Is it a good idea to sleep at Caracas International Airport?

Question

I have to spend some time in Venezuela during my trip from Brazil to the USA. My flight from Brazil arrives in Venezuela at 5:00am and the next flight is about 4:00pm. Is it safe to stay those 11 hours at airport? Or should I go to a hotel nearby?

In that case, is there any not expensive hotel close to the airport to stay during the day and that pick me up and bring me back?

In my trip back to Brazil, I have to spend much more hours there. Arrival time at 2:00pm and next flight the next day at 8:00am. I have the same doubts here. Stay at airport or go to a hotel. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

A lot of people use to sleep to wait their fly, you must be sure you won´t be the only one there, is a international airport and there is security everywhere. There is a hotel next to airport called Eurobuilding Express and cost almost 300R$, I think is too much money if you stay less than 11 hours, but in your trip back to Brazil may be a good idea.  

Answer 2

i'm agree with carolina and venbus. i had come a lot of times for that airport, the airport is safe to stay during the night there is a lot of security guards so there is no problem if you wanna sleep in the airporrt. the nearest hotel is the eurobuilding and you need to have good money to be there!  

Answer 3

The girl that answered this question before meobviously does not know the airport she went to, because Caracas airport has grown so much. I went as recently as Dec 07 till Jan 08 to venezuela, and had to stay a couple of hours at the airport in caracas while I waited for my plane to Margarita Island. I would actually recommend to stay at the airport just because there aren't really any nice hotels near the airport, and you wouldn't want to risk not getting back on time, even thought you have plenty of hours, but because it's such a busy airport the traffic to and from the city is really bad. I would recommend to exchange some money to Bolivares before you go if that is possible for you to do, since the airport exchange booths won't give you the proper value for the actual rate and will end up taking money from you, which I don't think it's fair. and there will be plenty of people telling you they will give you a better value, but don't go with them either, you just never know. There are small souvenir shops there, so you can make your time pass well, and there are also plenty of duty free shops to just go look around. But whatever you decide to do, it's your choice.

Good luck, and enjoy your trip!!!

Answer 4

From my experience (february 2007) Caracas airport is small and old and lacks of modern infrastructure to provide a good service.

Sometimes a plane arrives and all the passengers have to take a different airline to their final destination, they are gathered in a hallway and escorted to any place available where they improvise a front desk and make them check in their boarding passes and hopefully their luggage don't get miss placed. We traveled from Lima Peru to Naples Italy and we were recommended to have our most important belongings in the hand luggage and just in case, one set of clothing in case our stuff didn't get to Italy on the same flight.

An other inconvenience you'll encounter at Caracas Airport is that 95% of the shops don't accept any currency different than their own (Bolivares), not even dollars. So you have to go to the only money exchange office and never mind the rate they offer you on the sign because at the moment you sell your dollars they'll charge you  an "ADMINISTRATION COST" turning the exchange rate into bullshit. Nevertheless meals prices are cheap and that compensates the money exchange rate.

There's no Hotel inside the airport and I'm sorry for not helping you on that mater, but I recomend that you get a room during  the longer stay. Check out on the internet or ask for that specific information here.

PS. I hope Carolina gets the chance to visit Pudahuel Airport in Santiago-Chile as well as Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima (just to mention a few) and compare, if I mean small it's in relation to the huge traffic it has. And by the way, we went on a yearly school trip (Italian school in Lima) and what I mentioned about the luggage has happened to the staff that traveled one year before, during our flight back to Lima one student's luggage didn't come until after 3 days and this year (July 2008) a teacher came back from Italy stoping at Caracas Airport and his luggage arrived 4 days later.