If you are planning a trip to Toronto, you will encounter Toronto Pearson International Airport, also known as Lester B. Pearson International Airport or YYZ. The airport now consists of three terminals. Established in 1939, this airport is located approximately 20 miles from downtown Toronto ... Read review
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Information: :Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
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Advantages: clean, good security Disadvantages: long queues at immigration, customs, security and baggage claim, not much shopping or dining
...are planning a trip to Toronto, you will encounter Toronto Pearson International Airport, also known as Lester B. Pearson International Airport or YYZ. The airport now consists of three terminals. Established in 1939, this airport is located approximately 20 miles from downtown Toronto and is ranked at number 28 amongst the world's busiest airports, handling nearly 30 million passengers in 2005. But is the airport really equipped to please all these ... .../>
Travelling with British Airways means that you will be arriving at and departing from Terminal 3, which was built in 1989 to offset traffic from Terminals 1 and 2. As you disembark from your airplane, you will be asked to have your passports ready for inspection, as immigration officers will meet you at the end of the gangway before entering the terminal.
We found the process to be very slow, as immigration officials are ... more
If you are planning a trip to Toronto, you will encounter Toronto Pearson International Airport, also known as Lester B. Pearson International Airport or YYZ. The airport now consists of three terminals. Established in 1939, this airport is located approximately 20 miles from downtown Toronto and is ranked at number 28 amongst the world's busiest airports, handling nearly 30 million passengers in 2005. But is the airport really equipped to please all these travellers?
***Arrival and immigration ***
Travelling with British Airways means that you will be arriving at and departing from Terminal 3, which was built in 1989 to offset traffic from Terminals 1 and 2. As you disembark from your airplane, you will be asked to have your passports ready for inspection, as immigration officers will meet you at the end of the gangway before entering the terminal.
We found the process to be very slow, as immigration officials are quite thorough in their approach, often pulling passengers aside for further questioning. While I was let through quite swiftly, my fiancé was questioned in detail about how long he was intending to stay, how many bags he was bringing into the country, where he was staying and what his profession was. These questions can be somewhat overwhelming when you are just stepping off the plane - and are especially intrusive if you are in dire need to visit the washroom after a lengthy flight.
Although thorough security is to be welcomed, the initial questioning when stepping of the plane seems a little excessive, especially since passengers then proceed to face immigration officials once again before arriving at the baggage claim. We made the mistake of taking some time out to visit the washroom before going through immigration, which ultimately meant that we were facing long queues. Once again, we found immigration officials to be very thorough, often questioning visitors for several minutes before stamping their passports and allowing them into the country.
Unlike in the United States, where unmarried couples are strictly asked to enter the country individually, the immigration official who checked my passport asked my fiancé to step forward and join me once she learned that we were traveling together. We were let through with relatively few questions being asked - especially when she learned that I had lived in Toronto before.
***Baggage claim***
We were immediately overwhelmed with the baggage claim area, which is way too small for an airport handling so many passengers. There were too many people running around like headless chickens - and once we had located the conveyor belt with for our flight, we had little chance to even reach the belt to pull of our luggage. Retrieval of the luggage was painfully slow for everyone involved - the belt stopping several times in the process.
***Customs***
Once you have claimed your baggage, you proceed to customs. As you approach, a first customs official will ask you to hold up your white landing card, which you will have completed on the plane. Then you will have to queue up to hand in the card to another customs official, a process that is yet again painfully slow.
***Leaving the airport***
It took a good 1 ½ hours before we reached the outside of the terminal. Upon arrival, you will have to decide on your mode of transportation. As the airport is not terribly big, it is easy to find ground transportation. To reach the downtown airport bus, just exit the terminal and look for a huge pink sign reading "Downtown Express". A return/roundtrip ticket is under CAD$29 per person (approximately £14.50). If you are too tired, you can take a taxi from the taxi stands - but you should expect to pay around CAD$60 (approximately £30) for the trip downtown. There is also the option to travel downtown for a mere CAD$2.75 (approximately £1.50), by finding the shuttle bus to the either Kipling or St Lawrence subway station and then hopping on the subway.
