How first flight on budget airline works with our family... Our WIZZ AIR first impressions review!

We have never travelled as a family on a budget airline flight... so come join us fly with Wizz Air from London Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino Airport, Italy. I'm nervous that we'll get stopped for our tickets, or passports, or boarding passes, or baggage allowance, or carry-on hand luggage... or get charged more at the checkin desk or departure gate. We review our experiences on this Italian journey with the kids!

How first flight on budget airline works with our family... Our WIZZ AIR first impressions review!



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello, I'm Neil and... does traveling with your family on a budget airline fill you with dread? 

Me too!

Uh, you suddenly become responsible for... even more responsible for everyone's lives and thousands of pounds worth of tickets and hotel accommodation.

And I'm an ADHD dad, so having to get my head around exact things for the tickets, weights of baggage, dates on your passport, boarding passes, being in the right place at the right time is...

It's not fun! 

The new thing we are trying to make your family happy is traveling with my family on a budget airline without getting kicked off, turned back, or charged extra money. 

We're going to Rome for 5 days.

It was booked literally last minute on lastminute.com and overcame so many hurdles.

We had the wrong names on the tickets. 

We had a passport that was expired and had to do a last-minute dash to the passport office in London. 

But we got through all of that, and now we're at the airport, and oh, my heart is just sinking because I think I've followed all the baggage rules. 

We’re all carrying rucksacks which are well over the size that is stated quite clearly on the Wizz Air website, but I knew in my heart that they would cram under the seats, and I didn't know if that counted.

At the last minute—I think on the night before—I paid for priority baggage, which means that you could carry a big bag, and I just had that as an insurance policy just in case one of our bags was over, or we couldn't do the hand luggage thing. 

I'm glad I did it, but I don't think we needed to do it. 

Everyone has a pretty much a rucksack on their back, and the night before we stood on the scales holding our cases to try and work out how much the cases weighed. 

They were just under the magic 10 kg; I think one of them was 9.9. But at every stage of this journey, something could go wrong—at the check-in desk, or the gate, or the security to the gate—so come with us in real time and we'll take you along on our little journey for the first time traveling as a family on a budget airline.

Wizz Air! 

I... I don't know why I'm nervous because we've done everything that we thought we should do. Got the passport. I still feel like they can say, “No, you've done a thing wrong, and that's it—you can't go!”

So we... so we checked in our baggage, and we literally have no idea what we're supposed to do now. 

I think we’ve just got to find signs for departures. 

Uh, managed to get this on priority because I paid for priority for one person, and my... and my bag is small enough, um... I get to hand-carry it and also got my CPAP machine. 

I can just hand-carry that. It’s... it's really low fuss. 

Uh, I think we’re up here, guys!

I’ll tell you what we have got to do: we’ve got to empty our water bottles.

I don't know if we can do that here. 

Okay, this bottle is emptied.

Time to go through. 

There’s a water bottle.

“Oh no, it’s back again.” 

Can you put that inside of my bag, Stella?

So now we’ve got to bag everything up. 

Okay, so I got busted, uh, because I took the case... I thought the case was going to go in the hold of the plane, and uh, it wasn't, so it's hand-carry. Completely forgot I've got a can of deodorant in there.

Got busted... taken aside, and the deodorant's destroyed. So, uh, these guys have got to smell me for the next 5 days now. 

But that was good; we got off lightly.

I think, uh, we managed... we managed to get airside!

Didn't think it would happen. 

Hey, this Duty-Free aisle goes on forever.

It doesn’t stop. 

I couldn't afford and didn't bother buying tickets for a first-class lounge, so this is our first-class lounge.

“They’re carrying all your stuff for you.” 

Okay, this is the upstairs, and uh, there's lots of expensive food places. Ooh, JD Sports. 

I just want somewhere we can sit down.

“There.” 

Where?

Okay, so it's 0920. 

We’ve got about 40 minutes, so we've decided to, uh, have breakfast in the Wetherspoons. 

This is a small vegetarian breakfast. Oh, sorry, that's a large breakfast. 

And that's the small... that's the small veggie breakfast... that's the large veggie breakfast. 

I'm not a vegetarian, but I just thought—Ooh, there’s more! 

We’ve got, uh, muffins and hash browns as well.

Wow, that looks amazing. 

That looks really good.

“Wait, I’ll get some ketchup.” 

We just wanted somewhere to sit for 40 minutes... and the other great thing about here is they've got a water tap, so there's a hydration station to fill the water bottles back up again if you've, uh, complied with the security instructions.

But here's a little tip—near the coffee station, there's a water tap over there, and you can fill your water bottles up. 

The hydration station, which is next to the toilets—um, there's a queue for it to fill water bottles, so it's quite handy to fill it here.

[Music] 

So it's still recording when it goes black?

Yeah, yeah. 

Okay, I've got to learn some Duolingo.

I've got an hour. 

So our gate number has come up on the screen, so it’s gate number two, so let's try and find gate number two!

We didn't realize how crucial the boarding passes would be, and luckily, just by chance, I’ve WhatsApp’ed them to everyone. 

“It’s estimated to be on stand in the next 10 to 15 minutes. We are going to continue pre-boarding into the area behind us, so once the cabin crew have arrived on the aircraft, the doors will be released for boarding. Thank you.”

Okay, here's a tip: wish we had done. 

Had to download—add the boarding passes on WhatsApp—but to open it, you’ve got to... you need a signal.

So screen grab your boarding pass. 

It seems really obvious now, but we didn't know that, so you screenshot it, then it's in your camera roll, and you don't have to download it every time it's checked. 

I had a bit of an almost near miss at the gate.

They said I had too much baggage. 

It’s because they were looking at the wrong boarding pass. 

This is the toilet on Wizz Air.

So I'm going to take a Wizz in a Wizz Air toilet. 

360° view.

I don’t think I can get it all in on the camera, but you get the idea.

I think apart from this... just the general stress of traveling on a budget airline:

We really liked traveling with Wizz Air. 

The... the plane was new... uh, the seats were clean. 

The check-in was light touch—you know, you hear these horror stories about people being turned away from gates and... and getting interrogated...

We didn't have any of that, so it was a really pleasant experience traveling with Wizz Air.

The plane was super delayed, but I think that was more to do with the weather over Europe rather than much to do with Wizz Air, and look, we're... we're on holiday, so we don't really care that much about running to a timetable. 

Just getting past security and being on a plane felt like a golden opportunity to feel blessed. 

We did it! We're here!

So now we got to wait for the bus. 

We’re a bit late.

I think there was a storm over Europe, so we're about an hour late, but I don't care because that was brilliant. 

Airbus. It was an Airbus A321 Neo.

Okay, so, um, we're kind of standing here for a bit.

Hey, this looks good. 

This looks like it might be an airport bus.

[Music] 

[Music]

Joe! It’s like Speed! 

Speed?

That is the most Italian thing I’ve seen. A Fiat waiting for an Italian airline. 

Okay, so we're in baggage reclaim, and uh, I think we might be here for a while. 

Oh yeah, so we join the official taxi queue and it’s... it goes all the way over there. 

So this is the start of the queue—or the end of the queue—and it looks like there are dudes here who regulate it, which is comforting. 

[Music]

[Music] 

I am calling this a Dad Delivers success!

Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps us to keep this channel going, so thank you. 

Grazie Mille! And YouTube knows you want to be watching this next. Can you please help my daddy get 10,000 subscribers? Just click on his face. Thanks, bye!

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