Hello A.netters,

Welcome to my new trip report on my flights on Southwest from Orlando International to Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. This is a flight I’ve been wanting to do for a while and I finally got a chance to book myself on a round trip experience with this interesting airline that, from my point of view, is absolutely delightful.

The reason of my trip to ‘Vegas’ isn’t exactly going to the Strip to spend some green bills in the slot machines at the Bellagio; this time is a business trip to Mexico. Yes, Mexico. I’m working on an airline profile (sorry, can’t give details) and am flying to LAS to then head down to MEX and get myself busy for the President’s Day long weekend. The best price I found was to fly with WN and then another airline, which I can’t mention, again – sorry for that!

Anyhow, the day of the trip arrived and woke up at 5am to be able and make it on time to MCO, as I live in DAB and it’s at least an hour and fifteen minutes worth of driving time. As a matter of fact, timing was great and I found myself wandering at the beautiful MCO terminal at 07.15 – an hour and half minutes before the scheduled departure.

I went directly to the WN counters, grabbed my boarding pass and handed my bag to the TSA people – all in less than 3 minutes… beautiful!





Then, expecting a horrible and epic line to go through the security checkpoints, I headed over to the assigned area. For my surprise, lines weren’t long at all and I made it through in no more than ten minutes. Pretty good compared to the last time I flew from MCO when took me 45 minutes to get barely naked by these TSA dudes.

Here’s a sight of the magnificent MCO terminal with the Hyatt Hotel:




After this relaxed procedure, I hopped on the terminal train to go to the area where WN is located. As soon as I got down after the 30-second trip, my stomach complained it was hungry. The first thing I found near me was the Au Bon Pain bakery located close to my assigned gate 125. Without hesitation, I got myself in line and glanced at the menu for a few seconds… after a tough brainstorming, I decided to have a simple bagel with ham, cheese and eggs. For ‘dessert’ I got a carrot cake and a bottle of milk, which provided me with enough energy to walk down to my gate.

Here’s the evidence of all of the above:





Two brothers parked at the terminal








Some sick-o browsing this horrifying site!


On my way to the gate, I received a call from my mom… that was a punishment! I had checked-in a day before just to get a good place in the peculiar boarding procedure Southwest has come up with, for which I gained a boarding pass with a Group A – those who board first. My mom managed to distract me enough and when I looked at the gate area, Group C was boarding!   I hanged the phone and ran directly to the gate, being the 3rd to last person to get into the 737G. As a result, when I went in, the plane was packed and my hopes of sitting for the next 5 hours in a window were vanishing as my eyes went down the rows (I had a vision of me sitting in a middle seat between two chubby guys with body-odor and some nappy desires). That’s when I got to the very last row and sat in a D seat… yeah, that means aisle. Damn it!

All of the sudden, a group of Obama-Supporters arrived claiming in a surround-sound manner they wanted to sit together, so don’t ask me how, but I traded my seat for a window so they could be together. With a HUGE smile on my face got all the way down the row and glued my face into the window. Wohoo!  

No time later, doors were closed and our good boy – or girl – pushed back from Gate 125 two minutes ahead the schedule, at 08.43. I love WN!

Have a look at those cool winglets!


Captain announced he’d take us up 34.000ft and then couldn’t understand the flight time, as being in the back of the bird privates you from hearing well the announcements made through the PA. Anyhow, I was happy so I didn’t care not to know for how long was my butt going to be stuck in that chair.

We then taxied and held short the runway to then perform a really long roll down the runway to become airborne at 08.50 – perfectly on time. The heavy-loaded jet climbed easily and elegantly with those hot-looking blended-winglets.



Not my fault the Sun was so cocky that day


The sun was annoying by then so I just closed my window shade and got to study some Aviation, as I had a test as soon as I got back to DAB.

Soon later, snacks were served. La Carte showed an elegant choice of an entrée, consisting on Dried Roasted peanuts featuring the WN logo promoting one of their marketing booms. Then, the main course was again, Dried Roasted peanuts, showing another promotion of this catchy airline. Finally, to delight our tongue, a Diet Coke was served on a luxurious plastic cup with the airline’s logo carved on the front with some refreshing ice, to mix with the drink and give an unforgettable mouth experience – yeah right!





