Our adventure to Iceland began at 1:00am out of Detroit’s airport.  Usually a bustling hub of activity, it was dead.  Only the duty free shop was open and a bunch of zombie like passengers milling around waiting for Wow Airlines flight WW122 to Keflavik International Airport.  Wow is an Icelandic budget airline that started servicing DTW at the end of April.  Besides the good prices, it affords up to 7 day layover when flying to a number of European cities.

Normally, I’m a Delta girl.  I cannot remember the last flight I took before Wow that wasn’t Delta.  Other than always getting delayed in Atlanta, I like Delta and think they do a good job.  But, we could not pass the opportunity to visit two countries for the price of one.  Ken did all the leg work on this one….I just gave the credit card number.

Following a number of travel sites on Facebook, the reviews for Wow were a mix of rapture and disgust.  Luckily, Ken had done his homework and our experience was overall positive.  I’ve broken down my Wow thoughts:

Pros:

• It’s purple!  Yes, purple.  The planes are purple, the seats are a shade of purple, and even the cabin lights are purple. I felt like as I in a cotton candy tube.
• The air crew were great.  They wore these classic 1950’s purple outfits complete with little hats and matching buns using hair donuts.  The men were in stylish suits.  I swear they used the A View from the Top with Christina Applegate and Gwenth Paltrow as their inspiration.
• Wow Comfy seats had a ton of leg room.  I was in the middle seat and was able to stretch out and use the armrest between the posh Wow premium seats as my own personal foot rest.
• They always gave the directions/information in Icelandic first.  What a crazy language.  I thought I picked up on a few Scandinavian words from my “extensive” 3 years of Swedish during undergrad.  Mostly, it sounded to my uninformed ear like the noises I make when talking to my dog Sam.
• When they spoke in English, they always said “Dear guests”.  I liked that.  Kindness and politeness goes along way.
• Once outside of the US, you boarded and deplaned on the tarmac.  There’s something regal about getting out of the plane and having an outside glimpse of your arrival in person and not through glass.  And it’s your first breath of that destination’s air…albeit mingled with jet fumes.  Even when it was rainy, it was still exciting.  We even had to be bussed to our plane going to Dublin.  It felt all so European.
• At the end of each flight, they inform you that you could donate your unused currency (dollars, euros, that play money they call Icelandic kronars) to an Icelandic environmentalist project that I could not begin to pronounce or spell (it had like 3 k’s and 7 j’s in it).

Cons:

• America seems to be taking a beating a lot lately, but I’ll say one thing, we know how to board a plane.  I used to think those separate lines for first class, Sky Miles, and zones at the Delta gates were a bit ridiculous.  After boarding Wow flights 4 separate times, I yearned for them.  It was a crazy free-for-all.  No zones, no purposeful boarding, just a mad rush at the gate.  It reminded me of kids trying to leave school after a pep assembly…there are only so many doors and 500 people trying go through them at the same time. The best strategy: just get the hell out of the way and wait for the end of the line to appear.  Of course this strategy backfired on our trip back to the states.  We were waiting for the insanity to die down and were hanging out by Joe and the Juice.  We missed the announcement of free flights for giving up your seats because of the crazy loud industrial juicers running.  Curse you Joe and the Juice and whoever needed the Sex Me Up juice.
• You have to pay for EVERYTHING on the plane.  But we knew that going in, so I was armed with nuts, cheeses, and fruit.  Ken stocked up on Gummy Bears and M & M’s.
• Every flight left late.  Normally, this would stress me out to no end, but being on vacation and no connecting flight to try to make, it was just a mild annoyance.  And to their credit, they made up the time in the air EVERY time.
• I’m not sure if this is a con, but I’m putting it here anyways.  EVERYONE and I mean everyone, on the flight crew are young…right down to the pilots.  I’m at that age where hipsters bug me and I rather have someone who did not just get their driver’s license flying my plane.  I couldn’t imagine any of them holding their shit and my shit together as we plunged into the ocean (I’m always convinced I’m going to die on every flight I take).  But that’s just the old lady in me rearing her head.  They were all very professional and I had to give props to the one attendant who had to keep moving this couple out of the premium seats back to their sucky seats (do you homework, dude).
• It’s a freaking 6 hour flight.  This is no fault of Wow Airlines, obviously.  But good Lord, that’s a long flight.  When I fly to California, I purposefully book a layover so I get up and move.  I thought I was going to go crazy and we still had 5 and half hours left to go!  I think I have travel ADD…

All in all, Wow has my next Icelandic business.  Of course, they had me at DTW when the flight crew came striding, side by side, down the terminal in their matching purple suits, perfectly quaffed hair, cute little hats pulling their purple luggage at 1:05 am.

