The Ryanair Experience.

If you haven't heard of Ryanair, it is a budget airline that operates in Europe. The service offers astounding air fares from as low as one Euro, but there's a catch. (Of course) First of all passengers are only allowed one carry on item free of charge, and the size limitations are strict. Here you can see the size restriction on the Ryanair website. The other catch is that most airports that Ryanair operate out of are not major airports and they are several miles away from the destination cities. For example I took my flight from Barcelona to Pisa. The airport that I flew out of was actually in Girona, which is about an hour away from Barcelona. I had to take the bus there, and because my flight was leaving early I arrived a day early and stayed the night at a hotel next to the airport.  It was a nice place, but I'll leave a review later.

     Many reviews I have read about Ryanair tell of customer service nightmares and overbooked flights. Using Ryan air could be a gamble, but if you follow the instructions from their website the risk of something bad happening will be reduced a bit. The most important things to remember is to follow the baggage specification, be sure to bring the boarding pass you print out from your computer, and remember that you will be charged for any extra baggage. Rather then tell of other peoples experiences on Ryanair I will share my own, that's what I'm here for right?

      I booked my flight online from Ryanair's website and I bought a round trip ticket from Barcelona (Girona) to Pisa. The ticket was about 20 Euro each way (about 55 dollars) with taxes and surcharges I paid just over one hundred dollars all together. After you book the flight you have to print the e-ticket. You will need to go back to the website to accomplish the online check-in. This can be completed up to 14 days before your flight. You can do it from any computer. Like I said earlier I took the bus to the Girona airport and stayed at a hotel next to there. I have to admit that my journey going to Pisa was smooth. I made it through the security checkpoint without hassle and my flight was on-time. I had bought a medium size back pack especially because of the baggage policy. I was relieved to see that it fit in the measuring cage placed at the boarding gate. Aside from the overly expensive food the flight was fine.Things got interesting on the return trip however. I arrived back at Pisa early in the morning. It was cold and foggy. I did everything like I had when on the way over. I met some American students and decided to hang out with them in line. At about the time our plane was supposed to board an announcement came over the loud speaker. The announcer spoke too fast, and there was too much distortion over the speaker for me to hear the message accurately. From what I gathered from everyone around me is that the flight would not be able to fly out of Pisa and we would have to be bused to another city. After about a half hour I found out that we woul be shuttled to Genoa, which was about two and a half hours away. Now this didn't surprise me since I had read several reviews about such occurrences, and I didn't mind too much since I would have the chance to see some parts of Italy that I hadn't had the chance to see. The biggest inconvenience was waiting for everyone to take their seat on the bus. Everyone was talking  and chatting as though they had nowhere to be. The bus ride was beautiful. I saw much of the of the snow capped appenine mountains, and we drove through Cinque terre which is a cluster of hill towns, with house covering the hilltops.

While most others were sleeping on the ride, I was wide awake looking at all the wonders passing me by. When we nearing our destination the hills gave way a little bit and we passed many riviera style beach towns. I was realizing that a return trip would be necessary to see the rest of Italy. I had only scratched the surface if that. We finally had arrived to Colombo airport in Genoa, and we had to go through the process of the security checkpoint once again. The upside is that it was sunny and a bit warmer in Genoa.

   Once the process was over we had boarded our plane, and at last

I was feeling more than eager to be on my way back to Barcelona. I was
tired, and looking forward to some sunshine. We had finally received an official explanation of why we were moved to Genoa; Pisa was experiencing freezing fog, and planes can't fly through moisture in freezing temperatures. Alas, more problems  before we were to depart. A man looked to be having chest pains, I thought to myself that we would be on the ground for another hour if he was having a heart attack. Thankfully he seemed to get better after a glass of water. Soon a frustrated flight attendant was able to finally get everyone to sit down, and we were off to Spain. Little more occurred on the way back, I was home free and back to what felt like home. So
Ryanair was definitely an unforgettable experience. Will it be the same for you? I doubt it, but you can expect some surprises and hopefully they will be no worse than what happened to my flight. If you would like to share your experience please leave a comment below.