I'm sorry Miami, I really try to focus on the positive, but there's a general consensus here, and its that you are just awful. No free wifi, mobs of people pushing you out of the way, no place to even get a cup of coffee at 5 a.m.. Long walk to baggage claim, long walk to rental car center. If you like chaos and curled linoleum, then c'mon over here! You can get a room at a nice Miami Airport hotel so you can rest up; you're going to need it.

They tell me that the airport was remodeled a few years ago at taxpayer expense to make it less grungy and get rid of the stench, but sadly the rotted core remains.  The airport itself is still so poorly designed that getting from one side to the other requires no less than a feat of athletic and navigational dexterity matched only by Bear Grylls.  But the most incredible aspect of the remodeling was how they were able to make the long lines and the inefficiency and rudeness of the DHS people even WORSE than before (I had to laugh when another traveler called them "angry retarded buffalo").  I am astounded at the sheer level of ineptitude it takes to be THAT inefficient at performing even the simplest tasks, like moving people through a line and checking their ID.  I travel a lot and no other airport, be it LAX, JFK, SFO, AMS, LHR or any other one with twice or more the volume, can be this inefficient and rude in processing weary travelers.  I have never been shouted at, pushed at, glared at, or molested so obnoxiously as at this airport.

As a full-time pedestrian who navigates the streets of New York on a daily basis, take my word for it when I say that you will be walking til you cry. Oh, btw, Miami Airport parking is overpriced and as filled with lazy indignant staff as the airport itself. Heaven help you if you rent a car. After you take the monorail shuttle from the garage to the "airport," believe me, you're nowhere near the airport. You have just embarked an the most asinine, labyrinthian journey of endless walkways, you'd think you were in the Lost Woods section in The Legend of Zelda, where you need to know the correct damn pattern to get yourself the hell out. Once you reach the people-movers, you're only about halfway there. And that's if the people-movers are actually working, or if they are stopped to pretty much laugh in your face.

Once you reach the terminal, well, good luck. Signage is awful and confusing (seriously, since when can't you trust simple arrows?), and the employees there are just as useless. Get here way earlier than you ever would for any other reasonably-paced airport. I didn't know this beforehand and we were running around like the McCallisters in Home Alone. Security is excruciatingly slow, and if this is all to deter drug traffickers from coming through Miami, then hell, I hope it's working. This chamber of horrors should deter anyone from coming through Miami, period.

Not to mention, whatever security line you end up at, you're likely to still be as far away from your gate as possible. And then you're back to walking forever (again, factor in extra time for all of this ). Most airports of this size break things up into multiple terminals or sections, with connecting public transportation in between. But I guess that's just not how MIA operates. Inefficient and unorganized, it's really one big dumpster of an airport.

Miami Airport should take note from its own citizens and recognize when it's time for a new nip and tuck. Sorry, MIA, you ugly.

10/05/2017