Has anyone flown Martinair from Amsterdam to Orlando?

[disneyholic family]

Actually, I have, but that was back in 1995. Has anyone flown it since then?

 

[KayleeUK]

Beth going to move this over to planning

 

[grannyed]

I haven't .. but we are .. in about 8 weeks time.....so if we go before you I can give you an opinion...I shall be watching this post along with you !!

 

[disneyholic family]

I haven't .. but we are .. in about 8 weeks time.....so if we go before you I can give you an opinion...I shall be watching this post along with you !!

the price is really good.....they were ok when we flew them back in 1995 (just me and the kids), so i'm curious if they're still ok.....

 

[grannyed]

we were not able to book as early as we wold have liked to......and then when we could book we were unable to book for the full 3 weeks we had hoped, and we didn't want to cut the holiday to 2 weeks...we could only have 19 nights.... this made charter flights inpossible..well if it was poss. I couldn't find any...and I couldn't find any direct scheduled flights which were within our means. So I knew we'd have to fly indirect - they offer flights from Leeds to Amsterdam and then on to MCO....Leeds is VERY convenient for us so we took it. Someone sent me a private message saying that they'd used them and that they were okay...I'll see if i can find it

are you just curious or anre you considering using them?

 

[Graeme]

I've used it three times in the last five trips and found it OK. Schipol airport is one of the easier ones to transfer in and the standard of the planes are OK although nothing flash. I've always found the prices good and one year flew Amsterdam-Detroit-MCO which was a bit of a trek but with WDW at the end of it I managed!

We flew into Amsterdam in Sept 04 while Hurricane Frances was heading in. MCO was closed for 48 hours and loads of people were having their holidays cancelled by tour companies. We were offered a next day flight to Miami or a refund. We chose Miami, but the newspapers were full of sad stories about families being refunded and sent home without a choice.

In short, I'd use them again.

 

[disneyholic family]

i'm considering them for a trip directly to Orlando (we don't usually fly directly to orlando)....just a quickie trip that i might make this month with just one of the kids....they're a lot cheaper than other airlines.....

 

[March Hare]

Hi

We flew with them in 2004 ( nine of us in August saved around £800 compared to the cheapest alternatives)

As it was more a cost saving exercise than anything else, we were prepared for it to be a bit "cheap and cheerful", but were pleasantly surprised.

We checked in at Birmingham Airport for a connecting flight to Amsterdam, which only took us around 20 mins (5th August) for all of us, as we were only on a small KLM commuter flight - the good thing was that our luggage was checked through for the onward flight so we didn't see it again until Orlando.

Had a pleasant few hours at Schipol Airport, and caught our flight on time to Orlando.It may not have had some of the more up to date gadgets, like seat back screens, but it was comfortable,clean and the cabin crew were friendly and efficient.
Ditto the return journey, and we would be happy to use them again, particularly for the quick check in - once spent over 2 hours checking in with TCD, and thats the main thing we all remember about that flight!

Mark

 

[grannyed]

March Hare I think that I have 'spoken' to you before about hese flights

don't want to be a nuisance but do you remember anything about the baggage allowance?

 

[March Hare]

Hi grannyed

I'm sure it was reasonably generous, but due to my PC "dying" last year, those details (which I had made a note of) were lost - I'll check with my brother over the weekend and let you know

Mark

 

[disneyholic family]

i think most airlines are the same now, regarding baggage allowance...
the weight limit has been reduced by all of them, but i can't remember what it is....somewhere around 20 kilo....it's probably listed on their website...

 

[Neoshoegal]

Have a look at www.airlinequality.com/index.htm it has comments and ratings for most airlines.

HTH

 

[grannyed]

Thankyou March Hare

I have managed to find the Martinair website - in English - I did find it in Dutch and gave up but then a couple of days later I went back and found the English pages.

The Martinair baggage allowance was pretty good - 2 suitcases per person each one to weigh no more than 23 kilos - that is for flights to America....

However we are getting a flight out to Amsterdam first -- (and a connection there to MCO with Martinair) --which is with KLM and they say that their allowance is the same as the Martinair one for flights to America - but Europe flights are 20 kilos Does this mean that we will have to stick to the first luggage allowance or can we tell them that we are flying to America?

Anyone know if there is a way I could e mail the airlines to ask ?

