The Grove Project

I Pledge Allegiant, To the Cheap Fair …

(Author’s note: I’m trying to get the Star-News to publish this, so sorry if you see this again in the paper.)

Around the time my husband and I were looking for tickets to a wedding in Orlando, I got called to a press conference at ILM, where County Commissioner Bobby Greer ended up sporting mouse ears and touting the arrival of Allegiant Air and its non-stop flights to Orlando. My husband booked the tickets, careful to navigate away from extra fees (such as the $10 charge to pick your seat). But he did go with the airline’s rental car package. And taking advantage of the promotional offer, he booked two round-trip tickets leaving Friday, returning Monday with the rental car. Total: $550.

Beyond Southwest, we had never flown on a discount airline and weren’t sure what to expect. The first sign that things were a bit different came while checking in our luggage. While handing us our boarding pass the woman behind the counter said, “Gate 8. See you there.” And there she was, at Gate 8, asking us to rip our boarding pass and hand her the larger portion.

A moving staircase gets you on board the plane, which was very clean, and shiny, in an Armor All kind of way. The staff was friendly, the flight was almost less than an hour, and the descent into Sanford takes you right over Daytona Beach at a altitude that makes the Daytona Speedway clearly visible from the plane.

As we landed and rolled into the gate, Allegiant gave us our second and third assignments: to clean up our trash - claiming it would save the airline time since the flight attendants doubled as the cleaning crew - and to cross our seatbelts on our seats as we left. I don’t know why, I just did it.

The Orlando-Sanford International Airport is a good bit larger than ILM, is bright and tropical and easy to figure out.

If you’re doing the driving back to the airport, signs for Orlando-Sanford are nearly non-existent (Mapquest ahead of time). Also, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself on a toll road leading into the airport, so have some change handy.

The trip back was pretty much the same experience with many of the same passengers from Friday. The flight was on time, the luggage was there, and flying beat the 12-hour drive between Wilmington and Orlando. (Although I did miss the Le Creuset outlet off I-95 in South Carolina.)