After this bite, I kept on studying. Common sense invaded the cabin and the people lowered their shades so people like the lunatic who pretended to be Elvis could keep his ‘cool’ sunglasses on and walk up and down the aisle several times showing how (can’t find the proper word) he thought he looked. Unfortunately for him, the general reaction to the E entertainment television show he provided caused others like myself to laugh pleasantly and find some in-flight entertainment which is unfortunately absent in most WN flights.

When Elvis finally decided to take a seat, I tried to go back to my studies.



This, however, wasn’t possible because of some ‘girls’ sitting in front of me who thought they were in the hottest and most popular club in South Beach, Florida. Yes, they thought they were partying, but the only difference is that there was no DJ and no hot waitresses pouring some tequila in your mouth… they only had their iPods and a broad imagination. Them – which instead of girls I’d consider something more likely to be Lagoon Creatures – were having a blast, dancing and singing (horribly) on their chairs. This naturally bothered the couple seating next to me, so I decided to close my book – once again – and expect some response to the happy hour these creatures were pretending to have. In a matter of seconds, the big Obama-supporter lady who’d be my seat neighbor yelled something like this (I apologize for not producing the correct pronunciation, as writing is not as symbolic as speaking): yo Britney, we is trying to have some rest and y’all are being too annoying to let it happen. Why don’t you save your energy and keep it to yourself and let me and my boy here have some relax time before you start gett’n on my nerve! Uhummm!

I couldn’t help to laugh my butt off as the lady didn’t even measure her voice. It was something like a person yelling in a flea market, and the face on the Lagoon Creature was priceless. Then, some dude I couldn’t see started clapping and then the whole rear side of the aircraft was invaded with applause, as if the USA had won their first FIFA World Cup. Amazing!

After that terrific event, I did get to open my book and study for an hour. Then I closed my eyes and took a nap for perhaps another hour. When I gained back my consciousness, I found a nice treat in my table:



The new meal consisted on an elegant box, displaying WN info with some goodies inside: Cheese Sticks, Packed Salami (which I didn’t even bother to open) and some Chips Ahoy cookies, which were delightful. Then, the male FA came and gave me some pretzels along with a cup of water. Pretty good snack I must say. See for yourselves.

Is this for real a low-cost airline?... Better menu than AA!


After the short snack, I decided to start a conversation with Ms. Obama-Supporter, who happened to be a lovely lady capable of speaking non-stop for the rest of the flight. Fortunately for me, I had a lot to say and Hugo Chavez was the main topic of our dialogue. In the end, we spoke about almost everything crossed our minds and in a blink-of-an-eye the Captain pulled back the thrust and announced our way down to Vegas, precisely at 10.00 (Local time), 13.00 (MCO time); some four hours after departure.



Our descent was smooth and entertaining. We passed over the world-famous Grand Canyon and some very interesting scenery. One thing that caught my attention was the construction of a bridge over a dam. Pretty cool.



Pretty good legspace! Better than many other carriers I have flown




Then, over a vast amount of dirt, I got to see some houses and then, what appears to be LAS. Final approach was pretty choppy and then finally landed at 10.29. No kudos to the Captain as he brought down the jet with no ‘Luv’ – too hard for me to approve it.










Some taxiing done and we parked at the gate at 10.33. Finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for – stretch my legs, because some four more hours of flight are next.

Here’s the boy being loaded for its next leg to California:


Conclusions:

I loved it. I never thought Southwest would offer such a cool and comfortable experience. I imagined it as something cheap, uncomfortable, no snacks nor drinks and most of all, no punctuality.

For my surprise, I found it much better than my ever-lasting AA experiences, which aren’t bad either; but considering this is a LCC then YEAH! Go WN!

All of the flights I took with them were on time in new aircraft and with a service that should be envied by other airlines.

Thanks Southwest and thanks you guys for reading my experiences. I hope you enjoyed it.

All best!

Enrique.