My family flew from Dublin (DUB) to Stewart (SWF) on April 29th with Norwegian and the A330 operated by Evelop! In the interest of helping a few other travelers, here is a summary of our experience and a little advice.


Dublin Airport Check in
I am from Dublin and am pretty familiar with DUB Terminal 2, I will just mention a few things that stood out on account of this trip. We arrived at about 11.50 for our 14.30 flight. Usually I would be happy with arriving 2 hours early but I was really glad I got there early. Due to the consolidation of the M8 flights onto just one A330, the airport was jammed. In addition to that, the only other Norwegian flight is at 14.40 to Hamilton CA so the Norwegian team is pretty overwhelmed during this period (be nice to them!). When we got there, there was already a massive line of people waiting to check in. You might be thinking, that’s fine I will check in online and deal with carry-on only… No such luck, you must check in at the airport. Despite the length of the line, it moved pretty quickly. They had eventually opened 10 check in desks by the time I got to the head of the line. We were not checking any bags, but those who were, seemed to be busy unpacking and repacking to meet the limits. A cool feature I noticed in T2, which I have never seen before, is that there is a charity clothes bank right near the check in/repack area, so if you are over limit, at least some good can come of it. They offered to check our cabin bags for free which is think is a great option for most but for this trip we declined. Whole experience took about 50 minutes.


Dublin Airport Security and Pre-clearance (PC)
Normal security is pretty easy and fast in T2, we cleared in 20 minutes. There are lots of food and shopping options available just beyond the checkpoint. Many don’t seem to know, you will actually clear US immigration and boarder control in Dublin before you get on the plane. This is awesome as it basically means that when the plane departs, it is essentially a domestic US flight and the rest of you trip will be like a flight from BOS to LAX. Despite this being awesome, it is a little confusing. First of all, there is basically no food or entertainment on the other side of PC. If you are hungry, eat before heading down to PC, but you have to allow time to get through (maybe 45 minutes before boarding time). The first step in PS is actually TSA. Yep, you do security again. It is a little more lax than stateside TSA, they allow you to bring bottled liquids through and they only scan your stuff (not you). But other silliness like removing shoes is in force. Once you get beyond TSA, you go to Customs and Border Protection (Patrol?) which is a combined check for passport and and customs declaration. There is a facility for “global entry” if you have that. CP took about 25 minutes in total, and most of that time was for TSA. At the gate you can grab a coffee, buy selective duty free, and grab the cheap €1 Plane-waters (great idea DUB!).


Boarding
Boarding was pretty orderly. The area where you board is designed for larger jets, so there is no cramming of people at the gate. The boarding passes had groups, but they never used them, they just boarded by row. Went pretty smoothly. We were in the “cone” of the plane in row 9, so we boarded last. I did realize that no one seemed surprised by the change of plane, I am impressed that Norwegian had communicated this stuff so clearly.


The Jet
The plane was very clean. The staff were very welcoming as we boarded and they looked very professional. There was ample overhead luggage space available, so I think lots of people took advantage of the option to check their carry-on. The entertainment system was simple but effective. It only became operable once we started to taxi, and quickly stopped for the safety video (which is an unpretentious gem by the way). Movie selection was poor, as was tv show options. The system takes a regular earphone jack (unlike the Aerlingus and TAP A330s I recently flew) but NO EARPHONES were provided and I never heard any mention of selling them either. The USB socket was powerful enough to keep my device charged but you do not want to depend on this to charge a dead device. Ultimately I watched entertainment on my own device but I think I could have easily killed the time with the options provided. Seats are leather(ette) and are ROCK hard. I am 6 foot tall and the head rest was too low when fully raised to be useful and the seat pitch is tight. The random guy sitting in the window seat beside me (9L) had to deal with an entertainment box under the seat in front of him so we were banging knees for 6 hours. My kids (12, 9, 7) were fully entertained with the entertainment system throughout. The screen in seat 9G was broken.


The flight
The food service was a Norwegian experience. Same food options as I have seen posted elsewhere. We did not order meals, but the food that I saw looked as good as it usually does on airplanes. Once pre-purchased meals were distributed, they crew came through a second time selling snacks and drinks. They only accept cards, and you prices are in EUR. Bought a coffee for €3, it was fine. Through the grace of good fortune, the lady in front of me did NOT tip her seat back. I think a night flight going in the opposite direction could be tough for those that are on the larger side.


Arrival
Easy! Out of the plane and into my car within 15 minutes of touching down.

Hope that helps!

I took screenshots of all the available content in the infotainment system. I can’t post urls here, but you can search for the shots easily on imgur using the title “Evelop! A330 Infotainment DUB-SWF”. Someone with more posts can feel free to post the link here on my behalf.

Didn’t fly out of SWF so can’t help there. TSA pre was not applicable in DUB. FWIW it was useless flying to Portugal last week out of Newark on TAP too.