Lisbon and Cascais – trip report by Froggee (paterfamilias)

Edinburgh to Heathrow

After a successful Christmas (if you define successful as children not falling asleep until well after midnight on Christmas Eve because they are super excited resulting in them being highly fractious on Christmas Day) it was time to leave the bleakness of Scotland in December. And to avoid New Year. I don’t really like New Year as my dad died on New Year’s Day. He passed peacefully after lunch while dozing in his favourite chair. It was hard not to take it personally in that he had enjoyed a visit from my brother and his children that morning but chose to clock out shortly before he was due to come and see me and my children that afternoon.

Anyway, Mrs Froggee had valiantly done most of the packing on Christmas Eve and bravely volunteered to take the boys to the playpark on a thankfully dry but very chilly Boxing Day morning. I threw a few random things into the case such as a torch for Freddo’s nighttime toilet trips and a luggage scale for the trip back and we were good to go.

We left chez Froggee at 11:35am and had an incredibly smooth drive through town to the airport. We were inside the short stay car park within 25 minutes where we then drove around for what seemed like 25 more minutes before admitting defeat and parking in the overflow section. All for the bargain price of £67.49 for ten days. By a stroke of luck there was one luggage trolley near our car and for once it had four functioning wheels.

We were flying British Airways again with Edinburgh to Heathrow in Club, followed by a night in the Sofitel and then Heathrow to Lisbon in Economy. This cost £480 and 34,000 Avios for the four of us. These flights were chosen on the basis they had availability with Avios.

We squeezed our way through the terminal to the British Airways bag drop where there was no wait to drop our hold bag. We fast-tracked our way through security with the only incident being that the boys’ incessant yapping saw me neglect to take off my belt. Given that my jeans always set the metal detector off anyway this was not an issue other than reaffirming that I am indeed an idiot.

The duty-free experience was as annoying as ever and I wondered how much of my life had been stolen by Edinburgh Airport with this forced detour. I articulated this thought. Mrs Froggee rolled her eyes as if she was wondering how much of her life had been stolen by my complaining about the duty-free experience. Thankfully there was no need to join the queue to refill our water bottles as we were heading to the recently refurbished British Airways lounge, home of a Brita water tap. Kermit expressed his dissatisfaction that we were not going to the Plaza Premium lounge where he had once had sausage rolls. We arrived at the British Airways lounge shortly after 12:30pm where we noted that the Brita water tap was out of order and if you wanted water, it was to be decanted from a big jar with a compulsory serving of stale melted ice.

Lunch heavily featured Tom Kerridge unless you were Kermit who went for the ham sandwich medley. Mrs Froggee grew increasingly nervous as the time of departure came closer, particularly given the very precise gate close time of 13:47 shown on our boarding passes. This probably wasn’t helped by the boys alternately asking what time our flight was. “2 o’clock Freddo. 2 o’clock Kermit. 2 o’clock Freddo. 2 o’clock Kermit. Grrrrr – I’m going to get one of these t-shirts that says ‘I’m with idiot’ “. Without missing a beat Freddo said “that would suit you daddy… BURN!”.

The kid is only seven. WTF.

I explained to Freddo the t-shirt would have an arrow pointing at him and then insisted we wait for boarding to be called as much for my own amusement as anything. It was not too far off 1:47pm when this happened. We packed up and to pre-empt Kermit annoying Freddo I told him to focus on where he was going. Kermit promptly tripped over a wet floor sign which someone must have sneakily put directly in front of him as he was waiting to go. Choosing between checking whether her first born was okay and losing her place in the boarding queue, Mrs Froggee legged it. Her deepest darkest fear is not being able to put her carry-on case directly above her seat. Losing a child to a wet floor sign isn’t even in the top ten.

Us boys sprinted to catch Mrs Froggee up and we all speedily made our way to gate 10 where out flight was, somewhat traumatically, already boarding. We availed ourselves of priority boarding entrance to queue jump. We then got to wait on the jet bridge with everyone else. I could see the rage grow inside Mrs Froggee as she decided whether to bobbitt me that night, or perhaps be compassionate and merely strangle me in my sleep. Freddo asked if we could go to the sweet shop at Heathrow. No Freddo. “I’m going to take that as meaning yes!”

The kid is only seven. WTF.

Many minutes later we made it to our seats in row 4 where a true Christmas miracle allowed us to place our two cases directly above our heads. Mrs Froggee almost looked disappointed and undoubtedly made a mental note merely to elbow me in the face that evening as a warning shot for next time.

