Portugal--strikes

I was in Sintra at the beginning of this week. Guess I just made it before the palaces had strike issues.
I traveled to Sintra from Porto after a Rick Steves tour by Flixbus because of the train issues. I suggest you look into Flixbus. I have no idea if the train I had reserved was cancelled or not, it was easier to assume it was cancelled and make other arrangements.

BTW, Uber worked great in Portugal. I used it in Lisbon and to get from the Sintra bus station to my lodging in Sintra.

Yes, notice is given about the train strikes. The website for the train system is cp.pt
They have been posting days of near total strikes. This means there is a train every two hours instead of 20 minutes or so. That’s the good news. The bad news is those few trains are so crowded, you don’t want to be on them. This constant striking is a new thing in Portugal, and creating havoc for everyone. The palaces strike in Sintra is, hopefully, just this long weekend. I’ve observed, strikes tend to occur around holidays so workers get longer breaks.

Yes, Uber from the airport to Sintra would be a lengthy ride but, maybe, not as expensive as you would assume. From Cascais to the airport is usually around. €35-40. You can also download the app Bolt. It’s usually a bit cheaper than Uber and is widely used in Portugal.

In addion to Flixbus, you can also look at Gypsyy. They have a bus that goes from Cascais to Porto and back with a stop in Sintra and at Oriente Station in Lisbon. It might be possible to catch it on the way back from Porto. But, as it only runs three times a day, the timing might be off.

The good news about all of the strikes, is they seem to be focused on transport (at least the ones that would affect tourists) and, since you will have a car for a while, you shouldn’t be affected by them once you have the car.

@Kathryn. Thanks for your help on this, as well as the rest of my trip planning. A couple questions. I believe there is a train to Sintra from Oriente and another from Rossio. I think they are independent (I believe the train from Oriente does not stop at Rossio) When things are "normal" would you suggest Oriente or Rossio? And given the possibility of strikes, would you favor one over the other?

I believe the metros are not part of the striking. Does it make any sense to take the metro to some point and then get an UBER/BOLT?

Do you happen to know if the airport and train stations have public wifi?

Am I missing something? Everything I come up with says the time by taxi or car from Lisbon airport to Sintra takes 22 minutes. I don’t consider that “lengthy” especially considered that the train takes over an hour. We are doing this in a couple of weeks and see that the cost is between $35-40 for a taxi.

Sintra isn't a long way from Lisbon Airport. I opted to stay a 3rd night in Sintra rather than move closer to the airport the last night. A car service took about 35 minutes Wed. morning leaving at 6:45am. I was told the trip would have taken longer if I left later due to morning rush hour.

I am going by what the Sintra inn told me. And we will probably be leaving the airport during rush hour. I do not get 20 minutes when I use google maps putting in approx time:

I am asking if there are alternatives to taxi or Uber, if I might have better luck with Oriente or Rossio, and I do consider 30-40 minutes lengthy.

You haven’t even departed and the adventure has begun. Let us know how it goes.

https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Lisbon-Airport-LIS/Sintra

5 ways to get from Lisbon airport to Sintra. By train: 1 hour 4 minutes. If they’re on strike then bus: 2 hours 11 minutes, taxi: 22 minutes, town car: 22 minutes, car: 22 minutes. Granted traffic will make a difference but we have found that after getting off a ten hour flight and then a commuter flight, paying $35-40 for 30 plus or minus minutes to our destination by a taxi or town car and not having to hassle after a lack of sleep with train or bus schedules is well worth it. Im not sure exactly what you’re hoping to find but I do hope you find it and have a great trip.

@Margie, Rome2rio is a great first step, but many do not rely on it. The last I looked at it, the app didn't allow the user to put in a departure time. Coming from the midwest, we typically have about 20 hours of travel time. We have never had an issue using public transportation from the airport when we travel to Europe. We pack very light and often public transportation is faster and obviously cheaper and always our first choice. Lisbon has actually done such a great job connecting their airport to city center with typically efficient public transportation. Its just a personal choice. If push comes to shove we'll resort to UBER or BOLT. I was just looking for suggestions on which train station might be more likely to have trains or other transportation options.

@James, over the years, we've lucked out with train strikes. In Italy, our train from Florence was the only one that was operated that day. In Sicily, they were cancelling every other train and that worked to our advantage. Maybe it's our turn now to have plans altered! Just kind of regretting choosing Sintra. With the crowds, etc., and now the striking, there were so many other places we might have liked to have visited instead.

