I would appreciate your opinions regarding the following travel options.
We are six adults who will be in Lisbon in Septmber. We wish to travel to Lagos for 4 nights. (FYI, four of us will drive to Faro on last day to fly home. Two will train back to Lisbon on last day to fly home).
Option 1: Rent a van in Lisbon, drive to Lagos, keep van for 4 days and drop off van in Faro when we fly home. Estimated van rental €466 including drop off fee.
Option 2: Train/bus from Lisbon to Lagos, rent a van in Lagos for 4 days and drop off van in Faro when we fly home. Estimated van rental about €420 - €820 including drop-off fee.
I am getting quotes from Zest.
The van from Lisbon is a 9 person Opel Vivara which should hold all six with carry-ons. If we choose option 1, I would need to taxi to the car rental office (near Av. Berlim Loja), pick up van and drive back to Bairro Alto to pick up everybody and luggage. Would it be worth it to drive back 30 minutes across town to drive over the Ponte Vasco da Gama (longest bridge in EU) or should we just use the closer Ponte 25 de Abril? The downside is having six people squished in a van for about 3 hours.
If we choose option 2, we need to taxi or transit to train or bus station and pay those fares. Is the extra cost of train (€24pp) worth it over bus (€5pp)? Upon arrival in Lagos, we need to pick up the rental van. The most affordable van thru Zest does not have an office in Lagos. They need to arrange for delivery of the vehicle from Faro. It may or may not be ready at the train station. The rental company says they only delivers to hotels, so we may need to lug to nearest one and just wait. There are other rental options which have a local office, but the cost is about €1000 for a van. The full sized 9 pax van is about €820 in Lagos. A smaller 7 passenger van is about €420, but we would need to hold luggage in our laps to drive 15 minutes to Villa. We don't need to lug luggage during 4 days and on last day there would only be 4 of us driving the van to Faro. Another option is to rent 2 smaller cars, which is a bit cheaper than a single van, but then we have to deal with 2 cars, double tolls, double parking issues
Any comments would be welcomed.
Obrigado.