Because there was no World Cup rugby match to watch later that day, our 2pm flight was airborne at 2:08pm. I had preordered child meals for the boys and they arrived timeously. I had eaten acceptably in the lounge, so I turned down afternoon tea figuring I would have half of Freddo’s scone. The child meal was predominantly jam based with Freddo eating two jam sandwiches, and his entire scone. With lashings of jam. I ate his unwanted cream cheese and tomato open sandwich and the jam sponge (described as an almond plum tart). With a smirk on his face, he asked me if I was sad that he ate the whole scone but at least internalised the “BURN!”

Mrs Froggee, of course, had the afternoon tea as it combined two of her favourite things in the world – tea and food. Weirdly she didn’t follow it up with another (sleep) instead choosing to watch a movie on her iPad.

The flight was very smooth. As British Airways short haul flights go, I would rate it a 10. Maybe I was just in a good mood now that Christmas was finally over as I was even amused by the toddler behind us who had views on everything despite his mother’s patience wearing thin. Actually, thinking about it, I probably enjoyed it because his mother’s patience was wearing thin. And it wasn’t my kid screaming “No! No!! No!!!!”

As if to reiterate that it was an excellent flight, we were offered chocolate mints on landing with a choice of shiny green or shiny red foil. I narrowly averted a Freddo incident by stopping him eating his. He hates mint and would have been looking for the nearest parental hand to spit it out into.

We landed some twenty minutes early and the pilot relayed that this meant another plane was occupying our stand. Booooo. But his beacon was on so he should be departing soon. Hoorah. We were indeed at the gate soon. Freddo needed to pee as did Kermit so I took them. Freddo decided to regress and could not pee standing up so had to go to a cubicle. Kermit was gone before Freddo had even managed to commence flow.

The Sofitel Sweet Shop at Terminal 5

Our bag was through checked to Lisbon so we then made our way to the Sofitel Sweet Shop at terminal 5. The boys took off like bulls with gas and were soooooo excited. It amused me no end that on arriving at the sweet shop at 3:30pm there was a sign saying “Back at 4:15pm”. Hah! I checked in having exchanged emails with the hotel on Christmas Day. The result was they had kindly swapped the two classic twin rooms I had booked for £294.50 to a luxury king and a luxury twin room with a connecting door. This was a double upgrade so Accor Gold courtesy of IBIS Business card wins again. It also meant I was less likely to be woken up by a child switching on a light to see how dark it was or indeed how the light switch worked. I would undoubtedly be woken up by an elbow from Mrs Froggee but I might as well get that over with.

We went to the rooms where the boys were overjoyed to be reunited with their iPads. Both rooms had a bar of James Cadbury chocolate as a Gold welcome amenity and I was intrigued by the courtesy minibars with a “selection of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages” that come with the luxury rooms. In our minibar we had four bottles of water, two cans of coke and a can of Diet Coke. The boys had four bottles of water, two bottles of Coors, and two (empty) miniature bottles of Bombay Sapphire. If I had been looking forward to the “selection” I would have been disappointed. I did use the fridge to store the milk I got from M&S along with a few other bits and bobs for pre-breakfast although the bread section there appeared to have been devoured by a swarm of locusts. I imagine there had been no deliveries since before Christmas.

At 5:30pm we went to Vivre for dinner, walking past the open sweet shop on our way. The boys had been told they could go to the sweet shop if they behaved. Dinner was swift. And well behaved. After my disappointing butter chicken last time I had fish and chips this time. Which was disappointing. It started off okay but halfway through eating it, the fish became sludgy. I prayed it was because of being defrosted badly rather than it being bad. It was saved by a side order of green vegetables. Mrs Froggee went for a seafood Thai green curry which she said was good but insubstantial. That’s the problem with having afternoon tea. It just whets your appetite. The boys both had chicken nuggets which were a fail as they were different to last time and may even have been made from chicken. Our Becks Blue and pot of tea were removed from the bill with my Gold free drinks vouchers leaving us to pay £81 including the discretionary service charge. The boys were chomping at the bit so Mrs Froggee took them to the sweet shop at 6:15pm while I stayed to settle the bill. I slipped our waiter £10 in cash seeing as it was barely past Christmas and he actually smiled and stuff and clearly didn’t think that his job mainly involving hiding. The gang returned with the unhappy news that the sweet shop was closed and would not be reopening until 1pm the next day. The boys were devastated. Kermit looked at me in the manner of Luke Skywalker on finding out Darth Vader was his father.