@Kathryn, thanks for the suggestion to look at the CP website for closure information. I had no idea that the strikes would already be determined days out. If I'm understanding the table in terms of which trains will not run, it seems like many of the cancelled trains are very early morning and afternoon. Right now, the table only goes out thru the 10th, but it seems like the morning trains tend to be less effected. In terms of stations, Oriente and Rossio are impacted fairly equally by strikes. I'm guessing we will know before we leave for Portugal the status of the trains.

The airport does have wifi but not certain about the train stations. My guess is that they do have wifi.

I didn’t realize you could take the train from Oriente to Sintra. Rossio is what is always what is recommended. To get to Rossio on the metro would require at least one change of metro lines. Sorry, but I’ve never taken the train to Sintra from Lisbon so have no first hand knowledge. I would have to rely on metro and train schedules. And, Rome2Rio has worked well for me in the past.

If you were to metro to a place then Uber, I would, personally, just do the whole trip via Uber or Bolt. But, I’m always exhausted when returning from the States and gave up trying to do public transport a number of years ago! The metro is not part of the strikes.

BTW - 22 minutes from the airport to Sintra is extremely optimistic. Maybe in the middle of the night….

We live in Minnesota and with kids in Honolulu and Seattle and then with frequent trips to Europe, I'm not sure my brain is ever really sure where we are. I adapt to local time fairly quickly and sleep whenever my head hits a pillow. I love walking off a plane and directly into a train or metro without much thought. Now if its crowded with no place to sit, that's a different story. I'm going to be frequently checking the Portugal train website to see what's running.

Sintra continues to sound like nuts. Yesterday Regalaria stopped selling tickets. I really can be adaptable, but I've wanted to see Pena Palace for about ten years, now.

Jules, the Sintra strikes were over the Easter holiday. This is the first time I remember them ever striking. So, good chances this will be a one time occurrence. The country values the tourist draw of Sintra too much to allow it to go on and on.

On a different thread, I got talked out of renting a car to get from Porto to Lisbon in favor of taking a train. It looks like I should book a rental car at least as a backup.

Expected date of that segment of our trip is May 2

@unmesh, the same thought crossed my mind. Portugal’s train system is quite good, but the striking does create stress.A couple things, 1st the striking is supposed to end by May. 2nd, in looking at the current strike info, it does look like they are using buses for some of the routes

Also, between Rede Expressos and Flix Bus there are very competitive inter city bus fares, which may be worth looking at. Usually so cheap that it's worth buying as an insurance policy, then just not using if the train runs, assuming you prefer the train.

I've discovered that the one way drop off fees for a rental car are quite high and my corporate plan which waives the drop off fee for US rentals does not in Portugal

So I've booked bus tickets on FlixBus as a backup, mostly because they were cheaper :-)

UPDATE: we are in Portugal and left Sintra this am. We had a nice time. We arrived Lisbon at 8am, cleared passport control quickly. Took the metro to Oriente and the train to Sintra. The train from Oriente was about 50 minutes. All the morning trains were running. That day we visited Regaleira with prepurchased tickets. It was busy, but manageable. The line for the well was super long midday. Tried again after groups left and it was short. We then went to National Palace, in the historical area of Sintra. The next day we had 10am Peña tickets. We were towards the front of our group. We very much enjoyed the interior and the grounds. I really think the key is to get the earliest tickets. We were so happy that we chose to do the inside. After Pena, we walked through the garden and did the Moorish castle. It was fun and the views were nice. It took quite a while to get an UBER to take us from the Moorish Castle to Monserrate. 2 or 3 accepted and then cancelled. Thus, we didn’t get to it until 4:45. We could have used a bit more time. We then tried to get to our dinner reservation at Incommun by 7 and that’s when the nightmare started. 11 UBERs accepted and then cancelled on us. Others were struggling with the same. When a group of 4 did get an UBER I went over and talked to the driver. He said with the one way streets and traffic, drivers don’t want to pick up at Monserrate. Fortunately, the group of 4 very kind and fun folks from Peru convinced the driver to take us. It turned into a fun experience! We were an hour late to Incommun and they graciously took us. This morning when we needed an UBER to get our rental car, we had a couple drivers accept and then cancel but ended up getting to the car rental on time.

In terms of the train, I heard that the high speed trains were all cancelled today at the very last minute. The couple we talked to said they switched to a regular train which saved them a lot of money and they were happily enjoying beers in the train station. Good for them taking it in stride.

We were thinking of taking Uber a lot on our upcoming trip to save time but it is disheartening to hear of the cancellations. Hopefully it isn't like that everywhere in Portugal.

Uber is much worse in Sintra than other places. And, I find it worse on Friday and Saturday nights in Cascais. We are still at the end of the Easter tourist surge, which makes it even worse. The tourist crowds will wane after this weekend until mid June.

