Review of InterCaribbean Airways flight from St. George’s to Bridgetown in Economy

Intro

Spending a couple of days in Grenada, drinking under-the-counter rum, going viral on Tiktok, glamping, and snorkeling underwater statues, it was time to leave. Probably for the best, since if I stayed, I might never have left😂. I friggin love this island in the Caribbean 

If you are looking for a cool place to stay in Grenada, I highly recommend Glamping Grenada. The accomodation is lovely, and the host it one of the nicest humans I have ever met.

Amazing

Looking for a nice beachbar in St George's? Check out Umbrella! Just avoid under the counter unless you want to lose brain cells haha

Snorkelling? Head to the beach and pay 60$ for a half day tour to snorkel with underwater statues. 

Enough about Grenada, let's get into the flight lol. The next portion of the great Caribbean/Africa adventure would see me flying from St George's in Grenada to Bridgetown, Barbados, on InterCaribbean Airways onboard a vintage Embraer EMB 120.

Before taking this flight, I was worried if I was going to make my connection on Jetblue leaving the day after. I have read horrific reports of airlines online, but none worse than TripAdvisor for InterCaribbean Airways. Surprisingly, the flight left early (too early) and ended up landing 32 minutes ahead of schedule. Even if we were early, this whole airline is a mess from what I have heard, and I would personally avoid it if I were you. Let's explore why and the experience!

How I Booked

Unfortunately, at the time of booking, there was only one flight available to get to Bridgetown. As of now, you can fly Virgin Atlantic (2-3x per week) between the destinations or Caribbean Airlines on their ATR72 daily (which I previously reviewed). However, due to InterCaribbean offering the only flight and not being able to book with miles, I had to shell out 178$ for a 172-mile flight… 

It is horrific, considering Virgin Atlantic and Caribbean Airlines are 2/3 of the price. 

Check-In

From the reviews that I had read online, I decided to get to the Grenada airport extra early. Thankfully, my most from glamping provided the free airport transfer which was a lovely touch!

I can tell you this: I was brutally hungover on this day due to the night prior. Although not in the way that you feel sick or irritable, under-the-counter rum makes you feel like you have just lost brain cells. 

The check-in area is extremely small, and I was able to find the InterCaribbean Airways counters in no time.

After a few minutes of waiting, it was my turn. This is where the fun began, as I was allowed to bring one personal item as well as a carry-onboard. InterCaribbean claimed that because they had switched the aircraft to an EMB 120, my bag would not fit (I have flown with this same bag on the same aircraft before). Then I pulled the stunt that lithium batteries were inside (I was not about to trust the airline with my bag), and eventually, I spoke with an agent who was very kind to me and offered to gate check it so I wouldn't have to pick it up at baggage claim in Barbados.

While the manager was very unfriendly, the agent who ended up negotiating with me was kind. 

Seeing as everyone had checked in for the B6 flight, and the other departures out of the airport were not until later, I was through immigration and security in no time.

Be aware there is pretty much nothing to do in this airport. I ended up heading upstairs since it was empty to get some work done.

Well, I almost missed my flight if it wasn't for a very kind lady. She had recognized me from the TikTok video I posted and was just checking on me to see if I had a nice time in Grenada. She advised me to go down to my gate early as InterCaribbean Airways has a tendency to close their boarding doors 20+ minutes before scheduled departure.

Wild to think I had 15 followers on Tiktok, never really used it before this trip. Posted one video of doing a shot of rum in Grenada and it went viral across the Caribbean. 

Boarding

Boarding commenced 45 minutes before our scheduled departure, and we were all collected in a group once we had our boarding passes scanned. 

From there, we were escorted out of the terminal and on a short walk to our plane. Of course, the standard "no pictures" applied to this with agents making it inherently clear🥴. How else am I supposed to make a review🥴.

I will be honest and say that the livery on this baby bird looks gorgeous. It's weird coming so close to a plane that is so small after being on some big jets previously. Much. much smaller than a 145 or even a 135. 

The Seat/Cabin

This is a proper barebones aircraft laid out in a 1-2 configuration. With less than 15 people onboard our flight today, I had the opportunity to spread out in one of the 2 pairings of seats. Everything was fine for a flight of this length, but I wouldn't want to be on this aircraft for longer than an hour. 

Departure

Well, why did we end up boarding so early? We ended up departing 27 minutes ahead of schedule!! Honestly, it felt like a flight in Africa (on smaller carriers) where the schedule doesn't really matter much (wait till you hear about Air Senegal soon). Would InterCaribbean have left without me if I hadn't gone to the gate early? 

Grenada doesn't have a taxiway to the end of the runway, meaning we had to cruise along the way to backtaxi. 

Eventually, those beautiful engines started roaring, and we were airborne by 12:57 pm local time. It's so weird looking out of the window and seeing such a small engine in comparison to a GE90. 

Gorgeous views.

The Flight

With wheels up to wheels down time of 40 minutes, you can guess what kind of service there was. The answer: none! It's wild to think that Thai Airways can provide a full meal service on a 48-minute flight on a widebody with 200 passengers. But 15 passengers can't even have water?? And service?? Also non-existent…

So, I decided to take a 5-minute nap right before we began our descent…

Arrival

About 35 minutes after takeoff from Grenada, Barbados came into sight. It was very weird to go from more of an unknown island to one of the most known islands in the Caribbean. 

We had a smooth touchdown at 1:34 pm local time, roughly 37 minutes after wheels up. Aren't the little flaps so cute🥰. 32 minutes early???

4 minutes later, we had pulled in right next to another Embraer that InterCaribbean flies. They swap these aircraft out quite frequently, by the way!

I picked up my bag from outside the plane and made my way to immigration, which was extremely efficient and even had electronic slips to speed up the process. 

Note to others: Barbados does not stamp passports anymore, but if you head through the immigration point and straight after take a left, they will give you a "tourism stamp" if you want one. 

Once out of the airport, I found the taxi stand easily and paid 70$ to go to the other side of town. More on that soon as I didn't realize just how expensive Barbados is (I should have done the research).