We must have been very lucky, as we used ubers 6 times in Cascais and Sintra during our stay w/o a cancellation. It worked smoothly for us, but that was before Easter week.

We took a taxi to our Lisbon hotel upon arrival at LIS.
I had read the advice of going up to the departures level upstairs to catch a taxi so avoid a possible "taxi scam" at arrivals. So we took the escalators up to departures (there are elevators behind the escalators) and were going to catch an uber, but the Kiss and Fly area, a circular parking lot, where ubers must pick up wasn't well signed, so we took a taxi instead. Now we know where the "Kiss & Fly" uber pick up location was: directly in front of us, across two lanes (one for taxis and the other for buses), there was the "Kiss and Fly" lot.

Our taxi driver was very honest, took the quickest route into the city during the rush hour and our fare was 14 euros, including the luggage supplement.

progol, I think you're planning to use the metro from LIS to Oriente to catch the train to Sintra, but I just mention this for others. The Viva Viagem card, purchased from the machines at the airport metro station, if bought for the "zapping" mode, loading a certain amount of euros on it, reduces the Oriente to Sintra train fare to 1.90.

We did summon an uber to take us from Cascais to LIS for our flight to Madrid, and he managed to drop us off directly at Terminal 1 (although technically he shouldn't have done so). That Cascais-LIS ride cost 30 euros. Just so folks will know. This was a mid- afternoon departure.

I was in Rossio Square, booked a short ride but one uphill for like 3-3.5 Euros. I waited 30 minutes, at least a half dozen Uber drivers canceled. Not right away either, they waited a few minutes and canceled.

It was around noon so there was a lot of traffic. So maybe Uber lets them pick other rides after agreeing to one ride and they saw easier pick ups, not having to go through traffic to reach where I was. One driver drove right by me and then later canceled. He never slowed down because he seemed to be on the way to somewhere else.

So maybe the low fare made them decide it wasn't worth it.


Then in Sintra, I was in Pena Palace after a few hours of walking up to Moorish Castle and then over to Pena. First driver moved towards me for 5-10 minutes before canceling. Again it would only make sense if he's able to find other rides before canceling the ones they accepted.

In any event, I got on a Tuk Tuk for 5 Euros to come back down.

Thanks scrb, that helps a lot to understand what happens. Clearly, when there is a lot of activity in a popular place like Sintra or Lisbon, Uber isn’t always reliable.

I had the same problem as scrb11 in Sintra. An Uber would be on the way, a time frame given, then suddenly it would disappear and another would pop up with a different time frame. This happened 3-4 times in Sintra while trying to get from our apartment to the train station. We finally gave up and approached a taxi that had just dropped someone off, and he gave us a ride.

It also happened the morning we went up to Pena Palace - took three attempts to get an Uber, even though it was early in the day and the traffic hadn't set in yet. First guy went to the wrong place, second guy accepted then disappeared, third guy finally showed.

First time I've used Uber so wasn't sure if it was a Sintra thing or an Uber thing, but it was frustrating, especially when Uber charged us the cancellation fee when we didn't cancel, the drivers did.