Dusseldorf transportation for early flight

If it were me I would make it as easy as possible... why stay away from the airport and make the morning so grueling? Just have a nice dinner in Old Town, get to the airport and then you will still have to get up early, but a lot less stress.

What were you thinking when you booked a flight out of Düsseldorf at 6:10 without finding out about transportation at that time of morning or reasonable accommodations near the airport?

BTW, I can't find any flights out of Düsseldorf at 6:10. There is a RyanAir flight out of Weeze (far from Düsseldorf) at 6:30. I hope this is not your flight as accommodations around Weeze are limited and public transportation to Weeze at that time of morning nonexistent.

We had an early morning flight out of the Dusseldorf airport this summer and stayed overnight at the Martim Hotel which is connected to the departure terminal of the airport. Super easy to walk from hotel to departure gate and we ate at the traditional German restaurant in the hotel the night before. I highly recommend this arrangement if your flight leaves that early from the main Dusseldorf airport. We booked online and got a fairly good rate for booking in advance with no cancellation allowed.

I did not book this flight. I am using my American Airlines award miles (which utilizes Air Berlin as a partner airline), and I was originally booked on an afternoon flight. Then Air Berlin cancelled the afternoon flight and put us on the ridiculously early flight. I called American immediately, and was told that there were no more award seats available on any of their partner airlines. So in other words, we are screwed, despite having booked this trip in May. That is the joy of using award miles! Thank you to all of you for your helpful ideas. I will rebook near the airport, hopefully at the hotel suggested in the reply to my post.

Düsseldorf's Altstadt is pretty unimpressive and underdeveloped. It looks mostly like a bunch of old buildings that they haven't yet gotten around to tearing down, rather than a well-preserved historical district. So don't feel like you're missing much if you decide to stay closer to the airport the night before.

I haven't stayed at the particular Maritim noted by the above poster, but I've stayed at other locations of the chain. Quite posh! If the breakfast room is open before you have to leave, you're in for an amazing early morning meal.

Hi,

I would recommend staying close to the main train station, Düsseldorf Hbf., instead of in the Altstadt, not that I don't like the place, if you can change accomodations.

From the Hbf. you can take the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, the Regional trains, to the airport. I stayed at Hotel Bismarck on the Bismarck Strasse, ca 2 mins from the Hbf. I used to stay across the river in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel since a bus from the Hbf. ran directly there...no more. Now, Hotel Bismarck is much more convenient, very nice.

Taxis should be available at any hour in Dusseldorf. Despite being a "dorf", it is still a very cosmopolitan city. There are options via public transport at that hour, but like you say, lets not stress mom out. I landed at Dusseldorf once at 6 am and the place was a ghost town. There are very few flights leaving that early, so the 2 hour rule is not necessarily in place. If you arrive at 4 am, you will be sitting on your kiester for an hour before any employees show up for work.

I don't believe you said what date your Dusseldorf flight is but today I looked at two dates for hotel availability at the Maritim. For the specific Thursday I picked in May the rate was 400Euro per night! For a Thursday night in August the rate was 99Euro per night. This is the rate we paid last summer in August. Hopefully you are traveling on a date when the hotel isn't hosting a big conference or some other reason to drive their rates to the upper limits!

If you are fortunate enough to get a room for the low end of their spectrum I'd highly recommend booking it since you have a flight you must take from Dusseldorf on a specific date. As another poster noted the breakfast is nice but very pricy and I don't believe that it would be served and you'd have time to enjoy it before you need to be at your gate. We just walked over to the airport and used our waiting time there to get a coffee and much less expensive light breakfast.

We are arriving in Dusseldorf Wednesday April 16, and leave 6:10 am on Thursday April 17th. There are currently no rooms at the Martim, but I've booked a room at the Hotel Wartburg which is fairly close to the airport. I'll keep my eye on the Martim and see if anything opens up. Another hotel at the airport, the Sheraton, has a 2 night minimum. Thanks for the info on the airport in the wee morning hours...I thought 2 hours prior to flight time was too early, but good to hear from someone who has been there!