Hand baggage questions on Ryanair!

[anonymousbird]

Hello. I am doing what I always swore I would never do again, and am travelling with Ryanair for our family holiday.

Deep breath.

We are not checking in any luggage and I have looked at the cabin baggage allocations and happy we can manage to comply with sizes and weight. But two questions:

Will my DC's (5 and 4) be able to carry their teddies, or will they have to be stuffed into hand baggage (not the smallest teddies, would take up quite a bit of the bags)? I gather Ryanair are especially strict about no items in addition, and I get the whole handbag/laptop thing as they set out on their site, but wondered whether there would be any leniency at all for a child's soft toy,

and

Cannot see tweezers as an excluded item in the "sharp objects" bit, so assume I am ok to take those as well??

TIA if you can help on either of these.

I think it will depend on the mood of the people working that day! Seriously, I have had lenient staff and strict staff (have flown with Ryanair a lot)

Remember you might also be made to fit your handbag in your main bag too. I would make sure the teddies could fit into the bags if they had too, then would free them again on the plane.

I think tweezers would be fine.

Hmmm, I would be wary about taking the teddies tbh.

We have just used Ryanair (first time) to fly to and from Malta and they stressed that my handbag had to fit into my hand luggage (it did) and also when we bought some duty free it was also stressed then that it had to either be carried as someones had luggage or fit into existing. Luckily DH did not have any other hand luggage to carry.

Can I just say though that after flying long haul with Virgin the last 5 years - we love flying with them, we were quite impressed with them - considering all the comments that people made to me when I said who we were using. We just made sure we were at the boarding gate as soon as it was announced, we had no trouble getting sat together and the staff were very nice. We even arrived 25 minutes early into Malta and within 10 minutes were on our way to our hotel.

The only thing that actually spoilt it going both ways were two obnoxious passengers who had their heads up their arses!! One was not happy he had to wear his seatbelt whilst the captain left the flight deck to go to the toilet (passenger insisted that he wanted the toilet and why should he wait) and the other was wanting to get passed the stewardess whilst she was serving drinks to us - he just could not wait 2 mins.

Handbag is fine, have that covered - the bag itself folds up small so will pack it in, and then stuff we need quickly for flight will go in side pocket of hand luggage.

Re the teds, will try and see if we can leave enough room. They aren't huge, but just not tiny either.... sure we can do that. Actually, thinking about it, if they are packed for the airport part of the trip anyway might not be a bad thing - less chance of one of the dearly beloveds going missing en route!!!

We are travelling seriously light clothes wise and have bags not too much smaller than the maximum size allowed so I think it will work.

Thanks for your help.

On the subject of tweezers, I had mine taken off me at Luton airport. It was a few years ago though so you may be ok now, can you check the airport's website?

I would pack the teddy in the bags - my two dd's have flow to spain with ryan air and I measured the bags etc as getting a 20cm deep bag isn't easy - i told girls to put clothes on if quered.. the bags only weighed 3.9kg and 5kg so very light

washing/toiletries already out in spain as they are staying with granma

Yes really depends on the staff. We just flew with them lady week for the first time. On the way out had no problems, on way home they checked everyones hand luggage and nit one thing could be carried separately from the one piece of hand luggage your allowed.

In fact on way home they were awful, they are so strict on luggage/boarding passes and sting you for everything!!! Good you are being prepared.

Only travel with Ryanair if you can abide by all of their rules. Staff are on commission for every extra charge they can levy so they adopt a totally inflexible approach. They treat all passengers with equal contempt including elderly people, parents travelling with young children etc.

The most important thing is that your bag fits in the frame at the gate. If it doesn't, they'll charge you 35 euro to check it in.

It happened to me and my bag weighed only 5kg but the outside pocked on it prevented it fitting in the frame. My boarding card was immediately whisked out of my hand and the staff member went to the computer. Not sure what she was doing but I imagine she was logging my details so my credit card could be debited for the fee in the event that I claimed I couldn't pay.

My friend flew with them last week and the flight was delayed so they availed of the opportunity to ask each passenger to put their bag in the frame prior to boarding, including his 3 kids. Handy way of generating extra revenue.

And they are really strict about the 1 piece of hand luggage per person. It's clearly stated on the ticket and written in bold on the reminder email you get about checking in online.

Don't get caught out. It's really sickening to have to pay them any extra!

Tweezers will be taken off you.

I wouldn't risk tweezers either!

Can I just say I'm in admiration at someone who can pack lightly enough to take a family holiday just with hand luggage?

I had to sacrifice my tweezers and my (under 100ml) insect repellant spray when I flew last week. They were dear tweezers, too!

Just thought I'd say that no one at Ryanair took the slightest bit of notice of anyone's hand luggage on our flights. Every seat was taken, both ways, people bringing on whatever size luggage they wanted, as far as I could see, loads of extras for kids, ladies handbags etc etc. And there I was worrying about squeezing the teddies into the luggage!!!!

Anyway, they were utter shit, what should I expect, it is just such an awful all round experience, but we got there and we got back.

We agreed though, FFS, never ever again. Sleazy jet, all is forgiven, we are coming back!

They didn't take my tweezers!

I feel really guilty as we've just come back from faro ryanair (having gone there ryanair too...) and had a perfectly good experience. We were second on both times - having paid for priority boarding, so got nice seats all together - the crew were really lovely, the announcements didn't seem any worse than any other flight we've been on, the drinks were comparable prices and the whole thing was incredibly smooth. At faro, however, the entire queue was held up by a stupid family who had quite clearly exceeded the baggage allowance but were screaming their heads off at the poor lady on the desk. They were in the wrong It's quite simple, do what the small print says and it will all be fine! when we got to check in with our one suitcase (12kg) and our four hand luggage bags and smiled nicely as we handed over our pre printed boarding passes, she nearly cried with relief!

I think it's a no to the Tweezers. Pluck before you go! More importantly the Teddies must fly! In our experience if they are thoroughly kissed and hugged beforehand they do not mind in the least being squashed into bags. However I see that this will restrict your other packing/essentials. Could you fashion some sort of front worn baby sling/ scarf arrangement for your children to wear and to proudly carry the most essential teddies in?

Confused now, have you been and got back already?