 

[disneyholic family]

Thankyou March Hare

I have managed to find the Martinair website - in English - I did find it in Dutch and gave up but then a couple of days later I went back and found the English pages.

The Martinair baggage allowance was pretty good - 2 suitcases per person each one to weigh no more than 23 kilos - that is for flights to America....

However we are getting a flight out to Amsterdam first -- (and a connection there to MCO with Martinair) --which is with KLM and they say that their allowance is the same as the Martinair one for flights to America - but Europe flights are 20 kilos Does this mean that we will have to stick to the first luggage allowance or can we tell them that we are flying to America?

Anyone know if there is a way I could e mail the airlines to ask ?

In the US, when you connect, it's the international leg of the flight that determines the baggage allowance, but i don't know if that's true for KLM in europe...

i don't know if there's an email address....perhaps you could call up KLM directly and ask them?

 

[Ghost]

Did it in 2002... Never again.

I fly Continental now.. Sure a little bit more expensive (really no big different) and direct... but for some reason the comfort was not there...

And the private TV/video system (missing from Martinair) makes the trip less long (feels less long)... Less people running around, better service on plane... and my points I get.... 1'll be able to fly for free soon....

I don't think Continetal flies direct from any European city (alwys via NY) but by the time I go to Amsterdam from Antwerp I might as well go from Brussels to NY and go to Orlado from there....
and on such a long trip, I do like some comfort

(All this is of course personal opinion)

 

[disneyholic family]

Did it in 2002... Never again.

I fly Continental now.. Sure a little bit more expensive (really no big different) and direct... but for some reason the comfort was not there...

And the private TV/video system (missing from Martinair) makes the trip less long (feels less long)... Less people running around, better service on plane... and my points I get.... 1'll be able to fly for free soon....

I don't think Continetal flies direct from any European city (alwys via NY) but by the time I go to Amsterdam from Antwerp I might as well go from Brussels to NY and go to Orlado from there....
and on such a long trip, I do like some comfort

(All this is of course personal opinion)

as for me, i hate continental.....both across the atlantic and within the US....the tvs don't make up for their service (or lack thereof).....

in the end we didn't fly anyone last month as my son decided not to go to WDW this year.....he was too nervous i suppose and didn't want to get stuck on the wrong side of the ocean due to weather...

in any case, we didn't fly martinair or klm or anyone...

as i said in my OP, we flew klm + martinair once, back in 1995....
the KLM leg of the trip was fine....we got stuck in amsterdam airport from 8 in the morning until 5 PM in the evening.....had i known it was going to be that long i would have taken my kids on a half day tour of amsterdam....
but our 10 am flight to orlando on martinair kept being delayed by one hour at a time....we only received meal vouchers at about 2 in the afternoon....and finally at 5 they commandeered a plane that was supposed to go someplace else to take us to orlando (and made the people on that plane wait for our plane to be fixed)>.

however, once we were on board the plane it was fine....the crew was as sweet as can be....and the other passengers (who we'd already spent many hours with in the airport and so we all seemed by old friends at that point) were an interesting conbination of nationalities from all over europe (as well as a few americans...- and interestingly it was only the americans who complained vociferously throughout the delay....demanding to know details of the mechanical problems....demanding food vouchers,...etc.)
anyway, the passengers were very interesting and friendly and we had a nice time chitchatting our way across the atlantic...(we had a lovely family of norwegians sitting in front of us, so it helped the time pass quickly...)

bottom line, i can honestly say that our martinair experience was a good one....(especially compared with our AWFUL continental airlines experience)....

 

[March Hare]

Hi

Have checked with our tickets from '04, and our allowance was 23kg - with five children in tow this was more than enough for all our stateside purchases

Mark

 

[disneyholic family]

Hi

Have checked with our tickets from '04, and our allowance was 23kg - with five children in tow this was more than enough for all our stateside purchases

Mark

i think that is the allowance on all airlines crossing the atlantic now...
they make all sorts of claims as to why they lowered the baggage allowance (security, union issues due to heavy bags), but i'm sure it all has to do with the price of oil and how much it costs the airlines to carry all that luggage for free.....you can still carry a lot of weight, you just have to pay for it now...

 

[grannyed]

March Hare

thanks for checking....I assume that it is the same allowance for the first part of the trip as well

i.e. from LBR (in my case) (Birmingham in yours) to Amsterdam

 

[March Hare]

Hi

Yes, your luggage is checked through from departure to Orlando.

Mark