So ladies, here are my limited travel tips for the overnight plane ride:

• make sure that travel scarf is handy.  I used it as a blanket and a pillow.
• pack a sleep mask (I have tried every type of sleep mask and these are my favorite by far) in your carry on.  Glorious darkness.
• have an outfit or at least a change of underwear with you.  After sitting 6 hours in a tube breathing recycled air, you’d be surprised how refreshing new skivvies can be.
• pack travel size face wash/moisturizer, toothbrush and toothpaste.  By the time you touch down, you are sure that those Icelandic trolls and elves had made camp in your mouth.  A quick stop in the bathroom after deplaning and I felt ready to take on Iceland.
• stay hydrated!  Drink more water than you think you’ll need.  It will help with the bloating and with jet lag.

Picking what airline to travel can be a bit of a pain.  Now, I realize that people have a certain loyalty to a particular airline but I am not one of those. If you really think about it, as long as you can get from point A to point B, who really cares what name is on the plane.  I will say, when it comes to flying for me, it all comes down to cost and comfort.  I have to give Krista the credit here about airfare.  I swear she was looking everyday at pricing of different airlines.  I really didn’t get involved with any of the airline discussion until we had signed up for a 6 day bus tour in Ireland and had our travel dates set.

Remember when I said Krista was a planner.  This was actually a good thing.  Even though every night she would rattle airfare costs with different airlines and mentioning we need to get our tickets now, I was still a little slow on pulling that trigger.  As a guy, I knew it was time for me to give the airfare some attention an input when it was the first thing I heard in the evening for several days in row. On that fourth day, I pulled up the airlines Krista had mentioned and started to take a look.

Let’s just say WOW. WOW Air that is.  Krista had some reservations about Wow Air.   One being they are an economy airline and two they just started flying out of Detroit.  What I will say is they are cheap.  If you wanted a round trip flight to Iceland and back you could actually get a ticket for a few hundred dollars.  It wouldn’t include any checked or carry on bags but you would be in Iceland.  I started doing a little research on WOW Air since they were the cheapest.  By cheap, I mean $500 to $1000 cheaper per person.   I read a lot reviews and comments about other peoples experience with WOW.  After an hour of doing that,  I realized the all the bad reviews and bad blog post were from people who really didn’t read what they were paying for with airline. WOW Air actually has four different levels when you purchase a ticket and I am 100% positive they choose the lowest ticket thinking it included their luggage and food.  There is an image below showing the 4 different ticket levels.  We ended up going with WOW Comfy for the extra leg room but I will say the WOW Premium Seats looked awesome.

Our flight was supposed to leave Detroit at 12:50 am.  Yes, 12:50 am.  Do you know what is open at the Detroit airport at 12:50 am? Hardly anything.  I thought I would be able to purchase some snacks for the flight but not one of those type of locations was open.  Good thing the duty free shop was open.  I was able to buy gummy bears, chocolate and a sprite for the flight.  Krista on the other hand already had her snacks in her carry on bag from home.  That’s one advantage of being a planner.  Like I said, our flight was supposed to leave at 12:50 am,  it didn’t leave at 12:50 am.  I will say Krista wasn’t to happy about that and thought we may have choose the wrong the airline. When things don’t happen when scheduled, that’s a disadvantage of being a planner.  We survived it and boarded 40 minutes late and they somehow made the time up in the air.  We had a total of 4 flights with WOW, all left late but arrived pretty close to on time.

With that being said I would use and recommend WOW Air to anyone as long as you understood what you were paying for.  For us, it was inexpensive, comfortable and it got us from point A to point B.  Here are my pros and cons of WOW:

Pros:

• Cheapest Airline
• The crew looked professional – If you want to know more go back to Krista’s Pro section.  She described it to a T.
• The leg room was awesome.  Even when the guy in the premium seat reclined back it didn’t even effect me.  The only thing that would have made our seats better is if we were in the premium seats.
• I could list the same things as Krista but I wont.  Just go back and reread her Pros.
• WOW Comfy seats have USB Ports.

Cons:

• Understand that you most likely will leave late on WOW Air.
• If you are using them as a connecting flight to somewhere in Europe and your return flight to USA. Don’t book that connecting flight so tight.  You may just miss it.
• You do have to pay for any snacks or drinks on the plane.   Bring your own. I bring sweets and Krista brings healthy stuff. Go figure.
• The boarding process is like stores opening on Black Friday in America.  It was a sight to see and I don’t really understand why it’s important to be the first person on a plane.  I am not sure if they were afraid their seat wouldn’t be there or what. We didn’t have an issue with it because our seats weren’t going anywhere and I like to hang back until the line goes down.

 

Like I said, we will use WOW Air again.  For those considering WOW, please make sure you know what you are paying for ahead of time.

So guys here are your tips when flying WOW Air:

• If your planner be prepared for delay take off.  You will still get there.
• If you can afford it, get the extra leg room.  Your legs will thank you and your gal will too.
• If you have one of those neck pillows, I would bring it along.  It is a 6 hour flight to Iceland from Detroit in the middle of the night.
• Make sure to bring water or something to drink along with snacks.  Your wallet will thank you for it and so will your stomach.
• Make sure you have some type of entertainment on your phone or tablet and bring your USB cord for the device
• Remember it is up to you to make sure she is stays in a good mood