The case of Empty Cruise is Ryanair game playing. Fair enough it worked out for him and good luck to him. However, the game is obvious to anyone even semi-intelligent. Sort of goes like this: "we'll treat most people like $hit, lie to them, mess them around etc etc. However, that's not good press so we'll give the odd person what was promised and use them (or let them do the shouting) to let everyone know how great Ryanair are and how we fulfil all promises."
It's the typical FR modus operandi of saying that their claims are the full truth because they may apply to a tiny minority, while of course the actual experiences of the majority aren't mentioned.
So you can either get taken in by it or hope you will become a model case for the propaganda machine or you can leave well enough alone.