Lisbon.. again

Well.. this is the summer of derailed travel plans for sure. First, it’s ferries in Newfoundland and a forest fire, and now it’s airlines.

We were supposed to fly home today, having taken the train back to Lisbon from Lagos yesterday afternoon.

We should have known something was in the wind when the transport pickup we had arranged to take us to the airport early this morning failed to appear. When Brian called the driver to check after he was 5 minutes late, he sounded like he was still in bed.

All the way through the airport, security, a very long walk to the gates, and passport control showed our flight on time.

We arrived at the gate 5 minutes prior to the posted  boarding time. No one there except some very confused and disgruntled passengers. No gate agents!! Checking my app, the airline had canceled the flight just before we got to the gate. No warning, and no one to tell us what was happening.

Not nice, United Airlines!! You get a distinct red mark for this one. Customer service obviously isn’t something you worry about or about all the passengers you left stranded in the airport with no help and plans and needs to be elsewhere!

So, with wonky apps and everyone using them and limited wifi in the airport, two hours later, we managed to book a flight back to Newark on TAP on Tuesday night(!). United Airlines, just having dumped several hundred passengers, had nothing before Wednesday!

Fortunately, we were able to get a room for 2 nights at the hotel we stayed in last week and a reservation for dinner at the same seafood restaurant we enjoyed the first night we were here.

Meanwhile, I saved photos of our last night in Lagos. We can enjoy them now.

I’ll post again tomorrow once we figure out what we are doing.