Experiences flying Ryanair?

Yeah, our experience as well. Ryanair is a "discount carrier". What that appears to mean is that they make their money by forcing you to check bags, and paying a lot for those. We carried my camera bag on, and it was not weighed. The weight limits are pretty generous. Our normal carryon bags (too large though for Ryanair) were well under the weight limits of Ryanair. The planes are fine, but there's a lot of selling of this and that. Nothing is free, not even water. That's OK - don't drink anything on the plane. We did have a nice cheese-ham sandwich, that was perfectly acceptable and not overpriced by aircraft standards.

It depends on how busy the flight is as to whether bags get measured (putting them in the sample bin) or weighing them. Ryanair have a reputation for squeezing every last cent out of travellers and therefore you must comply with their baggage rules or pay to have the bag checked in at the gate if you want to wing it, which will be more costly.

EasyJet have no weight restrictions and last time I looked flew Lisbon to the Azores. Not sure about Porto.

I use Ryanair a lot - and they do have a few "interesting" policies and a particularly obnoxious CEO.
That said, I continue to use them, nearly always based on price , with the expectation that if I am paying €30 for a flight, I don't expect 5* service and freebies.

Check in bags are expensive, and get more expensive as you get nearer the date of departure. A 15kg hold bag is often more expensive than a seat. I tend to fly with cabin baggage only - so get the "privilege" of selecting priority boarding - which allows me a roller bag and another small bag (normally my camera bag). If you are checking in bags, then there is no point in paying for priority - just be aware that your carry on luggage allowance is now for quite a small bag. (35cm x 20cm x 20cm - so 13.5 x 7.5 x 7.5 inchs)

Ryanair can be extremely picky. They have a reputation for draconian enforcement of their rules. Make absolutely sure you read their website and make note of check in policy, document policy, check in times and baggage allowances. I think there are extra check in requirements for non EU passports, boarding passes need to be printed (or downloaded) before you depart - having the airline print them costs about €40 a go. If last boarding is at XX:30, and you arrive at the gate at XX:31 they can, and often have denied passengers entry - even if the plane has been delayed.

As others have said, it is pretty much hard sell all the way - drinks, food, lottery tickets, duty free etc. - Sit back, grimace, and think how much money you saved by putting up with it.

Having now been very negative, I must say that much of my ability to travel over the past 15-20 years has been directly down to Ryanair and their budget competitors. Ryanair is technically the worlds largest international airline in that it flies more passengers between countries than any other (there are bigger airlines flying internationally, but many of their passengers are on domestic flights) - I don't have to like them, but they are cheap enough, and reliable enough that I will continue to use them.

I’ve flown Ryanair several times in recent years and their baggage policy has recently changed. Until this summer, I’ve been able to use my rolling carry on without paying. But, since June, their policy requires checking even that. I think you were smart to pay to check your bags. All that said, Lisbon airport is so busy, the staff has never given bags a second glance. And, I’ve never been asked to weigh anything in Lisbon. Smaller airports where the staff isn’t so rushed, they have been somewhat more picky, but still never asked to weigh anything.

I've flown them twice, the first time a number of years ago and it was terrible, the second time, 3 years ago and no different to your average BA European flight, we'd paid for checked luggage but when checking in I realised that I had only paid for two cases rather than the three that we had, fortunately the girl checking us in allowed it to go through with no extra charge!

The flight was fine, we had breakfast at the airport so no reason to buy food or drink on board. I don't buy duty free on any flight and I declined the offer to purchase a scratchcard. For a two hour flight from Bournemouth to Palma it was perfectly adequate although not cheap as it was during the school holidays.

One thing worth bearing in mind is checking which airport they actually use, some are often quite far from the city you intend to visit.

We flew RyanAir last year RT Frankfurt to Porto and back. Went ahead and paid for premium seating, which means we were guaranteed one of the 90 spots for carry-ons. Made sure my back-pack was under 8kg and strapped down tight. With the premium price, you can bring a 2nd small bag that fits under the seat. We certainly felt that the extra price was worth it. RyanAir doesn't have a 1st class section but this was as close it got. No one checked the size of our bag, though almost everyone else was getting checked. Not weight, but more the size of it.
With the extra price, it still only cost about 210€ total for 2 people, round trip. Quite the bargain and I would do it like this again.

Since you appear to have booked already, you may have missed out on the best options, but here goes:

The most adamant critics of Ryanair are the ones that either have gotten caught and had to pay, or irk at the thought of paying extra for something. Those people would rather pay $200 for a ticket that includes everything than $50 for a ticket and $50 to check a bag.

The best way to travel on Ryanair, with recent changes, is to book your ticket and immediately take the 6 euro/Pound "Priority" Option and pay to check a bag at 25 euro/pounds.

Priority gets you the option to take a 10 kg small carry on into the cabin (otherwise you check that for free) and a smaller personal item to put under the seat, which is all that is allowed otherwise. Both have size restrictions.

The checked bag gets you up to 20 kg and size is less of an issue.

Personally, if I am hauling everything for a 3 week trip, 10 kg carryon and an item smaller than a day bag is pushing the limits, especially if I have picked something up along the way. The cost of the seat plus 31 euro to me is still cheaper than many options and I have no worries.

As for checking, yes they do, both weight and size. I have noticed that effort and strictness varies, in the UK and Germany they tend to be strict, Croatia not so much, not sure about Portugal...but no need to risk it.

Careful with Ryanair after today's announcement by the airline that they are cutting 900 staff, mostly pilots.

We’ve only flown once. It was better than we expected. Get the priority boarding, I don’t remember them stopping any of us with priority and it was nice to get settled into our seat early. The plane was new and clean. They don’t have seat back pockets which bothered my husband. They did walk through selling stuff but wasn’t obnoxious as some people made it out to be. Do make sure you print your boarding pass and for our departure city we had to go to the check in counter to get some stamp, that was t written anywhere but someone told us when we were in the security line so got out and went to the counter. For the price, it was fine, we’d definitely fly them again.

We flew with Ryannair Krakow to Rome as they offered the only non stop to our destination. We paid for a very inexpensive pre boarding option, no check of or weighing our carry ons, but we checked our main bags, our choice. They sent us a lot emails before the flight explaining their restrictions and charges.. Check in and boarding were fine, flight was on time. I would fly them again. No issues at all.