Heathrow Terminal 5

Flew out of it for the first time. Underwhelming. Lots of self-congratulatory copy about it in pamphlets and magazines and posters. A major theme is how BIG it is. Why do I care how big the building is? I think they could have done a much better job. Disappointing. They built it from scratch, after other successful airport renovations have taken place recently. So why couldn't they try to do better? It falls far short of Hong Kong, for example.

Some specific things that annoyed me:

• I hate the default polished-concrete tile floor or whatever that stuff is. Why not wood? Bamboo? Something warm and inviting and calming.
• Lifts. Elevators. I like being able to take stairs or escalators as a viable option. Here, I didn't see a good way to get from train to departures without using the lifts.
• Upon entering departures, presented with a confusing array of check-in kiosks. Signage wasn't clear (maybe I'm dim, but I had a hard time seeing where first check-in, business check-in, security queues, etc. all were). I noticed people queuing up for "fast" bag drop desks on one side of the building, while other attended bag drop desks farther away went unused.
• Exiting security (security was actually pretty efficient), I was looking into the BA lounge. To get there, I had to go down an escalator, backtrack under where I just was, and go up another escalator. The guy at the desk when I checked in was actually laughing when he gave me directions on how to find the lounge, because he knew it sounded ridiculous.
• Oh, hey, terminal 5 is more than one building. Seems like a lot of flights leave from the "B" and "C" gates, which are in a different building -- the building with almost no restaurants or shops. To get there, you have to go underground, take a little train, and pop back up. Not only that, there are dire warnings about not attempting this journey unless you are certain your gate is a B/C gate, as "the return trip will take 40 minutes" if you need to come back to the main building 40 minutes! Worst case, they should've put some funky moving walkways as with United terminal at ORD. Best case, they should've come up with a better design. Seems really inefficient, expensive, and inelegant.
• Sound. Why can't they get sound right? See, if they'd put in wood floors, some nice rugs here and there, calm, incandescentish-lamps, maybe some plants, I bet the sound would've been easier to get right.

Oh well.