It seemed like a dream! An affordable nonstop flight from Walt Disney World to Disneyland? Yes, please! A cheap flight between the two could have meant my bucket list goal of back to back resort trips could finally become a reality. How amazing would it be to see Cinderella Castle before bed and Sleeping Beauty Castle in the morning!? That’s what Breeze Airways promises. However, if recent reports are my indication, my dream will have to wait.Â
Breeze Airways is a low-cost airline that promises to provide service between underserved routes in the United State. Yes, as hard as it may be to believe there are still many routes that are hard to come by. Even harder to believe? Disneyland is one of them. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the dominant airport in the area but it is 42 minutes away from Disneyland without traffic. If you’ve ever driven in LA before you know, if GPS says 42 minutes, plan on a couple hours. Where LAX is 32 miles away, John Wayne Airport is only 15 miles away. It is the closest airport to the West Coast House of Mouse but flights into the airport are uncommon and expensive. Breeze seeks to change that. The airline is based out of Utah and was founded by David Neeleman who also co-founded Jetblue. Â
Julie Tremaine, someone who frequents both Walt Disney World and Disneyland recently tested the World to Land connection and found it seriously lacking. Her flight, which was promised to be inexpensive…wasn’t. Breeze offers 3 different ticket types: nice, nicer, and nicest (read: basic economy, economy, and business/first class). Once she added up all the extra fees for the lowest tier ticket, it was essentially the same price as the highest tier ticket that was more amenity-inclusive (bag fees, food and beverage service etc.). Essentially, from a price perspective, the airline promises cheap fares but everyone ends up paying for first-class, it’s just that only some get to sit in the bigger seats and enjoy the extra leg room.
She went on to describe the plane as “filthy.” Hair, dust, and mystery stains were everywhere. She says, “There were clumps of dirt and dust, hair and food crumbs in that space. I looked at three other pockets available for storage, and they weren’t just a little dirty. They were filthy.”
Rather than a relaxing food and beverage service with unlimited refills and all you care to enjoy snacks as promised when she booed she found that flight attendants only made one pass through the plane on the 5 hour flight. If you weren’t hungry then, you were out of luck. However no one informed passengers of this so we hope not one was planning on catching the flight attendants the next time they passed by.Â
Speaking of informing passengers, Tremaine stated that she was never informed that there wasn’t Wi-Fi on the flight. “On other airlines, if the Wi-Fi isn’t working, they’ll usually make an announcement at the gate to give you some warning to download something to watch while you’re still in the terminal. No one mentioned this at all, not the gate crew and not the in-flight crew,” she said. When she returned home Tremaine searched Breeze’s website and found the Wi-Fi information buried several tabs deep on their website. Not at all like the encouragement to upgrade listing all of the benefits of spending more money that she encountered many times during booking.Â
All in all the airline sounds like a massive disappointment and the cost savings sounds like smoke and mirrors. At the time of this writing, a round trip in September (typically a slower time for travel) is over $600 for the “nicest” ticket option. It’s $170 for the “nice” ticket option but that option only works if you don’t need food or drink on the 5 hour flight and only plan to take a purse (no carry on or checked luggage is included). The “nicer” option is around $400 but again, there is no food or drink service with that ticket and no checked luggage- one personal item and one carry-on only unless you’re willing to pay extra.Â
Credit: Breeze Airways
Time will tell if this airline is just experiencing growing pains or if its truly the nightmare it sounds like. Breeze Airways is one of the newer options, it launched in 2021 and the service from Orlando to Orange County is a recent offering. We will keep a careful eye on it in the hopes of improvement and let you know of any relevant changes in the travel experience. Â