Where to Next?: May 23/24 – Calgary to Lisbon, Portugal

Weather

onboard champagne!

– 23º in Calgary, 28º when we arrived in Lisbon

Steps – 10,966

Humidity – 74%

WestJet isn’t the fanciest airline in the world, but after experiencing Emirates, last year I’m perfectly happy with WestJet. I’d almost say you get what you pay for and that is true for WestJet, but I’m not sure (in my opinion) for Emirates.

WestJet is fantastic for direct flights from Calgary. To only need to get on one plane to get someplace is a luxury. This sort of applies to us today. In the fall, we (we being Chris) saw a good price on return business tickets to Barcelona that
he snapped up. We filled in the hotels and cruises after the fact. We (we being me this time!) found a cruise that fit our time frame departing from Lisbon.

Pyrenees mountains

Coming into Barcelona the views were terrific. We were looking at the Pyrenees mountain range.

Because these 2 flights were booked separately, we had to exit security, take a shuttle to a different terminal, check bags and go back through security. After all of that we had time for a couple of hours in the airport lounge for a drink, a snack and a shower – I LOVE an airport shower.

Lisbon seems not that far from Barcelona (2 hrs by plane, 12 by car) but if for some reason (jet fuel issues) the flight is cancelled the other options are few – no trains and the bus takes 10 hrs and I don’t think the bus has pods! We were crossing our fingers that the flights operate. Even if ours doesn’t there are others scheduled for that day. Plus, the cruise doesn’t depart for a couple of days, so we’ll be fine…hopefully!

In the end we were fine. The flight to Lisbon was an hour late, so we missed the evening wine hour at our hotel! But we survived.

airport shower!

Vueling Air seats are TIGHT! These are no Westjet, business pods! I suppose taking uncomfortable flights reminds us how comfortable we really are on some flights. I don’t think I need the reminder, but it can’t hurt. It really wasn’t bad at all for a 2-hour flight

sea of humanity waiting for Vueling!

We are not big folks, and this flight was tight for us. The woman seated next to me couldn’t fit either of her bags under the seat and by the time she arrived the overhead bins were full. She kept one bag at her feet (not under the seat and the other on her lap!) None of this impacted my space, so I didn’t care and the flight was less than 2 hours, but WOW!

We had a checked bag included in the fare we bought, so we checked the bags we carried onto the Westjet flight. This was our plan all along…no worrying about if we would have to gate check our bags, plus then we weren’t schlepping anything other than our backpacks. In retrospect our whole “carryon only plan” wasn’t as advantageous as we thought. Of the 4 flights we will take before we get home, we will check bags for 3 – the 2 small inter-Europe ones and probably the one home on Westjet. The “carryon only plan” definitely limits what we bring and I’m always in favour of bringing less. Cruising these days is not as ‘fancy’ as it once
was for us and although I’d like a reason to wear some of my ‘fancy’ things…I’m happy for less packing angst.

waiting for bags

a tad tight

The distance from the airport to the Corpo Santo Hotel is 10Km, but takes 30 min. Streets are windy and steep – I forgot how absolutely nuts the hills are in Lisbon.

We were checked in and taken to our room in a matter of minutes. This hotel is interesting in that there is complimentary food/drink at all times. Breakfast is included, but so is soft-serve from a self-serve station, pastries,

nuts, fruit, sparkling water etc, etc… Our room’s mini bar is also complimentary. We knew all of this going in, but it is interesting to see. Of course we pay for