Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport

Overall, security was pretty painless which is almost all a traveler can ask for. However, in a decent sized airport there should be easy connection to ALL terminals inside AND outside security. The fact that flying a different airline restricts me solely to a single terminal is absurd, along with the fact that there is only ONE food option outside of security… in the entire airport. Basically this means if you’re flying with friends on a different airline, you can’t eat with them or spend any time with them before or after security checkpoints. With loved ones wanting to spend time prior to departure, this airport makes it nearly impossible to grab a bite to eat before someone goes into security or meet up after security. Poor layout.

On a Sunday morning in March, horrible experience. Understaffed, far too few buses from rental car facility to the terminal. We waited in am endless line for 40 minutes (!) to get on a shuttle. Traffic around the airport was at a crawl. People were missing flights. Obviously the airport is stretched beyond its capacity. Be warned.

Wow. The customs at this airport was the most disorganized thing I’ve ever seen. Shameful at best. There was literally 1,000 people in line to go through passport control with 3 people working. No line control whatsoever— so no one knew where the line started—it was just spiraling back and fourth through the baggage claim area. Occasionally an employee would come over and force parts of the line to merge, which just messed everything up because people who had been in line for 30 minutes suddenly were cutting/merging with people who had been in line over two hours. It was a chaotic mess. People were literally talking about storming the door, or pulling the fire escape. People had been waiting for hours—it seemed like it took some people legit 4 hours to get out of customs. Everyone I spoke to missed their connecting flight. Mine was a 4.5 hour layover and I barely made it. People where yelling curse words all across the place at each other and I was afraid of a stampede or riot. It was shocking. Literally the worst public organizing I’ve ever seen. Somebody needed to get fired. Or a lot of people… I’m definitely never taking an international flight into Ft Lauderdale again, because that was just completely heinous.

We went out of the country then came back to this airport. The weird thing was even though you had to go through customs which was expected you had to go up to the top floor and recheck your bags and go back through security. I didn’t like doing that a second time. It was very busy here when I went and their food choices aren’t bad. I liked two places over by Gate A, I can’t think of what it’s called at the moment.

First of all, you don’t have to go to Miami Airport and that’s a big deal!! It’s very busy but traffic usually moves along. You can drive up to baggage claim and pick up your party curbside. Terminals are clearly marked at entrances. There may be three doors for terminal 1 and each section has a large 1on it and a list of the airlines. Drive slowly and carefully as there are many pedestrian crossings and the lights change quickly.