I booked a Ryanair flight, What Do I Do Now?

I loved flying with Ryanair. I'm sure by now you've heard all the horror stories about flying with Ryanair, rightly so, Ryanair is a low budget, no frills airline that is designed to get you from point A to point B for the cheapest price possible. Sure it's not the most glamorous airlines, and yes, if you want anything extra (like a drink or a snack), you will be paying for it. But if you're smart about it, can you really object to 20€ pp RT tickets? (That's not always the case, but specials run all the time, you just have to be on the lookout.)

So your trip is coming up and you're unsure of what needs to be done, here's a guide and FAQ to keep you informed about flying with Ryanair.

+ Check in starts 24 hrs before your flight
You must check in online. It's not an option. There are no check in counters at the airport. They will charge you if they have to check you in. You'll be able to check in for your return flight as well, so no need to worry about that.

+ Print your boarding passes
Ryanair hasn't gone green like other airlines. If you don't print your boarding passes, you WILL be charged a fee, per unprinted boarding pass. I've heard someone be charge up to 60€ and wasn't even given a real pass! (Don't be that horror story.)

**When printing boarding passes, you DON'T need A4 paper (A4 is the European paper size to our 8x11). Make sure to change your printer setting to A4 margins and you'll be fine. (It makes it easier for the scanner to read it)

NOTE: Ryanair recently started using mobile boarding passes, (EU citizens ONLY)

+ Should I worry about buying seats?
Like most airlines, if you want to pick your seats you'll get a charge. If you're travelling as a group or as a family, Ryanair assigns you seats for free now! (no need to rush to the airport to make sure you're at the front of the line) They say that there is no guarantee that you'll be seated next to one another, but so far, I've never been separated from my party.

**Note: If you're buying your tickets separately, chances are you won't be sitting next to one another.

+ How strict are their baggage rules?
Honestly, it depends on the attendents. You are allowed one carry on (55cm x 40 cm x 20 cm) and one personal item (35cm x 20cm x 20cm) I've seen larger carry on rolly suitcases on the plane, and I've seen suitcases that are the right size be told that it would have to be checked.
If you don't want to pay for a bag, it's simple, use a duffle bag, they're adjustable and you can fit as much as you want in them.

+ What if I want to check a bag?
If you want to check a bag, when checking in, make sure you purchase it in advance. You will be paying double at the airport.

+ Should I pay for parking/hotels/transfers through Ryanair?
When searching, I found that it was cheaper to do everything not with Ryanair. If you're not sure, make sure to shop around first. It's always nice to save a few bucks when going on vacation.

+ There's a mistake on my ticket
You can call with in 24 hours of your ticket being assigned and they will change it for free. CLICK HERE, for the numbers

+  At the Airport:
- Non EU citizens, must get their passports checked, and boarding passes stamped at the counter. They won't let you through security without it.
- Baggage drop off closes 40 minutes before departure

Flying with Ryanair or any low-budget airlines doesn't have to be any different from any other time you've flown. Just remember these helpful hints, and everything you know about flying, and your trip will be easy as can be.

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Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Ever heard of the country of Liechtenstein? It's a itty bitty country in between Switzerland and Austria, with ~36,000 people and only 62 square miles! Most of the people are located in the country's capital, Vaduz or in the nearby town of Schaan. Since Vaduz is the capital, we decided to check it out.  

Honestly, if we weren't looking for it, we would've driven right through it and had no idea. Before we reached Vaduz, we were literally straddling the border!

The most prominent landmark of Vaduz is Vaduz Castle, the home of the reigning prince of Liechtenstein and the Liechtenstein princely family. The castle is visible from almost any location in Vaduz, being perched atop a steep hill in the middle of the city.

The castle underwent a major restoration between 1904 and 1920, then again in the early 1920s during the reign of Prince Johann II, and was expanded during the early 1930s by Prince Franz Joseph II. Since 1938, the castle has been the primary residence of Liechtenstein's Princely Family. Unfortunately, the castle is not open to the public as the royal family still lives in the castle. 

 I was upset to find out that the castle isn't open, but it was still a beautiful castle to visit. You can either walk up to the castle, or drive up and park and walk down a couple blocks. We ended up doing the latter, I would suggest doing this as well since the parking lot is fairly close.

The point of stopping off in Vaduz was to break up our trip down to Switzerland. Since the castle was closed to visitors, we decided to head to the downtown area. It is literally one main street, food, shops, souvenir stands, T.I. It is all located in this area. I can't seem to find my pictures on it. But if you're in the area, it is worth taking a stop, especially if you need proof that you've actually visited Liechtenstein, because if you blink, you might miss it!

