Looking for help advice intel. Planning the following - hubby and wife- winter trip- first time to these places/


Spain/Portugal


MADRID
1/13-1/16 three nights Madrid Editon

TOLEDO
1/16-1/17 one night
Eugenia de Montijo, Autograph Collection


CORDOBA
1/17-1/18 one night
Hospes Palacio del Bailío, a Member of Design Hotels


GRANADA
1/18-1/19 one night
Hotel Palacio De Santa Paula, Autograph Collection


MARBELLA
1/19-1/20 one night
Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort


SEVILLE
1/20-1/22 two nights
Hotel Alfonso XIII, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Seville


ESTREMOZ
1/22-1/23 one night
Torre de Palma Wine Hotel, Monforte, a Member of Design Hotels


LISBON PORTUGAL
1/23-1/26 three nights
Memmo Principe Real, Lisbon, a Member of Design Hotels

Welcome to Fodors. Your thread has been moved from Tech Support to the Europe Forum. We also removed the Trip Report flag and add tags for Spain and Portugal.

You don't seem to have allowed time to get from place to place.

Welcome -- unfortunately IMO this is a bad ( really bad ) itinerary. I'd throw it out and start completely over. What you have is:


Spain/Portugal


MADRID1/13-1/15 -- 3 nights

TOLEDO 1/16 -- 1 night

CORDOBA 1/17 -- 1 night

GRANADA 1/18 -- 1 night

MARBELLA 1/19 -- 1 night

SEVILLE 1/20-1/21 -- 2 nights

ESTREMOZ 1/22- -- 1 night

LISBON PORTUGAL 1/23-1/25 -- 3 nights

That is worse than a forced march. You will literally have barely a few hours in most of those cities (all of the one nighters) and one to two days in the others.

At the outset I would eliminate Lisbon and add those nights to Spain. You could certainly do Toledo as a day trip rather than checking into a hotel for one night. My daughter and her boyfriend are leaving tonight for Barcelona/Madrid, 5 nights each and they are doing a day trip from Madrid, 8 AM train to Toledo and 8:30 return train. It will also be cold in Madrid and Granada. I have a friend who visited in mid-March a few years ago and their day at the Alhambra featured sleet and mixed precip, so not at all enjoyable.

Way too many one-night stays! You will spend most of your time traveling and packing and unpacking.

I don't mind one-night stays -- if they allow me to see and experience more than I would otherwise see or experience. I'd even consider an overnight in Toledo, despite how easy it is to visit as a day trip from Madrid! (That said, I must admit that I wanted two full days in Toledo.)

From my perspective, the problem with this proposed itinerary isn't the number of one night stays -- it's (a) the distance to be traversed between locations and (b) the lack of time to explore those places, particularly in winter when hours of daylight will be limited. This "plan" doesn't give enough time for Madrid, or Corodob, or Granada, or Sevilla, or Lisbon.

Let's hope the OP changes the plan dramatically! She would, IMO, do well to consult a decent guide book or two, read some trip reports, basically, do a bit of research beyond identifying high end hotels.

Agree!

Would be awful for me.

Nooooo....trim, trim, trim. Five one night stays? No time to actually see the places you're traveling to.

And why in the world is Marbella on the list?

The Alfonso XIII? Are you using Marriott points? There are other hotels I would prefer over that one if you are not getting some kind of deal.

Thinking more about this . . . maybe it isn't a 'sightseeing/see Spain' trip -- I suspect it is a 'use up a boatload of hotel points' trip.

That was my impression!

Even if so, it seems a terrible waste of time and energy, And points, if that's what's involved. "Penny wise, pound foolish."