If you’ve stuck around for a while, you may remember that 2 years ago I went on a trip to the worlds southern pole Antarctica 
it isn’t my favorite trip of all time but I still really liked the landscapes, the uniqueness of the location and not to mention those cute playful penguins 
Ever since then I’ve been trying to seek a trip to the other polar pole, the arctic where I get to hang out with polar bears! 
I really liked my time in the south so I was pretty excited to find a good itinerary to get myself to the north to say that I’ve been to the 2 poles on earth 
Arctic flights are slightly easier to find than Antarctic flights, on my trip 2 years ago I had to go from Miami 
to Buenos Aires, Argentina 
then to Ushuaia before catching a ship passing the Drake Passage to get there. This time I only have one city to reach before catching my ship and that is beautiful but cold Reykjavik, Iceland 
but there’s a small issue, there are currently no flights between South Florida 
and KEF although MIA service is coming in October.
But there is another airport in the state of Florida 
that have flights to take us up there and that is Orlando! 
normally, I wouldn’t be thrilled to fly out of MCO since I don’t like their terminals AT ALL in fact when I was 17, I made a promise to myself that I’d never go to MCO and would rather seek an alternative in Tampa or in SoFlo but things have changed since then, they have built a new terminal much better than the old ones and the best part is that it’s dedicated to international flights meaning my Reykjavik flight would be leaving out of there so I changed my promise to only fly out of MCO if it’s out of the new terminal but enough rambling, let’s get to Orlando and get this trip started!
It’s 2 and a half hour drive from Palm Beach to MCO and there was NO way I’d drive that luckily every Floridians favorite train system, the Brightline exists and has been operating to Mickey Mouse land for some time. So after a 2 and a half hour train journey on the Frightline, we have made it to Orlando International Airport’s fairly brand new terminal c and my goodness is it STUNNING 
I’d say it looks better than MIAs concourse J but it’s comparing a terminal from 2022 than one from 2007. I checked in online but I’m traveling with 2 CHECKED bags carrying all the winter clothes I’ll be needing up in the arctic. Southwest would’ve been pretty handy right now but they’re removing the 2 free checked bag policy so it doesn’t even matter anyways. Now security was definitely the biggest problem I had with MCO as during peak hours it can easily take 1 hour but this new terminal has a much better checkpoint and with pre check of course. It didn’t take that much time maybe like 10 minutes. Now my next mission before boarding my flight is to find some food for those unaware, Icelandair is a hybrid carrier which means it provides SOME benefits low cost carriers wouldn’t like IFE, Wi-Fi or plugs but not ALL the ones a full service carrier would like free hot meals. I found a nice place selling some quesadillas and ate a chicken quesadilla which I really liked and to no surprise, on my way to the gate a found COUNTLESS stores selling Mickey Mouse products with only one promoting Universal, one of the other theme parks in the Orlando Area but it was time to make my way to the gate!
FLIGHT INFO:
Origin: Orlando Intl 
(KMCO)
Destination: Keflavik (BIKF)
Flight Time: 6:43
Boeing 757-200 (Icelandair)
Sever: Expert
When I booked this flight, I was expecting to be on one of their new Boeing 737MAX8s which would’ve been interesting to see how I’ll handle a flight around the same length of New York JFK
and London Heathrow, UK 
on a very controversial plane, but at the last minute we were swapped to a much more dated Boeing 757-200 registered TF-FIV delivered to Icelandair in March 2001. 2 things one, this aircraft used to be painted in the Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions livery which was just the normal livery with the AL&E logo on the tail and one the fuselage where “Icelandair” would be and second of all, while I’d be sad about some equipment swaps I’m actually kind of happy this one happened as I’ve always wanted to fly on a 757 again as they’re pretty much on life support nowadays and being able to fly one on a long a thin route like MCO → KEF in 2025? count me in!
Icelandair’s B752s have 184 seats in a 2 class configuration. Unfortunately I boarded through door 2L so I didn’t get to see the 20 Saga Premium seats utilizing Aviointeriors Andromeda recliners in a 2-2 configuration. I’ll be seated in 28A, one of the 164 economy seats utilizing Aviointeriors Columbus slimlines in a 3-3 configuration. Waiting for me on the seat were pillows and blankets which is alway good for an overnight flight! The seat itself was pretty comfortable with a decent amount of leg space and the seats were fitted with IFE screens this is the benefits over low cost airline part of Icelandair, you’ll see the other half later! But in order to get there, we’ll have to pushback and taxi out to MCOs runway 35L for take off!