I strongly recommend using the downtown bus service - as it stops at most major downtown hotels and is a lot less stressful than the subway. The subway is really only a comfortable option if you arrived from elsewhere in Canada or the United States, as it takes a long time to reach downtown and involves a lot of carting of the luggage.
***Returning to the airport and checking in***
When we returned to Terminal 3, we were really overwhelmed by the amount of passengers in the terminal. Although there are screens pointing you into the direction of your airline, it does take some time to orient yourself and find your check-in counter. We found that the cheap airlines, such as Zoom and Thomas Cook, were in plain view, whereas the more reputable airlines, such as British Airways and KLM, where located around the corner.
***Shopping and dining before the security check***
As we had almost three hours to kill before our flight, I suggested we should have a look around the shops located in the check-in hall. Much to our disappointed, most of these shops actually closed right in front of our nose - as it was past 9 p.m. The only stores that remained open were a bookstore and one of the stores containing tourist items.
For hungry passengers, there is an array of fast food on display: Upper Crust, Pizza Pizza and Swiss Chalet. However, I found the smell of the pizza so intense that it made me nauseous.
***Security checks***
As there was not much to do in the ticket hall, we decided to go through security in the hope that entertainment on the other end would be a little better. There were two lines to the security check - and before joining the line, your tickets were checked. The lines moved forward very slowly - which is largely due to the fact that they actually merged into one line at the end, which obviously upset a number of passengers thinking they should go through the door first.
The queuing system for the security check is further complicated by the fact that there is no separate line for either disabled people or flight crew. Ultimately this means that from time to time these individuals will squeeze past you to the security check. Whilst I understand the need for them to be prioritised, I felt that it was a real failing of the airport not to provide a separate queue.
Security checks are thorough - as they should be. Your tickets are checked again - and you will be asked to put pretty much everything through the scanner. There is a distinct lack of security personnel and scanners, however, making the process very slow.
***Duty free and other facilities after the security check***
The shopping behind the security check is very limited. There is a duty free shop providing the usual items, such as alcohol, cigarettes, chocolates and beauty products as well as more Canadian-specific items, such as maple candy, maple leaf-shaped biscuits and chocolates. There is also another souvenir shop, which has a nice selection of T-shirts, cups, key chains and cuddly toys - but of course at prices much higher than in the city of Toronto. We indeed found it impossible to find anything to spend our last CAD$45 on.
There is a book store selling magazines, candy and drinks for refreshment as well as a Starbucks and a little bar, which has a small television. Other than that, all that is left to do is to wait for your flight. You cannot roam around the terminal building, in fact, we saw some interesting stores located behind a glass door, which sadly seem to be intended for passengers flying to the United States only.
***Upsides***
One of the upsides of YYZ airport is that it is very clean. There is no rubbish lying about, all areas look spotless. This is especially true of the washrooms, which appear to be cleaned very regularly and are certainly amongst the cleanest I have seen at airports.
***Verdict***
On the whole, Toronto airport has very little to offer for passengers on return flights. I would therefore recommend checking in online (if possible with your airline) and arriving only 1 ½ hours before your flight departs. A general nuisance at the airport is its disorganisation and the constant need to stand in very slow-moving queues. You cannot avoid the airport if arriving from the United Kingdom, so be prepared and make the most of your - hopefully short - visit to YYZ.
Advantages: Quickly through Candian immigration & customs Disadvantages: Far too much walking!
Recently I had the misfortune to fly into Pearson International Airport on a trip from Glasgow to Atlanta. Nothing wrong with the flight, or indeed with the view on the way in (Toronto looks like a beautiful city from the air, just on the edge of Lake Ontario).
The airport itself is pretty grim, with lots of concrete in evidence. However I had been told about this, and even warned that there was lots of walking to do, but trust me you cannot prepare ... ...upon landing it seemed okay. Canadian immigration was very swift in processing us, and once we survived the bun-fight to get our bags customs was okay too. We then deposited the bags and started walking as the shuttle buses to terminal 2 were not in evidence.
