Good morning everybody from Cali, Colombia! 🇨🇴 and I don’t know if it’s just me but Cali seemed a bit better compared to November of last year where the city was dirty and the risk of getting robbed was fairly high. But now it seems much lower I didn’t give papaya because you should never do so no matter where you are. But we didn’t feel unsafe at all even walking in the dark to a restaurant wasn’t risky to me at all and also some roads seem to be in better shape like one of them leading to my aunts house was in TERRIBLE condition but now it’s an actual road so well done Cali! 👏 the party itself and even the night out was really fun and definitely one to remember but the sleep after that was probably the worst I’ve ever had but I’m not gonna let that ruin the fact that I generally had fun this time around in Cali to the point I plan to return next summer for 2 weeks hopefully on American Airlines this time due to having more generous bag rules even in basic economy. After coming to my uncles house and saying goodbye to them with another stop to say goodbye to our aunts and to get gas we have made it to Cali’s or really Palmira’s Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport where Spirit departs from the international terminal along with every other foreign airline and Avianca’s international flights and the Spirit check in area was PACKED which isn’t a good sign and for some reason there were some balloons and confetti around the area so were they celebrating something? My family was already here and we made that line to drop our bag and this time we got no free upgrade but I do get to keep the seat I reserved in advance so there’s that and that was the longest line we’ve faced so far at around 40 minutes wonder if immigration in Fort Lauderdale 🏝️🛥️ will dethrone it or will it actually be quicker. After that was done we made our way to the security and immigration check which went
by much quicker but not much like 10 minutes including the immigration check before the check point while this did take some time even TSA back at FLL being quicker it was still smoother than my experience in Medellín so there’s that. After the duty free shop we were soon in the departures hall to find our gate hosting our flight back home.
FLIGHT INFO
Origin: Alfonso Bonilla Aragon Intl 🇨🇴 (SKCL)
Destination: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Intl 🇺🇸 (KFLL)
Flight Time: 3:26
Airbus A320neo (Spirit Airlines)
Server: None (Real Life)
Taking me and the family back to Cali this afternoon will be N976NK a 1 and a half year old Airbus A320neo delivered new to Spirit in March 2023 and this is the first banana neo I’ve been on with a mask and my goodness do I love it! 💛🖤 since Spirit doesn’t provide and complimentary food and we ALWAYS arrive hungry regardless if we flew on NK or AA, we stopped at a Ventolini airside to grab some food which I got a chicken sandwich and a gum ice cream it was fantastic! We did have to eat in a rush since boarding had begun already and luckily we didn’t get double inspected but now it’s time to get on board!
All of Spirits A320neos have the same configuration so I won’t really go over it again, in fact I’m in the same seat just on the opposite side 29F to be exact. Despite that the seats seemed much different, comfort wise they felt the same but the literature pocket was different and the seats kind of had headrests they weren’t adjustable but I still saw it as an improvement. Here we get a view of our competition back up to South Florida 🏝️🐊🍊American Airlines flight 920 up to Miami 🏝️😎 will we beat them? Let’s find out but let’s actually pushback and make our way to CLOs runway 02 to actually begin the race 😅
We didn’t take off instantly since we had to hold short for a small general aviation plane and we lined up and took off since it was so small it generated like no wake at all to our A320neo and we were off heading back home!
After a kind of turbulent departure from Cali, we have reached our cruising altitude of FL340 before climbing up to FL360 for the remainder of the flight. The crew began the service soon after which I didn’t get anything since I already ate and the crew were also pretty chill as well so guess it’s another 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ we are now leaving the Caribbean coast of Colombia 🇨🇴 behind going over the sea on our way to the USA! 🇺🇸
Jamaica 🇯🇲 soon came into view for real this and we even banked a bit over it which provided this EPIC view!
After I watched the iCarly/Victorious crossover movie we reached Cuba 🇨🇺 so we are indeed getting closer to home. Around this time I checked out the Spirit Wi-Fi website which seemed much newer than the previous flight and I always found it cool that NK out of all airlines offered a FREE map to look at but with this new website, the map is SO MUCH BETTER it’s more detailed, has an actual 3D NK plane on it and it even provides information like altitude, speed, distance. Kind of like a moving map on an IFE screen and it also had streaming entertainment kind of like games but those unfortunately costed extra.
We started our descent with some small bumps nothing crazy like our flight to CLO, here we are off the coast of the Bahamas 🇧🇸 more specifically North & South Bimini and there is where I spent a weekend a summer ago and it was amazing!
We would perform the same approach into FLL like we did when coming from Medellín, it would have us fly past the airport on left crosswind before flying past the city on downwind, turning base over sunrise and coming to land on RWY 10R and here we are entering US soil over Las Olas Beach.
After a really smooth approach and touchdown, welcome back to Fort a Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and to be honest, I was quite impressed with Spirit this time especially with that new website and moving map, the seats although they kind of had headrests are the same bare bones seats and the lack of power outlets bothers me the most but once they add those, you can definitely see me on NK more often. So overall Spirit isn’t as bad as people say it is they gave us a flight to Cali and back which matters the most!
Here is our last look of our plane before she heads off on an intra Florida flight up to Orlando 🏰🐭 and it now time for arguably the worst part of these Spirit flights, the passport control 🛂 now it’s a problem everywhere but here at FLL it is a MESS I’ve already gone over it but let’s say it this way for short,
Lots of international flights + small facility with not a lot of officers = long lines
Not to mention that you collect your bags FIRST before immigration which I always found kind of stupid since I don’t think any other US airport has it like this not even nearby Miami International Airport. But today the immigration line was pretty non existent if anything we spent MORE time waiting for our bags than we did entering the country which was just amazing! Not sure if it was because it was a weekday and school had recently started in the area but I’m not complaining and I saw more officers than needed so well done FLL it’s getting better 👍 my aunt who has global entry went through pretty much by herself and let the rest of her family through the normal line which didn’t matter really since it was fairly empty but what disgusted me the most was that my grandma went through with a wheelchair the entire way and NOBODY waited for her and they were all going home TOGETHER so they pretty much left her by herself. We soon made our way out to our car which was welcomed with an empty parking garage compared to our departure day and just hit the road back home to get ready for school tomorrow oh boy. Anyways that will wrap up this flight on Spirit Airlines on their “newer” Airbus A320neo from Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴 to Fort Lauderdale 🏝️🛥️ stay tuned for my next IF trip report back to South America and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