Fittingly for Central Florida, the Boeing 757-200 is pretty much a rocket ship
so we BLASTED away from MCO maybe running over a mouse on the runway, sorry Mickey if we harmed one of your relatives.
We reached 10,000ft crossing the space coast of Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral with a dot resembling @MyGoal_isNASA down at Kennedy Space Center!
We reached our cruising altitude of 37,000ft over the Atlantic with the crew beginning the inflight service just south of North Carolina.
this is the point where the not full service part of Icelandair shows, everything that is a food costs extra, the only free things we’ll be getting tonight are soft drinks which I just ordered a Pepsi. The crew were also in a very friendly mood constantly in the aisle taking orders for those who actually purchased food and one even told me it was her DREAM to come to Disney and it happened on her BIRTHDAY, I guess WDW is the most magical place on earth 5 stars to them! 
The IFE system is also pretty solid containing a good amount of movies and TV shows, I’ve watched the Barbie movie COUNTLESS times at this point whether it be in the air or on the ground. What I haven’t seen is Oppenheimer another movie that came out in the same period as Barbie and was kind of like a “competitor” and since I saw it on the IFE as well, I decided to give it a watch! Viasat Ka-band satellite Wi-Fi is also available unlike some low cost carriers but for a fee that I avoided of course. Plugs can also be found unlike some other ULCCs so that’s definitely a plus.
All I really did was watch the movie and look out over the east coast and try to make out the cities we passed by.
The movie ended as we made our way towards Long Island and I made out some little lights which seemed to be New York’s JFK airport! At this point I was exhausted and decided to take nap for some time.
I slept pretty decently for an old aircraft like the B757 only being woken up by a crew member passing by with a another buy on board service just a bit south of Greenland
Coffee 
thankfully was free as well so I got one as I had a pretty long day once I got to Reykjavik.
After a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory! It was soon time to begin our approach into Reykjavik, we flew in a north east direction towards the city before making a slight right to turn to line up for KEFs RWY 10. We did have a small issue on our approach however, we were granted our descent permission pretty late so we had to go from 37,000ft to 0ft and 300 knots less than 150 miles from the airport which wasn’t ideal thankfully a holding pattern saved us from a REALLY STEEP descent. 
As we entered final for KEFs RWY 10, the sun soon began to rise and it was really nice to see this over the beautiful but not quite icy Icelandic landscape!
TOUCHDOWN! Welcome to cold
Reykjavik, Iceland! now I didn’t have the highest expectations for Icelandair especially since I heard about their hybrid business model but it was still a good flight, the crew were nice, seats were comfortable, IFE was sufficient and the presence of power ports were a plus. My only gripe was the food not being free for economy but I pretty much expected this from a hybrid carrier but I will have to try their offerings next week on my flight from Keflavik back to Orlando but I’ll definitely choose to fly Icelandair again especially after they launch Miami flights in a few months!
We parked at a remote stand in the cold chilly weather which I kind of was prepared for but not quite, a bus soon arrived and took us to the terminal where everybody but ME went on to connecting flights as lots of people use Icelandair and competitor PLAY as a transfer to reach other cities in Europe not served nonstop from
the U.S.
and like to avoid major hubs like Heathrow, CDG, and Frankfurt. As different as it is, I felt like an outcast ending my trip in Reykjavik rather than continuing on I feel like along with not buying food I missed out on the full Icelandair experience. But because of this, passport control 
was very light and I had the whole baggage claim area to myself which is a good thing as it wasn’t the quickest experience, but I soon collected my bags and got into my rental car to kill some time exploring Reykjavik and the surrounding areas before Monday morning as we board the ship taking us to the Arctic!
That will be it regarding this flight on Icelandair’s Boeing 757-200 in Economy class from Orlando to Reykjavik, Iceland stay tuned for the return flight where I’ll hopefully be on a MAX8 this time and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 
Oh and one more thing, @Waxyscorpion308 summon
stamp of Approval!
give it extra points?