We walked and walked and walked. By the time we got through American immigration and customs it had been an hour and a half since we landed. My girlfriend was exhausted and desperately needed ...
toneboy7 24.08.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Toronto, Canada (YYZ)
Advantages: Good food. Disadvantages: No order in the gates, people weren't very helpful and my legs got tired.
I first stepped foot into the Toronto airport on my way to Edmonton. I was talking to a guy beside me, also heading to Edmonton, and he was telling me how terribly confusing it was to try and find your way around this airport. Well, let me tell you, I wasn't about to take his word for it. No, I thought I could figure it out no problem.
First I stepped out from my gate and asked the nearest person where my gate was. He stared down at my ticket, stared ... ...I think I had realized that he had no clue at all before he did because after a few half sentences and a couple scratches of the head. He handed me my ticket and walked off. It was about at this time that I thought I would start walking and hopefully make some sort of sense out of the gate order. Well, this was definitely my first mistake. I walked around for about 45 minutes until I had realized that there was no sort of order at all!
Enough was ...
Opinionated4 07.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Toronto, Canada (YYZ)
Advantages: Rats love it! Disadvantages: Old, dangerous, depressing, bad design, no services, dirty, rude staff, Satan as a neighbour
Few airports can offer a more depressing or unpleasant experience than Pearson International (YYZ) in Mississauga, near Toronto. But arriving at the airport is like Russian Roulette - fly into Terminal 3 and enjoy a world-class terminal; fly into Terminal 2 and you can survive on an old badly-designed building that has been rebuilt to some improvement; but fly into Terminal 1 and say goodbye to all that is right with the world. Terminal 1 was a disaster ... ...the parking gagrage on the TOP of the Terminal. This has essentially turned the guest areas into prisoner of the concrete garage above, as it crumbles on the cars - many of its floors are closed and near collapse, and concrete often falls right onto parked vehicles, with rusty rebar poking out everywhere. A trip in the 1960's death-trap elevators takes you to the Terminal below (if they work). Arriving in Terminal One means you will have to traverse ...
Vistaway 08.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Toronto, Canada (YYZ)
Advantages: Big, Shiny, New Disadvantages: Rail link between terminals incomplete; Some flights still leave from old T2
Ignore those pre-2004 reviews -- they describe a state of affairs that simply doesn't exist anymore.
I have been flying in and out of Pearson for years, and the new Terminal 1 makes all the difference in the world. Though a portion of it is still under construction, most Air Canada flights (and those of its Star Alliance partners) now use the new terminal. It is well laid out, architecturally impressive, and features attractive dining and shopping. ... ...CDG. With its sweeping ceiling in the main concourse, I prefer to think of it as a modern version of Dulles International in Washington.
Users of other carriers, particularly discounters and carriers from countries with few connections to Canada, will typically land at Terminal 3, which was built in the early 1990s and is still quite attractive and serviceable. There is a hotel attached directly to this terminal for those who want to sleep in until ...
johnnycanuck 07.06.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Toronto, Canada (YYZ)
Advantages: T2 at least is clean and modern Disadvantages: Getting out of the airport is a nightmare by road
Since my wife is wheelchair bound and we had arrived early, we sat in the Special Assistance departure area in T2 for some 3-4 hours in October this year (2001). A number of passengers arrived after us and left before us. The area has its own security guard but frankly she was as much use as a chocolate fireguard. We noticed that someone had left a carrier bag under one of the seats and waited to see what would happen. Absolutely nothing !! After ... ...attention to the bag. The reply she got was "Oh, don't bother, it is empty" !!! This guard evidently had X-ray eyes since she had never been near the carrier bag, nor did she go near it then. About half an hour later a cleaning lady came by and the guard told her to get rid of it. Still not even bothering to look inside it!
Worse still, on the roadway just outside the lounge, a car with an orange roof light (inactive) was parked for about 2 hours ...
aardvaark 21.11.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Toronto, Canada (YYZ)
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