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Lisbon, Portugal

Ever heard of Lisbon, Portugal? No? Yeah, me either. Not until I started looking at places to go in Portugal. Did you know that Lisbon is Portugal's capital? I don't know why more people don't know  about Lisbon, because it is a beautiful city!

After picking up our rental car in Porto, we headed straight down to Lisbon. Since Lisbon is 2 hrs away from Porto we wanted as much time as possible in the city.

Since we arrived earlier than we thought, we weren't able to check into to our apartment, so instead we parked the car and decided to walk into town.

Lisbon is such a colorful city. We must have taken over a hundred photos in the first day! If you ever go to Lisbon I dare you not to take photos around every corner!

Our apartment was located near the Alfama. The Alfama is the colorful sailors' quarter that dates back to the age of Visigoth occupation, from the 6th to 8th centuries AD. During the Moorish period it was a bustling district, before it became home to Lisbon's fisherman and mariners The Alfama's tangled street plan is one of the few features of Lisbon to survive the 1755 earthquake.

On our way down to the main square, we passed the Lisbon Cathedral. It's absolutely beautiful on the outside! There are a lot of tour guides with little 3-wheeled cars, looking to take people around the city. They didn't seem badly priced but we were looking for a place to eat and didn't want to stop.

We ended up at the Praça do Comérico (Trade Square) - it is a riverfront square that borders the Baixa, ships used to dock and sell their good. The locals call this place "Palace Square", it was the site of Portugal's royal palace for 200 years before the earthquakes. These days government ministries surround the Praça do Comérico.

In the middle of the square is the statue is of King José I. He was the man who gave control of the government to Pombal who rebuilt the city after the earthquake. Built 20 years after the quake, it shows the king on his horse looking at their port.

Another main attraction in the square is the Rua Augusta Arch. It is a triumphant stone arch-like historical building and visitor attraction. It is located in Commerce Square, it was built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake.

By the time we made it down to the square, it was time to turn around and check into our apartment, so we started the journey uphill back to the apartment. I rented an apartment through booking.com, it was such a cute apartment, free parking (street parking) although the outside was pretty shady- the inside was adorable.

We had the top floor apartment, which gave us a great view of the city and the April 25th bridge (aka the Golden Gate Bridge's twin) The apartment was for 4 people and it was 76 euros for 2 nights! I love apartments. I wish I felt better about airbnb because that's just the way to travel!  By renting an apartment we were able to save money by making breakfast and dinner- even though eating at restaurants in Portugal is pretty cheap.

After getting settled into our hotel, we decided to drive down to the monument, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, it is a concrete monument to maritime explorers. We found parking next to the Jeronimos Monastery, which is a a World Heritage Gothic Monastery. I wouldn't worry about being able to find a spot down there, there were lots of places to park.

The Jeronimos Monastery was build by King Manuel it is made up of white limestone and stretches 300 yards along the Lisbon waterfront. It serves as a thank you for the discoveries made by the early Portuguese explorers. Manuel built the church on the site of a humble chapel where sailors spent their last night ashore in prayer before embarking on frightening voyages. Of course half of it was covered in scaffolding! That's just the price we pay for travelling in the off season.

We followed the crowd of people to the underground walkway. Unlike in Paris, we didn't try to run across the busy street, although we joked about it later. (For those that don't know the story, when we visited Paris, we didn't know there was an underground staircase, and Drew and I ran across the round-a-bout of the Arch de Triumph... which is one of the busiest traffic circles in Europe!)

At the base of Padrão dos Descobrimentos, there is a world map showing everywhere Portuguese explores traveled.

If you look out to the river, you'l notice that Lisbon has it's own Golden Gate Bridge, it's called the 25th of April bridge.  It is 1.5 miles and one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. The foundations are 260 feet below the surface, making it the world's deepest bride! It was built by the same company who built the Golden Gate Bride in 1966. It was originally named for dictator Salazar, but was renamed in 1974 for the date of Portugal's revolution and liberation.

Across the bridge you'll see that Lisbon also has a Christ Rei (Christ of Majesty) which is a mini version of the "Christ the Redeemer" monument in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lisbon is just a mix of everything! How can you not love this place?!

The Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument was pretty impressive. We talked about heading to the top of the monument, but we weren't sure if we had to climb stairs and pay a fee, and if there's one thing I hate more than heights, it's stairs. (For future reference, you don't have to climb stairs! For 3 Euros there's an elevator that will take you to the top)

From the Padrão dos Descobrimentos we decided to walk down to the white Belém Tower. By this time I was starving and we stopped off at a street vendor for a, HOT DOG. A hot dog in Portugal? I know it sounds weird, but it was amazing! Interestingly enough, Lisbon has street food vendors all over the place, and they apparently LOVE hot dogs!

It's a bacon-cheddar hot dog with crispy onions!!

The walk down to the Belém Tower looks like it would be a short one, but it ended up taking longer than I thought, maybe the jet-lag was kicking in? At the time I thought it was a castle, but after further research I found out that it was built to protected Lisbon's harbor. Today it symbolizes the voyages that made Lisbon powerful with carved stone representing ropes, Manuel's coat of arms, armillary spheres, and shields with the cross of Manuel's military, called the Order of the Cross. This was the last sight the sailors saw as they left and the first as they returned loaded with gold, spices, and diseases.

Once we got to Belém Tower, my feet were aching and all I wanted to do was sit and take a little break. Since Drew loves military museums and monuments, he walked over to Museu do Combatente (Combatant Museum) to see the Aos Combatentes do Ultramar (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), which is right next to the Belém Tower.

Because the sun started to set, we decided to head back to the car and head back to the apartment, since we were both feeling a little lazy, we decided to walk around and see if we could find a restaurant that had something we might want. We ended up stopping at the first restaurant! For 40 euros total, Drew and I had appetizers, a 3 course dinner, and a pitcher of Sangria! You really can't go wrong with that, and the food was great! If you're a fan of seafood, you'll LOVE Lisbon, they have fantastic seafood at VERY reasonable prices.

The night before we left Lisbon, we decided to head to São Jorge Castle. We heard that it was the best place to watch the sun set. I'm still bitter about this... we got to the ticket booth as the security guard closed the door, and when we tried to open it, it was locked. I guess we annoyed the guard when we tried to open it because he opened the door with an attitude and said that it was closed! If we had gotten there 10 seconds before hand we would've made it! We were both a little bitter, but I took it as a blessing since that was the night Drew rolled his ankle in Sintra! Still, that didn't stop Drew from hopping a fence and climbing on top of the castle's gate to try and get a picture of what we would have seen, had we got in to the castle.

To the top-right of this picture, you can see people standing in the Castle court-yard. As you can kinda tell from the picture, it really would have offered great views of the sunset.

The next morning, we packed up our things and headed off to Porto. Looking back I wish we would've stayed a little bit longer in Lisbon, but I can honestly say I enjoyed Lisbon. If you've ever been to San Francisco and loved it, you'll love Lisbon. Drew loved Lisbon so much, I can't wait to show him how awesome San Francisco is!

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Brussels, Belgium

It's taken me a while to write this post, mostly because I got some advice about watermarking my photos and after I edited them, I had to go back in and watermark, it was quite an extensive process. But I finished and seem to have gotten the hang of it.

Brussels has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember. When my sister was in college she did a study-aboard trip and lived in Brussels for a bit. I remember being super jealous. I can't believe it's taken us this long to make the trip.

Since hotel's in Brussels were the cheapest, we decided to use it as our home base. We stayed at the Newhotel Chrlemagne. We chose to stay there because it had everything we were looking for, Free Parking, Wifi, and no pet-fee. So we were able to bring Rylie with us for free. Usually, I try to look for a hotel with breakfast, but I couldn't find one within our budget. But it all worked out because we picked up breakfast supplies at Ramstein Air Base that lasted the weekend.

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Bruges, Belgium

After our exciting day in Luxembourg, then checking out the night life in Brussels, we headed off to Bruges. Funny story, we didn't set an alarm clock because Rylie always wakes Drew up by 9am on the weekends, this time, she didn't even bother to wake us up. I woke us up because I had to pee! Guess we wore her out the day before.

After eating our sandwiches (we picked up groceries before heading to our hotel, it's a great idea if you wanna save some money, especially if your hotel doesn't have free breakfast) we grabbed our backpacks and Rylie of course and headed off to Bruges.  

Luckily Bruges is only a 1.5 h drive away. We've been planning this trip for a while and I'm a big fan of Rick Steves, in his book he suggests parking at the main bus station and catch the free Bus into the city. The best thing about it is that for 24 hours it's only 3.10 euros to park. Finding parking may be the tricky part. I think a lot of people know the secret, but we've we were lucky enough to catch someone in the front row who was leaving.

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