Last night in Madrid preparing for 9:50 flight to US

There are trains and buses to the airport, both departing from Atocha Station. There's also Metro service.

I would stay in Hotel Europa in the center of Madrid. Have a final night at a tapas bar, a little Spanish wine to celebrate the end of a great vacation and take taxi in the morning to the airport. The airport is fairly close and that time in the morning will be min traffic and fairly quick. As my foggy memory works, I think taxi fare was in the range of 20,25 Euro and about 30 minutes. The hotel arranged the taxi pick up. Using public transit from that location would require a change and not worth the cash savings.

I concur with Frank, the Hotel Europa is a good place to stay. location is tops. The cab fare to the airport was reasonable. One suggestion on the night before you leave is a visit to Gines, for churros and chocolate. No visit to Madrid would be complete with churros and Chocolate. It is an easy walk from the Hotel Europa. check out europa and Gines in Rick Steves book. Enjoy, Hank, Novato CA

I also stayed at Hotel Europa and was quite pleased with the fresh, clean rooms, and my view of Puerta del Sol! It was a fun place to end our trip to Spain. I took a Cercanías train to the airport. It cost a couple euros. I picked it up at the metro station in Puerta del sol. It was easy and in expensive. There is a transfer involved, I believe at Chamartin. We got help with directions from our hotel staff.

To get to the airport, you can take metro, a cercanias train, a bus, or a taxi. All work well, depending on your budget and exactly where you're staying.

A taxi between the "center" (a large defined area, and you are most likely to be staying within it) and the airport has a fixed rate of €30 and there is no need to tip beyond this.

Once you have picked your hotel, people can give you exact directions if you want to use another method besides taxi.

As for where to stay, what's your budget? What kind of amenities are you looking for? How many is "we?" More details will give a better response.

I stayed at the Hostal Acapulco. If you are looking for a budget accommodation in a great location, and don't mind small rooms and the fact that not all staff speak English, it's a great deal. http://www.hostalacapulco.com/. If the website shows up in Spanish, click the British flag to change to English. I made my booking in English via email with no problems, but as I said, once there, many of the staff members spoke Spanish only.

I stayed Hotel Europa for the night and it was fine for one night. Close to metro and restaurants.

My wife and I stayed at the Hotel Paseo Del Arte which is a short walk from the train station. In the morning we took a taxi to the airport. The hotel was quite nice and I don’t remember it as particularly exspensive.

We stayed at the Ibis Styles Madrid Prada after coming from Granada like you. If you take the train back to the airport, just be sure to leave yourself plenty of time. It’s really big and we felt a little rushed (our fault).

For our last evening, we spent a couple of hours at the Prado before wandering through Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and stopping for tapas. A really nice finish.

We were in a similar situation. We stayed at Hotel Mediodia - about a 5 minute walk from Atocha Station, next to the Reina Sofia Museum. The hotel met our criteria of having a decent room rate and being close to Atocha Station. We took the train to the airport. The hotel front desk attendant was able to print us a schedule of the train departures which ran very frequently. Train tickets were super cheap. Can't quite remember, but I believe it was about a 30 minute ride by train.

I emailed a hotel in Madrid- Hotel Midmost- asking if they had a airport shuttle- they offered to set me up with a “private taxi” for $85 euros one way- 🤣🤣 funny to see the flat rate of $30 euros on the post above.

Demi Hale: "Airport shuttles" as we know them in the US are extremely rare in Europe, except for hotels right at the airport itself. And yes, if you let a hotel set you up with a taxi or shuttle, you often (not always, of course, but often) get ripped off. You always have to do the research yourself, to see if it's cheaper or easier to let the hotel set something up, or do it yourself.

We had a shuttle arranged but we started to antsy when it didn’t arrive right on the appointed time and took one of the taxis waiting in front of the hotel. The taxi worked out fine for us. The price from downtown to the airport is fixed.