Connecting From Etihad’s First Apartment To … Ryanair?!

When I booked my Etihad First Apartment class award ticket, I knew I just needed to find the right flight to get back to Greece. Yes, I could have added another flight to get me from London to Greece as a part of my award ticket, but I needed a flight that was not available as a oneworld option. So, I started checking out my options.

The Plan

I am only going to be in London for the day as I have just a couple of things to do there before heading back to Greece. Plus, I actually needed to arrive back in Greece that same day. Having those two factors in my planning only pointed to one option – and that was a flight on Ryanair. I have heard and read enough about Ryanair to feel like I already know it, but the closest thing I have experience to it would be easyJet.

While Ryanair is always an option on certain routes for me, Aegean has done a great job of keeping the prices almost exactly the same so that the decision for me has been a no-brainer. But, this time Aegean will not work for me so I will be finally boarding Ryanair. The price was too good to pass up and it was a non-stop so it worked perfect for me.

Booking my Ryanair flight took me a couple of times backing up through the process as they have some add-ons actually set for defaults and I have to select to remove them. While I could have added a couple of the options – such as the “premium” seat selection – I have instead opted to take the cheap, no-frills avenue.

I really have no problem flying Ryanair. I like that I can fly 3 hours on an airplane for around $35 – that is just unbelievable to me! (Actually, even more unbelievable is that I only paid about $35 in taxes and 40,000 miles for Etihad’s First Apartment!) Sure, I cannot recline and the comfort level is not going to be what I may be used to in economy on other carriers, but it is only 3 hours. Totally doable, right? 🙂

The Real “Problem”

Going from 8 hours in this…

… to 3 hours on this 🙂
Photo by RuthannOC / flickr

But, how bad is the experience going to seem since the no-frills of Ryanair is going to be magnified after flying aboard Etihad’s First Apartment class – probably the best first class seat in the skies (ignoring the Residence cabin for a moment)? Am I really going to enjoy the Ryanair experience after having just flown for 8 hours in the Etihad Apartment? 🙂

On a serious note, any Ryanair flyers have advice for me on the flight experience? Like, how much do they scrutinize the carry-on size/weight (carrying a backpack), when is the best time to check-in (I know you can check-in from up to 30 days before the flight), boarding process, check-in process, etc?

Is this going to be the strangest flight combination ever?  So, which one would you like the review on? 🙂