It is just under three weeks before we fly out to Madrid, Spain to begin our trip. From here on out, we will be putting the final touches on our detailed planning efforts.
We have made the decision to take the shuttle service from the airport to the hotel in Madrid. Even though it is more expensive than the metro, for the price, it brings a lot of peace of mind, and certainly will make it easier on us. By taking the shuttle, we do not have to worry about being so diligent with our luggage and personal belongings to avoid the possibility of being pick-pocketed. In addition, while looking into taking the metro, we fount out that we have to walk about a mile from our arrival terminal to the terminal that accesses the metro stop. By taking the shuttle, we get picked up right at our arrival terminal. No use trying to save a few euros at the expense of starting the vacation off with problems. We also learned from reading about the experiences of past travelers that there is a distinct possibility that many of the escalators can be out of service in the metro stops, forcing one to carry their luggage up and down stairs when making the two metro stop transfers that it takes to get from the airport to the hotel. We got to experience that “exercise” in Paris, France last spring; not much fun. With this decision, we can just sit back and let someone else load our luggage.
We have not yet made a final decision on a hotel in Madrid. We will continue to check pricing, hoping that as the date draws near, there might be some discounting, either at the hotels we have already booked, or a couple of others we are looking at. We will make the choice in a couple of weeks, probably the Monday prior to our departure.