Trying to rescue the situation we took them to T5 arrivals where we engaged with M&S, WH Smith and Boots. But I could not bring myself to buy overpriced sweets which would not even have been the boys’ favourites. I said I would take them to the Edinburgh sweet shop when we got home. Kermit channelled his inner Freddo and engaged huff mode. On seeing his brother’s pain, Freddo quickly got over his disappointment and became delightful.

Bedtime was surprisingly sedate and as the upgrade brought a king size bed with it, I hoped that by staying well away from Mrs Froggee I would avoid being punished for my earlier transgression. But shortly after lights out she poked me really hard in the eye. I kid you not she claimed she was trying to give me a back rub “but it was too dark to see”. Which is the sort of nonsense that a child would come up with. However, punishment now over, I slept relatively well. The boys appeared shortly before 6:30am wanting their iPads unlocked. “No!” said Mrs Froggee and I in unison.

On checking my emails there was a friendly email from British Airways saying that our flight may well be delayed because of Storm Gerrit. Yay. Pre-Breakfast was past-its-best-before-date pain-au-chocolat, banana, blueberries and raspberries. And a mug of tea made with fresh milk. All this for £8.75.

Heathrow to Lisbon

We left the Sofitel at 7:30am with the boys looking forlornly at the closed sweet shop. Airport security wasn’t too painful although an unhealthy interest was shown in my shoes. I seem incapable of passing through a metal detector unscathed nowadays. We were rejected from Galleries North so made our way to Galleries South via Pret a Manger. I lost my rag at Freddo when he apparently ran off from Mrs Froggee’s supervision to ask me if he could have a chocolate croissant. I felt like bad dad. The lounge dragon had not known which gate our flight was leaving from so I had a wee snoop and given that the inbound flight was ironically coming from Edinburgh I figured we would be staying put at A gates. It was also a bit delayed but I wouldn’t have it any other way with British Airways.

Oh well. The boys got breakfast #2 at Galleries South which was fortunate as it had been 80 minutes since the pre breakfast offering in the hotel room. I went to the toilet and left it smelling like a farm animal had died in there. I blame the sludgy fish. Kermit and Freddo also took care of business with poor Freddo choosing the cubicle I had used some 15 minutes earlier which by then smelled like a silage manufacturing operation. Sorry Freddo.

Our gate was up and we got to walk all the way back across the terminal to A2. Probably not a bad thing before a flight but not nearly as much fun as the tunnel run. Boarding was a little bit delayed much to Freddo’s consternation as he likes everything to be just so and had emotionally committed to the flight time. I pointed out to him that everyone in the queue was praying they would not be sitting near him and followed this up with a “BURN!”. The couple in front laughed at this but the last laugh was on them as it turned out they were sat directly behind Freddo.

I told Mrs Froggee to avail herself of seat 11C but yet again, like a hostage with Stockholm Syndrome, she plonked herself in 11E between the boys. I took 11C and was rewarded with an empty seat next to me.

We took off at 10am which isn’t too shabby for a 9:10am departure. The plane was pretty unsteady on the runway and bouncy taking off so storm Gerrit must have started working up a head of steam. The crew were hyper efficient handing out water bottles and Nuti-Grain bars. Having looked at the list of ingredients on these when I flew to Marseille I politely refused mine. The boys got Kelloggs Coco Pops bars which they immediately ate having not had any food since the lounge 80 minutes earlier. Disappointingly I had to ask for the cup of tea and KitKat I had preordered for Mrs Froggee at a bargain price of £3.70. The £1 discount for ordering a sweet treat had been too enticing. If anyone would like a KitKat then it travelled to Lisbon and back with us and is now sitting in our fruit bowl.

80 minutes later we ate our Prêt a Manger lunch. Mrs Froggee achieved operational synergies with the cheese and ham sandwiches she had bought by picking the ham off Freddo’s sandwich and giving it to Kermit and picking the cheese off Kermit’s sandwich and giving it to Freddo. I was given an egg mayonnaise sandwich (again) which I reiterate is the cheapest sandwich sold by Prêt a Manger. It subsequently transpired there were also chocolate brownies, pain aux raisins, and fruit pots to be had but this information was on a need-to-know basis. As I was sitting across the aisle I did not need to know.

