I don’t usually pay very much attention to reviews about airlines, but from what I can tell, Spirit has a bad reputation. I did a lot of reading about what size bags we could take and what was and was not included in the price of the ticket. I paid less than $1,000 for a family of 5 to fly from Chicago (ORD) to Orlando (MCO) in December. That price included 1 checked bag each way that I paid for above and beyond the fare. The only small snag we ran into was I did not print our boarding passes ahead of time. We were in the line to check in for about 20 minutes when the customer service agent yelled out that if we did not have a boarding pass printed out that there would be a charge. I had read the website many times and never saw anything about that, so I was more than slightly annoyed. Derek and the kids stayed in line and I ran back to the little kiosks where you can print boarding passes. I got them printed and without paying extra for seats, we were all seated together.  I got back in line and we only had let one person in front of us. When we checked in, I asked the agent about the charge for printing a boarding pass at the counter and he said it was new. We were 4 lbs under for the checked bag and all of our personal items were within the limits. We took off on time and had no problems. We brought food and drinks (cups of water from McDonald’s after going through security) with us so we didn’t have to purchase any on the plane. All it took was a little research. If your luggage is overweight, it will cost more. If your personal item is oversized, it will cost you. Read the rules at www.spirit.com before you purchase your ticket and decide if Spirit Airlines will work for what you need.