Europe - Part 2 (Ryan Air)

  Let me begin with a warning: If something seems too good (or too cheap) to be true...it is.  And remember Murphy? Whose law I referenced in an earlier blog? He was IRISH.
 
  Ryan Air seems like a GREAT deal if you judge by price alone.  In fact it IS a great deal if you can fly with little or no luggage.  If, on the other hand, you are using Ryan Air for connections in the midst of a two-week European vacation for which you have MAXIMIZED your one free piece of checked baggage (ie, it tips the scale at 49.9 lbs) you may not emerge from your Ryan Air experience convinced it was a great deal. 

  When you check in for your Ryan Air flight online and in advance you designate how many pieces of luggage you intend to check and whether your luggage falls into the category of less than 15 kilograms (kg) or less than 20 kg.  (For the metric challenged, 50 lbs is approximately 22 kg). You will pay for any checked luggage, but the fee is comparable to other airline baggage fees.

  However, if you misjudge the weight of your luggage to be checked, or are blissfully unaware of the limitations until the time of check in, and it weighs heavy you may find yourself, as we did, with all your belongings spread out on the floor of the airport frantically repacking.

  Looking back on the scene now, it seems a little humorous, but trust me when I say, at the time, none of us was smiling.

  The staff at Ryan Air's check-in desk at Rygge (Oslo's OTHER airport) were helpful and friendly. They warned us that our overweight bags would be extremely costly and allowed us to use a nearby scale to repack and weigh each bag until we achieved 4 bags under the proscribed limits.  Unfortunately, that left enough of our belongings to fill a 5th bag.  Because the limitations on cabin or carry-on baggage (10 kg) are even more strict than those for checked baggage, we could not simply carry on the extra. 

  So, we packed the excess into an extra carry-on bag and prepared to check it.  Of course it wasn't as simple as carrying it back to the check-in desk and swiping a credit card.  We had to cross the airport (which was thankfully tiny) to the air freight desk and pay there for the bag before carrying it back to check it in.  This was going to cost us dearly.  Two hundred dollars, to be exact, for that single carry-on sized, 15kg bag. OUCH!

  However, in the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't exorbitant because when we added up all we paid for the tickets and the luggage and divided it between the four travelers it came out to less than $150 per person.  Still a good deal, even if not quite as great as it originally seemed.

  And, like most lessons learned the hard way, not without comedic value. That said, I will never again fly an unfamiliar airline without reading ALL the fine print.