Weeked in New York from Norn Ireland

leolion2177

Thanks everyone.

Will know on Tuesday if the Credit Union wants us to go

jamesbrownontheroad

chunter wrote: »

Pay the extra money and fly Virgin from Heathrow. If you're going to spend 7 hours on a plane, you may as well enjoy it. TVs in the back of every headrest, choice of a dozen films you can pause and play at any time.

I have to disagree... if it's just a weekend you've got, you just want to get there asap. Having Continental direct from BFS is too good to miss. Although there are no seatback TVs, Continental use narrow body Boeing 757 aircraft (with 3 on either side of a single aisle) so there is no chance of getting a horrid seat in the middle blow between the two aisles.

Another interesting tip (that I've never tried) for weekending is to see the city that never sleeps without changing your body clock... so stay on GMT throughout your stay. NYC is five hours behind us, so the principle is you get an early night as soon as you arrive. Then get up really early (trust me on this one) and see the city wake up, perhaps at one of the city markets or in Central Park - this is a pretty amazing sight if you're going in the summer.

Resist the temptation to stay up late the second night and repeat, and it means you should be able to get back to work without any jet lag on Monday morning

cl1972

FWIW, The Continental Belfast-New York planes do have seatback TVs with a choice of movies, tv programmes, games, etc. Check out the B757 section on this page of their website https://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/avod/default.aspx

Continental fly to Newark out of Dublin too so check that for prices also.

caz2703

cl1972 wrote: »

FWIW, The Continental Belfast-New York planes do have seatback TVs with a choice of movies, tv programmes, games, etc. Check out the B757 section on this page of their website https://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/avod/default.aspx

Continental fly to Newark out of Dublin too so check that for prices also.

The newer planes may have this and if someone has flown recently they can confirm but having flown Continental from BFS to NY, NY to Orlando, Orlando to NY and NY to BFS, I have been in at least 3 different planes although this was back in 2008. The shortest flight from NY to ORL had the best plane. We had seat back TVs and I remember playing games on them throughout the 5 minute flight (or so it seemed) yet on the return leg we had a really poxy plane as it was onward bound for the UK. The two BFS flights were the 3 seats either side of the aisle and the big TV up in the roof.

jamesbrownontheroad

I believe CO are retrofitting seatback TVs in economy class at the same time as they fit the new lie-flat business class seats. You can watch progress here; so far 32 out of 41 Boeing 757s have had the new seats fitted, the whole fleet should be completed by the end of the summer.

johnnyinbelfast

I flew continental BFS to Newark in May 2009 and the seats had seatback screens then on both legs of the journey

caz2703

Thanks for the updates guys - that's good news indeed.

The plane we had in 2008 from Orlando to New York was heading on to England and honestly you've never seen a more poxy plane. I thought the planes that flew us across the Atlantic were bad but for once we had something better than the English!

So if all the planes are being upgraded then I can see no reason whatsoever for travelling across to London to fly to NY. Maybe if you were going on to LA or Las Vegas on a direct flight it would be great but for such a short flight it seems daft.

psybear

I have travelled the BFS - newark route with Continental a couple of times. After the first time I said never again, but the second one was a business trip and I'd no choice in the airline. An American I met in the queue at Belfast International summed it up well I thought, when we had just been told of an 11 hour delay in departure by rude and uninterested staff. He said the unofficial slogan for the airline in the US is "You must be mental to fly Continental". The Customer Service was non-existent - on both sides of the Atlantic. The planes were like cattle-trucks, with broken table-trays and seats, cramped leg space and no movie choice.

Conversely I have flown Dublin - Boston with Aer Lingus a couple of times and I couldn't praise the staff highly enough, plus the planes were ultra-modern, with touch-screens on the back of every seat.

caz2703

I agree, Continental is a no frills airline but as it's on the doorstep and the prices are fair then I would use them again.

We got married in America and travelled on 4 flights between BFS and Orlando with my dress as hand baggage. On each flight my dress was carefully taken from me and stored safely to the extent there wasn't a single crease on it. On 3 of the flights I had my wedding bouquet which I picked up in NY. The bouquet itself had pins holding the flowers in place yet I didn't have a single problem taking it on as hand baggage despite having 2 pieces of hand baggage and sharp pointy objects!

I admit it's been nearly 3 years since we flew with them but across 6 different flights in 2 years we had only one problem. The seat I was allocated wasn't screwed down and kept sliding. The only option we were given was for me to move into an empty seat in the row behind leaving my fiance to be to sit alone. Thankfully there was a lovely gentleman behind us who moved into my fiances seat so both of us could sit together :T He did get a beer out of it even if he took some persuading to accept it.

leolion2177

OK flights now booked. Went with Continental as they were the cheapest.

Problem now getting reasonable accommodation. Everything we looked at on Tripadvisor had complaints about cockroaches and bed bugs and Mrs L wont be doing those. Any recommendations???

Leo