Our flight landed 20 minutes late which is excellent for British Airways. We then got to experience the joys of Lisbon Airport. It took 75 minutes to clear immigration which is our second worst ever behind the great San Francisco immigration debacle of 2019. I replied to a welcome message from our driver informing him about the queue which was met with a cheery “no worries”. While in the queue I noted that it was 10 degrees centigrade in Lisbon which was cooler than London. Eventually we made it through and our suitcase was sitting waiting for us, looking a bit sad. Hugo our driver from LisbonAirportTransfersTo was at meeting point 3 and seemed in remarkably good spirits as he explained to us that this length of wait was one of the reasons that Lisbon is frequently ranked as one of the world’s worst airports. He told us lots of touristy facts and said it very rarely rained in Lisbon nowadays so we should just ignore any forecasts of rain. I had opted for a premium Mercedes Van at €69.60 and we were at the Intercontinental Cascais-Estoril in half an hour. Hugo got €80 for his troubles and seemed truly delighted.

InterContinental Cascais-Estoril

Check in at the Intercontinental was both immediate and delayed in that we were immediately seen to but I have no idea how it could possibly have taken so long to get us checked in. We had booked via Emyr who was flawless in his execution. I had missed a trick as I had booked the best connecting rooms available at €640 a night for a pair and the receptionist was very concerned that she could not upgrade us to a similar connecting arrangement but did offer to upgrade us to better rooms but not connecting. As Mrs Froggee had already exacted her nighttime revenge, I declined the upgrade that would have seen us each spend six nights sleeping in a room with a child.

The rooms were lovely but slightly let down by the most convoluted light switches I have ever encountered. Weirdly the box that controls them made a click for every on/off and we could hear our neighbour’s box clicking away that night as they tried to establish how theirs worked too. And the trains. How people claim you cannot hear them on Tripadvisor, I have no idea.

The boys needed to burn off energy so I took them to the pool to do so. I had read that children were only allowed in the pool/spa area at certain times but apparently not. There were three couples relaxing by the pool. One by one they decided they had relaxed enough. To be fair I should not have taken a handful of ice into the pool and shoved it down Kermit’s shorts but I thought it would be helpful as an example of something he was not to do to Freddo. Kermit then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to reciprocate. I didn’t tell him the secret trick of compacting the ice before taking it into the pool so it didn’t all melt. Despite all the ice, the pool was very warm so we swam until it was time to think about food.

We had an early dinner in the bar which meant a limited menu as the full menu is not available until 6:30pm. It should have been a very early dinner but it took forty minutes for the food to arrive which left Freddo most aggrieved. I had a burger as did Kermit. Freddo had penne Bolognese and Mrs Froggee had a €58 lobster roll. This could be described as large for a canapé but was insultingly small for a main course. I gave Mrs Froggee one quarter of my burger, partly because I am a true gentleman but mainly because I was scared that she might poke me in the eye in bed again if she was hangry that night.

The boys were knackered and it sounded like Freddo was coming down with a cold. The hotel called both rooms during bath time to check that we were happy with the hotel. I am not a fan of such calls but obviously thanked them for enquiring and said I could not be happier as I hate to complain about incurable things like trains and clicking light switches. Freddo was consigned to bed at 7:45pm. After a long day I was very much looking forward to bonding with All or Nothing featuring the Carolina Panthers on Amazon Prime Video. My evening went something like this:

8:00pm – Freddo shouts that it is noisy in his room. Mrs Froggee attends and explains it is poor sound proofing between his room and next door (there was a family on the other side of a second connecting door). Just ignore it.

8:20pm – After being allowed to read for a bit in our room, Kermit is consigned to bed. He takes a dump in our bathroom before departing to give us something to remember him by.

8:30pm – Kermit comes in worried about the phone ringing again. I explain the purpose of the earlier call and that because Daddy said he could not have been happier with the hotel there would be no attempts at service recovery so all would be fine.

8:35pm – Kermit appears again saying that the alarm clock was too bright. I use four folded boarding passes to cover the display.

8:45pm – Housekeeping appear wanting to turn down our room. We say no thank you as we are going to bed soon and please do not knock on the room next door as there are children sleeping in it.

I did not mean to lie but children were not sleeping.

8:50pm – Kermit appears saying his tummy hurts despite having done another poo. He is finding it difficult to breathe. We tell him it is because he is tired. Go to sleep.

