Has anyone (or anyone you know) flown on Iceland's Wow Airlines?

@mehbee I’m just looking for someplace new to go cheap. I’m traveling with one guy who’s gotten bored with traveling, and one who’s traveled very little and is excited about it. We’ll be in San Jose, CA for an event and will be flying through DFW, so I’m looking at everything departing CA or DFW cheap and different from where we’ve been before.

@moondrake There is nothing inexpensive about Iceland as I am finding out! The food alone is going to eat up my budget, but at least it’s good food from what I hear. I’ll probably eat at the noodle shops my entire stay!

@moondrake I would suggest Costa Rica or Alaska but they are not that cheap either. Best, most inexpensive place I’ve gone recently is Dominican Republic but I don’t think that will excite your world traveler.

@mehbee Already been to both of those. Been to every US state except Hawaii and 35 other countries. Finding affordable new stuff is getting really challenging.

@moondrake Try Cambodia. As long as you don’t stay (and eat) in western style hotels aimed at tourists (those have USA prices for the most part) things are pretty cheap there.

@mehbee @moondrake There is absolutely nothing cheap about Iceland, except maybe the flights over here

Fantastic place to visit, I’m told, and well worth every penny, but you’ll need many many bucketloads of pennies.

@Kidsandliz Love to, but I’m not seeing any $600rt flights from the west coast to Cambodia. There’s plenty of places in the world I’d love to go if price were no object. I’m trying to stay in the neighborhood of $1.5- $2k for 7-10 days. I actually found a 6 day Maldives air inclusive package for $1,600, which is an amazing buy. But my friend would never go for it, he wants a wide variety of interesting activities to nix. We are planning to go to Dublin for worldcon next year, and that’s going to be another expensive trip, so we can’t pull out all the stops this year. I’m just looking at the fact that we would normally take a cruise when we go to California, and cruises run around $1,200 for 7 or 8 days including excursions. So if we can go someplace like Reykjavik for the same money I’d rather do that. I’m pretty good at traveling on a shoestring.

@moondrake Have you been to Belize? Round-trip flights from Dallas on Southwest (2 free bags!) can be had for <$375, especially if your schedule is flexible (Sun-Fri).

@compunaut Yes, several times, but only on cruise ships. One of my favorite places, along with Roatan. Actually considered moving there. I don’t know if I can drag been-there-done-that man back, but actually staying there would be novel. I might be able to snorkel with whale sharks, which is high on my bucket list. Thanks.

@moondrake Stayed on Ambergris Caye several years ago; Caye Caulker (cheap!) last summer. Activities: scuba/snorkel (try snuba!), sail, kayak, fish, parasail, other beach related stuff. Mainland: cave tubing, Mayan ruins, rainforest ATV and/or zip line, banana farm tour, horseback riding, Belize zoo.

@moondrake Loved Roatan too, but only been there as a cruise excursion (1/2day). Airfare to Honduras costs double vs. Belize.

@compunaut I checked it out and you are right, Southwest has great prices all over the Caribbean. Elise is a possibility but I’m seeing now that you can freely to travel to Cuba which would be a new spot for us. I know my friend loves Cuban food, perhaps The Lure of the only recently forbidden will be enough to drag him out of his nest.

@Kidsandliz That’s what I’m concerned about, ending up with an uncomfortable flight with not much savings.

@Kidsandliz @moondrake Not only fees, but what happens if their plane has a mechanical issue or something like that. If they have a very small fleet, you might have quite a wait until they have another plane available. The bigger airlines have bigger fleets, plus other airlines will take their vouchers whereas a lot of airlines won’t take vouchers from these deeply discounted airlines. On the pro side, they are not Spirit airlines. I don’t think you could pay me to fly that airline, I dang sure ain’t paying them to fly their airline.

@narfcake But did you notice that the second cheapest tickets say “standard seats” and it makes me wonder what the other seats are like…

/giphy standing room only?

@kdemo

@kdemo @PlacidPenguin She’s got great cookies.

@therealjrn

Not a fan of the pecans though.

@kdemo The .gif came from this:

@narfcake - Their videos always make me queasy.

@kdemo Even the Rube Goldberg Machine (This Too Shall Pass)?

@kdemo @narfcake
Those stews were my favorite part of that video, they totally stayed in character throughout.

@narfcake - eek, that was the one that landed me woozy in bed for two days.

@moondrake reading some of the reviews the complaints seem commonly along the line of late, sometimes very late, flights and $100 for something like 2 suitcases… In my earlier comment - Freddie Laker didn’t really have those two problems. Rather they were stripped down service (no free food nor even free water, no movies, sardine can seat arrangements) but otherwise pretty prompt and organized. So… you might want to keep that in mind if it matters to you.

@RiotDemon Personally I think most of the negative reviews are due to unrealistic expectations. The budget airline model (which has been going super strong in Europe for a decade or two, but is not as common in the US) is you simply pay for what you need. Only need a seat and small carry-on? Great… that’ll be $200. Want a checked bag with you? Righto, another $100. Want to eat? Well, here’s a menu… buy something.

All airlines have delays. All airlines have problems. In fact, all businesses have occasional problems. But if I were to judge companies by one bad experience, I’d never eat at a restaurant or basically do anything fun

Oh, and yeah… I’ve flown with them several times and am very happy with them

@LadyLeela Thanks!

@Kidsandliz Thanks!

@Kidsandliz Paying for luggage is one of the biggest pet peeves that I have. On a discounted airline, if it’s an extremely discounted fare, that’s an exception, but for regular airlines…I’ve paid 4-5 hundred dollars for my plane ticket and then they tell me I have to pay even more to bring my CLOTHES, it sends my blood pressure into orbit. I don’t even have a problem paying to bring a second checked bag, but I think one bag should be included in my plane fare(non-deeply discounted fare).

@mehbee I would agree. Next we will be charged to use the restroom on a plane.

@Kidsandliz That’s funny. I heard one time that Ryanair was going to put coin slots on their restrooms so that they can charge. They also were working on stand up seats to save on room. Not sure if they were ever able to figure that one out but it definitely gives a new definition to standing room only. So I guess it can always be worse!

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ryanair-money-saving-schemes/index.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1291131/Ryanair-launch-vertical-seating-Standing-room-tickets-4.html

@brhfl Thanks!

@f00l The tickets are insanely cheap.

@f00l I’ll join you. I could use a trip about now. I have taught statistics. We need a larger “n” to have enough statistical power to see if the reviews are right or if they are biased due to selection bias. Oh wait. Volunteering to test them for @moondrake would then mean not random selection either…

/image oops

@haydesigner One cool thing that WoW does with those layovers is sets it up for you to basucally plan a day or two stay in Reykjavik and continue on your trip as one ticket rather than splitting it into two tickets. It makes for a mini trip on your way to your big trip without an extra ticket.

@clark328ic @haydesigner I think I read that you have to pay the baggage fees again. I only read a little bit back when they started flying from the east coast so read the fine print.

@llsncl Yikes!!