Cab ride from LIS airport to Lisbon city central - be aware of scams

The same thing happened to us last month. I was mad at myself because I read the info.before we left, but got mentally mixed up between taxi costs in Barcelona, Lisbon and Madrid. The hotel doorman asked how much we paid when we walked through the door and was angry that we got charged that much. I just felt stupid.

Patty - totally shared your frustration! It's not really about the extra $ but more about he feeling of taken advantage of and being violated that was so unpleasant. Our cab driver was a young man who spoke pretty good English. He offered a few tips about Lisbon during the ride. Because of that, he appeared to be nice and "trustworthy". I even thought to myself that we were lucky to come across a good cab driver. Oh well.. luckily, we met more locals who were honest, genuine and helpful during the trip that more than made up for this negative experience.

I wish that the city could do more about the cab scams. It doesn't do any good to tourism.

Well to give a different perspective. We found a very honest driver. Charged us 10 euros. AND I left my purse in the taxi. As we were at an apartment, not a hotel, we had no way to contact them. But it was turned in by the next day to the police station, with everything untouched, including my phone.

qp2898-maybe we had the same driver! His English was very good, we chatted about the upcoming Mayweather/Pacayo (sp?) fight,he offered to give us a tour around the city, his cab was clean.

I was more impressed that the hotel doorman picked up right away that something wasn't right and would have done something if he could. I have learned to print out our hotel name and address rather than try to do it verbally ( even have to do this in the U.S. sometimes) and I think from now on I'll put down the approximate cost range. I recognize it could be off a few euros, but not more than 10.

Lisa - good for you to have come across such honest person. I must say that most Portuguese I came across were warm and kind. It's too bad that there are still dishonest cab drivers out there damaging the city's reputation. After all, a cab ride from the airport to the city is one of the first impressions visitors are going to have of the city.

Patty - it appears that cab scams are not uncommon. My hotel also explained to me how they arranged cab rides for their guests. They work with a list of them and keep detailed info on the times called/destinations, etc. They told me to call them after if we felt we had been overcharged so they could fix the issues on their end. Luckily, the return trip arranged by the hotel was problem free.