About 80 percent of you cringed when reading that. Not because I made a terrible pun; my puns are always punbelievable. Ok, I’ll stop. No, you cringed because
Spirit Airlines. Spirit Airlines is the Saltine cracker of airlines: It’s not entirely appetizing but you use them when you have to. I have no secure income, so yeah. I need Spirit Airlines like I need crackers after vomming my guts out.
Spirit has gotten a bad rap, and maybe unjustly so some argue. Most will say, “hey, you get what you pay for.” And I’m more or less on that spectrum. But, alas. MOST say its the effing worst.
Regardless of what I’ve read, I bought my round trip ticket out of Bush Intercontinental for the low price of $380ish about three weeks before the trip. Not bad at all, considering Southwest was almost $600 and United $900. The $380 included one checked bag ($30 each way), the actual seats ($17 each.. WTF, right?), and whatever other made-up fees. When booking they as you 101 questions about hotels and car/show bookings. Protip: scroll to the effing bottom and click the “I don’t want this ish” option. I think that’s what it says.
Anyways, here’s the rest of my experience in a nutshell.
8:03 p.m. I parked at the par and ride and a super nice lady helped me in my confusion. I gave her the only cash I had: $2. I may rot in hell for that.
8: 17 p.m. I checked my 30-effing-dollar bag in.
8:20 p.m. I was pleasantly wished well by one TSA agent (“I hope you win big!”—I was literally confused by this for a second. Like, what do I win by going through security? Then: OH DUH VEGAS. GAMBLING.) and then aggressively complimented by the other. I left my laptop in my bag (I do this ALL the time, my B, TSA) so my tiny little blue Target backpack looked like a bomb I guess. This small (Puerto Rican? Dominican?) man held my bag, stared at me for a sec, then goes “You’re very cute.” He asked me my name and told me I have beautiful eyes (I said, “Thanks! Bought em on the internet!” He said, “No your eyes.” I said, “Thanks.”) Then I put my shoes on and bought a coffee.
9:46 p.m. They are “potentially in an overbooked situation” and a few people rolled their eyes saying “every time” and “it’s always vegas.” The person lady at the counter thingy said that whoever was the last person to check in gets bumped.
10:18 p.m Crisis averted. One lady tells us that the people who will get bumped are people who don’t have seat assignments. Apparently there was an option when booking to not pay extra for seats, which I complained about earlier. Not complaining now. I didn’t see this, but thank god because since we did our seats are secured. WAHOO FOR MY INABILITY TO READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS.
I think I nailed it.
10:31 p.m. We are the last group to board and our seats are super close to the front. Pretty much as soon as we board they close the doors. There are significantly smaller tables, but about the same seating room, so I guess that’s where the skimping came in. Once we get closer to taking off, our valley girl flight attendant says: “I know your tray tables are fun to flip but they need to be up for take off.” So there’s the inflight entertainment they account for.
10:40 p.m. Take off. Smooth and whatever. We start watching a movie. Oh, on my laptop bc like I said, the flipping tables are the only provided entertainment.
1:00 a.m. (Houston time) Finished movie. Completely bored. But after a few minutes of contemplating “angry bird or stare at my hands” we prepare for landing.
1:28 a.m. (Houston time) Subtitles pls. People with ascots are saying things about the landing. I can’t hear anything because, to my eternal annoyance, that the plane is loud. Like air noise and loud. Maybe it’s the engine in part too, but it’s like we were outside the plane the entire time.
1:37 a.m/11:37 p.m. Landed. Again, smooth. But I’m super motion sick.
11:42 a.m. A flight attendant, channeling Anna Faris in House Bunny says, “get out” in monster voice and the seatbelt sign goes off. The entire plane laughed. It was great.
12:07 a.m. Finally get bags from the suitcase carousel. And we immediately get a cab. It smells like shit. Like literal feces. #welcometovegas 💩
Summary: Spirit, you did you. It was average and somewhat stressful at parts, but I’m not dissatisfied. And, I’m not completely dreading my return flight.