Jules, following this thread and fingers crossed you don’t have any more trouble. Hopefully you will give us a full TR upon your re.

Your information about cancelled Uber rides is very helpful, thank you, as I will be in Lisbon for a few days prior to the RS Portugal tour in late May. I use Uber in the US some, but I'm far from being an experienced Uber user. So, pardon my ignorance... When an Uber driver accepts a ride request and later cancels, is it likely due to seeing a better ride opportunity almost immediately afterwards? I'm trying to understand why the Uber driver would have accepted the ride in the first place. Do Travel Forum contributors think the slew of cancellations Jules described relates to Sintra being such a touristed area?

I definitely think it has to do with being in Sintra. I live in Portugal and occasionally get a ride cancelled by an Uber or Bolt driver. But, it’s usually for a short ride and doesn’t happen very often. When it does, it’s usually a weekend night when they have lots of riders.

I think the UBER situation definitely is related to just Sintra. Don’t know what the solution is. I think for Regaleira and Monserrate, the bus, I think 435, might be a good choice though Regaleira is within walking distance of city center. Pena and Moorish, I heard the bus was very crowded and folks were standing in line for quite a while

I've got FlixBus tickets as a backup in case train strikes are still a thing on May 9.

If the trains are running, should we take one from Porto to Lisbon instead of the bus even though the travel time of 3:15 is similar to the train?

I was in Sintra last Monday and used Uber for all my trips to and from Lisbon, as well as to Cabo di Roca, all in the same day. Had no issues with cancellations, got picked up at the Moorish Castle entrance 10 minutes after requesting a ride. Our total cost for 4 Uber rides door to door from our Airbnb to the Peña gate, Moorish Castle to lunch near the sea, lunch to the cape, and back to Lisbon was less than $100.

Strikes will also affect Airports in May and June.

https://www.portugalresident.com/new-airport-strikes-loom-for-portugal/

@unmesh.agarwala, I would base your decision, train vs. bus on the convenience of the bus and train terminals. Due to the train strike, we had no choice but to use FLIX. The bus terminals (Oriente and Campanha) were fairly inconvenient for us. Our Porto inn was within sight of the Sao Bento station. Rosso would have been a better location for us in terms of our Lisbon inn. In all other ways, FLIX was fine, even nice. The seats were comfortable though the leg room was quite poor. It is nice to be able to load suitcases "underneath" and not have to carry them on as would have been the case on a train. The bus overhead storage is what I would characterize as ridiculous. Not much would ever fit up there.

In 2018, we were leaving Sintra to take a train to Lisbon. There was a 1 day train strike. We found a taxi driver to take us to our hotel in Lisbon. He charged us $25.

We are in Sintra. Yesterday, 5/22/2023, we had 11:00 timed tix to the Pena Palace, but the workers decided to strike until 12:30. We decided to wait in line with a thousand new friends. The tuktuk drivers said they had never seen a line like it, ever. They did let us in starting at 12:30 but of course the palace was a crush. Still amazing and worth it, but keep your attitude positive. There was no notice about the strike and most people in line didn't seem to know about it and people were still buying tickets at the kiosks.

We enjoyed our April/May 2023 trip to Portugal. However, the volume of people in Porto and Lisbon including Sintra, combined with the various strikes made it that much more complicated to travel. It is my impression, that workers whether its with the trains, airport or attractions like the Sintra palaces feel overworked and overwhelmed. I think travel to Portugal has expanded in a way that was unexpected.

I'd also like to add that I posted comments as issues came up in the hope that people might have a heads up. The intention was not to complain, it was so people might have back up plans. For example, UBER just didn't work for us in Lisbon or Sintra. People reported that they hadn't had problems. I'm happy for them, but I was just reporting my experience. Someone said that Uber worked well in Sintra, however, our own personal experience was it really depends on not only the current location, but the destination. Monserrate is much harder to get to and from. Especially from another palace vs. the city center. Also, our BnB was outside of town center by about a mile. Again, this made UBER drivers less interested in driving us to a palace, less so to city center.

I'd also like to add that I posted comments as issues came up in the
hope that people might have a heads up. The intention was not to
complain, it was so people might have back up plans.

I appreciate your on the ground reporting. I have a trip planned to Lisbon next March and am soaking up all the info. I can get. 😊

Jules, we spent 4 nights in Sintra in April at a B&B close to the main roundabout. We were told by the locals not use Uber because they weren’t reliable. We also heard this from the local tour guide we hired for the day. We used taxis and we never had a problem. I can’t understand why people would think you are complaining. Isn’t it better to learn from someone else’s experience to avoid experiencing the same?