ibis Styles Paris Roissy CDG

It’s hard to find this place unless the Air France employee gives you good directions. The lobby has a small, overpriced snack bar, and the food was terrible and cold. Breakfast was disappointing too. You can hear everything through the walls, almost as if there’s no door between the rooms and the corridor. It feels like a place Air France sends passengers after cancelling flights, to keep compensation costs down.

We ended up paying an extra 350 euros for another hotel next door after arriving at the wrong Ibis Styles. There are two of them at CDG, but neither my booking nor any of the messages I received mentioned that. We’d taken a cab from Paris, then couldn’t find a taxi to take us the 1 km to the other hotel. The lobby felt like a fraternity house, with people smoking, kids playing games, and beer on tap beside reception. Communication and customer service were stunningly bad, and staying here became extremely costly. Run away.

With a 15-hour layover, all I really needed was a clean, comfortable bed and a hot shower, and I got both. The restaurant experience wasn’t as good, though the beer was wonderfully cold. A bit of a mixed bag.

The morning breakfast spread was nice and included in the room price. My room was roomy by European standards, but the amenities were very basic. There was enough small furniture that I could barricade the door, which may help other solo women travelers feel more at ease. The bathroom was clean, though it smelled moldy. I’d booked this ibis through Booking.com for one night before a flight, then found some truly horrific Google reviews afterwards and felt anxious about staying. In the end, my experience was pretty ordinary for a budget hotel, and I was relieved it wasn’t terrible. It’s not luxurious, but it serves a purpose for CDG travelers. The hotel is about a 15-minute transfer from the airport, and the shuttle was prompt, though it only drops at Terminal 2 and comes roughly every 45 minutes. I used the CDGVAL to reach Terminal 1, which took about 30 minutes. Since I got back to Paris at 11 pm, night transit didn’t make it convenient to reach the hotel from Gare de Lyon, so I took an Uber.