the humanity of it all 😉
My husband and I stayed in this CDG Yotel a few years ago when we had about seven hours between our arrival from Canada and our departure to Dubai. Our room was like the smallest cabin imaginable on a cruise ship, but the mattress was comfortable and there was a TV on the wall, facing the bed. The compact bathroom was fine, with a good shower and towels. The only negative I can remember is that there was no place to hang any clothing; not even a hook on the wall. That seems an easy fix and maybe Yotel has since corrected that deficiency. I’d stay there again if I wanted a nap and a shower between flights, and didn’t want to spend several hundred euros on a hotel.
If you can swing AF lounge 2F early in the morning (which is possible from your Canada>Dubai itinerary), it has semi-private nap zones and some of the nicest lounge shower facilities.
DeGualle? Seriously, WTF?
We had a connection at CDG a couple of months ago and traipsed over to this lounge. Sure, it’s not great, but, like you said, it’s better than nothing. We actually had some of the snacks. As the morning turned into afternoon, they offered the croissants to everyone, which had been off-limits until then. The men’s room was out of order, and so I had to walk all the way down the hall of mirrors to use the restroom. The women’s room was operational.
Many thanks for this. With Priority Pass it is especially useful to know if a lounge is not worth the effort, as you may think it free, but as this has shown, free is still to expensive fir some lounges. While I do agree that some airports have poor offerings, such as CDG, I’d literally rather walk around than visit this lounge. I do appreciate your review though.