A rough start to the day. We slept very badly last night and are tired to begin with. I already dislike Madrid airport and it now surpasses Miami in my list of hated airports.
Returning our rental car at 4:30 AM was super confusing requiring us to park the car in a rental lot only after a midnight maintenance man described in Spanish what we needed to do. The guy in front of us had the
same problem. Then we couldn't find an attendant. Finally went into the terminal where a sign told us to go back out to the parking lot and drop the keys in a box. No receipt, no nothing! Paul took photos of the car from all angles and the lot where we dropped it off to prove it was intact when we left it.
Got to airport over 3 hours early as required for international flights. Terminal check-in counter didn't open until 6:00 a.m. for a 7:50 a.m. flight. There were no seats so everyone just had to stand in long lines for hours (pix). About 20 US Navy personnel heading "somewhere east" had to pay $20 per kilo for luggage overage ($10 per lb). The agent would say "Oh you're only 3 kilos over, just go over there and pay for it" ($60!!!) Over $2000 for the bunch of them. They weren't too happy. They'd been traveling for 3 days from San Diego and this was a surprise to them. THEN....we got to the counter and my airplane reservation was missing. Paul's was listed but not me. That took another hour of waiting in line. These are reservations that I made over 6 mos ago. I phoned for seating plus confirmed the seating twice. As we leave Madrid it's still not settled. Paul and are are seated very far apart and I'm in the last row by the toilets. Part of this must be due to the United/Continental merger. Argghhh!!!
Landed in Lisbon and the whole gate that we are supposed to be leaving from is cordoned off with double sets of ropes and with 8 security people and scanning wands. No one has any answers and we are supposed to board in 50 minutes. So far I haven't seen a gate agent at all, so maybe I will end up sitting apart from Paul. :(. Crummy way to end our trip. (This is why Di should never read this.)
About 20 minutes before boarding we were able to get reticketed by the United agent. We got seated together with a spare seat between us so it gave us space to stretch out a little for the 8 hour flight. We were at the back of the plane but comfortable.
Flight was good. Picking up the car at the Hilton Newark was easy with the airport transfer. It was very reasonable and all handled online. Would do that again, but the drive back from Newark is fraught with traffic tie-ups.
Ready to be home...
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