Hi everyone. I hope you all had a lovely summer – it seemed very short this year! I’ve got a few reviews to catch up on and as usual I am determined to blog here more regularly. We recently returned home from holiday, so while it’s fresh in my mind, I’ll start with a small review of Norwegian Airways…
We flew in a Boeing 787 from Gatwick to Orlando – a nine hour flight, so it needed to be good! We were so pleased when we found our seats – they were soft and very comfortable – I cannot believe I didn’t get a numb bum by the end of it. There was noticeably more leg-room and I could even cross my legs without nudging the seat in front. My only gripe was that the seats didn’t recline very far, so you still felt very upright when trying to sleep.
The windows were larger than usual, which is nice for gazing outside, although you couldn’t seem to override their automatic dimming system when they felt it was bed-time. That’s fine with me – you don’t want to suddenly get blasted with bright daylight when you’re trying to sleep. At other times you could choose to dim the window yourself – all very high-tech. I also liked the large screen for the entertainment – and for once they all actually worked! However the choice of entertainment was pretty small compared with most airlines (Apart from Monarch which was next to nothing). We flew out in August and returned in September and none of the films or programmes had changed either.
So that’s the plane – very impressive on the whole. My gripe is mainly with the staff. Firstly, there didn’t seem to be enough staff for the size of plane. Secondly, they were mostly (though not all) pretty grumpy and didn’t seem to want to help anyone. I drink a fair bit of water anyway, and get even more dehydrated on a plane, so I always ask for water – particularly as we can’t bring any in through check-in. In the past they’ve either shown me where I can help myself to water, or have been happy to re-fill my bottle for me. This time, when I pressed the button for a steward to come, it took twenty minutes. Ok, I only wanted water, but it might have been more urgent than that. I had also waited a good half hour before that to ask a passing steward, but they were hardly ever to be seen. When I asked her if I could fill up my water bottle somewhere, she said she’d have to do it and looked at me as though I was asking her to parachute out the plane to get me some!
The other thing you should be aware of when flying with Norwegian Airways is that they don’t provide anything! When you book, be completely aware of the level of service you’re getting for the price as it seemed some people didn’t have their meals included. After serving meals to the pre-booked people, they opened the snack bar which cost an absolute fortune. Take plenty of food in your hand-luggage regardless as some people really didn’t like the food. I thought the hot meals were ok, but the cold meal was pretty horrible.
Even on budget airlines we normally get a blanket and eye-mask (sometimes even a pack with ear-plugs and travel toothbrush and toothpaste), but you had to pay if you wanted either of those things on this flight – I think it was £5 for the blanket.
All in all I’d definitely fly with them again if the quality and comfort of all their planes are the same, but it’s useful to know to be prepared with food and blankets etc.