Uber from Lisbon airport to hotel—reserve ahead or not?

I requested an Uber upon arrival in LIS without any issue in April.

We have used taxi's multiple times in Lisbon and found them to be safe and cheap so think you might be over-thinking this. Just follow the signs to the taxi station after you pickup your bags.

I've taken the taxi multiple times, very easy and cheap. Also, have taken the metro, again very easy

This may depend on the time of year you are traveling and the number of other travelers when you arrive.. When I arrived in Lisbon last October, I had intended to take Uber. But when I saw the frustrated crowds standing around waiting for their overdue cars, I opted for the metro instead. And during the peak period, surge pricing was in effect.

The metro, by comparison, was easy, cheap, fast and the cars nearly empty.

Interesting that you saw a lot of frustrated travelers waiting for an Uber. We are a couple set to arrive in Lisbon on October 5, a Friday, at 10:30 a.m. I did a check on the wait time today, Thursday 6/29, at 5:30 p.m. local time. There were 2 cars available within 2-5 minutes for 8-10€ to get to a downtown hotel. Maybe it gets crazy busy when several international flights come in at the same time.

I'm not sure it works to reserve an UBER in advance from the airport. What if your plane is late or it takes a while to get thru immigration?

When we were in Portugal, we had a terrible time with UBER. The app may show that there are several drivers close, but then those drivers need to accept the rider. And for us, they cancelled a lot, or took a long time to arrive even though they were minutes away. When we needed to go to the airport to fly home, we waited for an UBER for over an hour that supposedly was 8 minutes away. We ended up running down the street where we knew taxis were waiting. The taxi price ended up maybe 5 euro more than the UBER would have been if it had ever shown up.

My recommendation would be to use a taxi or the very convenient metro.

I arrived in Lisbon on a Sunday morning, October 2nd. Apparently that was a busy time for Uber. The surge price at the time, to the center of Lisbon, was €16 or €18.

I think you will do as well by going to the taxi rank and grabbing a cab there. You can't really order ahead efficiently, and if you are relying on wifi for the app, problems will arise.

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful and valuable feedback. I was thinking, besides being cheaper and less stressful, it might be easier to pay via the Uber app than having to get euros from an airport ATM to pay a cab driver. Sounds like taking a taxi may be less stressful than Uber!

You don’t need to get Euros if you have a credit card that taps. Most of the cabs are equipped (but ask before you get in-just show your credit card). In Lisbon there are streets closed to vehicular traffic that cabs can access (not Uber). We used both in Lisbon, I give the cabs a slight edge. They are cheap and readily available. Uber maybe slightly cheaper but not materially.