As some of you know, I had a layover in Detroit on Thursday.
I’d been looking forward to this.
You see, I’ve heard for years that the Detroit airport is a thing of wonder. I’ve heard it considered for the title of America’s best airport. I’ve heard it called the best place in Detroit. And while I don’t have the background to support or refute either of those claims, I can say the following:
It was a good airport.
I won’t do a full airport review, because we aren’t in that business here at The Barking Crow (though we could be if you all promised to click on the posts). But I’ll tell you what I liked and didn’t like.
Liked: The Sky Train
If you haven’t been to DTW (that’s the little code those of us #intheknow use for the Detroit airport), there is an elevated train humming around. It’s exciting, because it’s above you, and I’m assuming at least one person has tried to be on it at the exact time someone has predicted the rapture will occur.
Liked: The Sky Train’s little stations
To get on The Sky Train (my name, not theirs, but maybe theirs too), you take an escalator up to a second floor. Which isn’t that cool in and of itself, except that it creates an alternative walkway down the concourse, because the stations are basically bridges across the concourse and there’s an escalator on each side. Feeling fancy? Don’t walk under the bridge. Take the escalators up and over it. You’ll feel like you’re in Mario Kart.
Disliked: Bathrooms weren’t that clean.
Even before I used them.
Liked: The Tunnel
I didn’t need to go to the other terminal or concourse or whatever Detroit calls it, but I went down and through the tunnel anyway. For the uninitiated, the tunnel has lots of colorful lights going on around it, and a soundtrack that feels straight out of a meditation app. Very relaxing.
Disliked: The Tunnel’s Hype
The tunnel is very good, but people make it out to be an otherworldly experience. O’Hare has a similar tunnel, except with neon lights and not as cool of sounds, and while I’m not saying O’Hare’s is better, because it isn’t, I am saying Detroit’s isn’t good enough to get the love it gets. And it can’t be an icon of the airport, because not everybody goes through it. It’s not the Portland carpet in that way.
Liked: The Longhorn Steakhouse
You will hear more about this when NIT Stu Eats America returns.
Disliked: The smell in the Longhorn Steakhouse towards the end of my meal.
First off: no, I was not responsible for this. Second: you will hear more about this when NIT Stu Eats America returns.
Liked: The Fountain
There’s one of those fountains with multiple jets starting and stopping in some impossible-to-memorize pattern. Very exciting.
Liked: The Live Music
Live music in an airport can go a few ways, and Detroit’s way, at least on Thursday evening, was great. Just a dude tickling the ivories down at the end by my gate.
Disliked: Hard to find a bathroom right before my flight.
Didn’t end up being disastrous, but I was afraid for a little while it might be. It’s fine if you’re on an aisle, but if you’re in a middle seat, like I was (because I decided to make friends), you don’t want to spend fifteen minutes in an airplane’s lavatory.
Disliked: None of those cool water bottle-fillers that each claim to have saved about 60,000 plastic bottles from going in landfills.
Call me an environmentalist, but I like to fill up my water bottle to the top. And using their weak little drinking fountains didn’t do it for me.
Liked: People seemed happy.
Maybe it was just me, but the airport seemed fairly laid back. Not a lot of stress that particular day. Weird for an airport.
***
All in all, as I said, good airport. Nicely done, Detroit.