8:51pm – Freddo appears having been woken up by the fact Kermit switched his bedside light on even though he had been issued with a torch so he did not need to do this. Freddo wants more water. We give him more water.

9:00pm – Kermit appears saying he is worried about zombies because he watched a movie on the plane and it had zombies in it. That’s okay Kermit. Zombies aren’t real and there will be no iPad tomorrow so there will be no zombies either.

9:15pm – Kermit appears again saying that his tummy really hurts – not like normal, do we have any medicine? No. He does another poo in our bathroom. I ask him to describe it. I would have accepted type 6 on the Bristol stool chart but instead I get a graphic description. I am modestly concerned now but Kermit says it feels a bit better.

9:30pm – Kermit reappears saying he feels really anxious. I considerately give up my iPad as I had downloaded an mp3 of a relaxation cd for kids onto it (but stupidly not onto the boys’ iPads) and put it by his bedside.

9:40pm – Kermit brings my iPad back saying it is stopping him from sleeping. Oh and his tummy feels a bit worse. I explain to him that he needs to sleep. I tell him that if he thinks he needs a poo, he should go even though he has been thrice already. I make sure he has plenty of water.

I then lie in bed until 10:30 unable to watch tv any more as I am mildly concerned about Kermit. I then give up and quickly fall asleep. I keep dreaming that Kermit comes in.

11:25pm – Kermit does come in and wakes me up for long enough to say his tummy really hurts and to be told to do a poo again. I do not even remember this until he told me about it the next day.

11:30pm – Kermit returns and properly wakes me up. He describes a #7 on the Bristol stool chart and says he feels much better now and is going to go to sleep.

Oh good. Despite this news I now cannot get back to sleep. When I do, I don’t sleep particularly well. The next morning Kermit is fine but says he never wants to feel like that again so only wants to eat healthy food.

We go to breakfast which is a moderately impressive spread supplemented by a fairly comprehensive a la carte menu. Kermit only wants to eat unhealthy stuff. I have porridge from the a la carte menu but, as always with a breakfast buffet, eat too much other stuff. Then we walk to Cascais, where Kermit wants to go to the supermarket to buy sweets given the T5 sweet shop let-down. He is allowed chewing gum (€2.95) and Freddo gets Skittles (€0.99). Kermit doesn’t really like the chewing gum but clutches the container for most of the day like it has diamonds in it. We potter about on the beach, go to the park/playpark, have a nice enough lunch for €59.50 and head back to the hotel. It was actually a lovely morning and probably something like I would have imagined parenthood to be if you had asked me a decade ago. We insist on Freddo having a nap as he has indeed skilfully picked up a cold. Mrs Froggee has a longer nap. Kermit reads. I escape to the balcony wearing almost all the clothes I had brought with me as it is quite chilly. Freddo wakes up and I take the boys swimming at an empty spa. I wonder if all the couples from the prior day have angrily checked out of the hotel.

We have room service for dinner as the menu is much wider than the bar. I try to persuade Kermit to have fish goujons with rice and vegetables. He has a cheeseburger with fries. I despair. Freddo wants the relaxation cd on his iPad. It takes Mrs Froggee and me about an hour to make this happen given Apple’s dislike of playing multiple imported mp3 files and the fact that his iPad was heavily locked down by Mrs Froggee and she could not remember how she changed all the settings.

Supposedly there is lots to see and do nearby but the next morning we just pottered about a pebbly beach, minutes from the hotel. For some reason children never seem to get bored of pebbles. Mrs Froggee got to take home a pocket fully of choice specimens and pieces of glass that had been smoothed off by the sea.

And that was it really. We quite enjoyed the Intercontinental. Would we go back? Without children, totally. But they are remarkably difficult to shake off. We had a light lunch at the hotel where Kermit at least had penne bolognese and I was delighted to have a tin or sardines with some small pieces of crunchy bread given that I had eaten far too much at breakfast again. Mrs Froggee was mistakenly given Earl Grey tea which we thankfully resolved as the last time she drank Earl Grey, seeking to be polite at a visit to my brother’s, she subsequently puked up in my car. I left the gang in the rooms and checked out which was painfully slow. I did not get a fully comprehensible bill but the total was €1,490.10. This included some previously undisclosed VAT and 2x $100 credits being netted off restaurant spend to get to a net number.

Martinhal Oriente, Lisbon

We got picked up at 2pm. It was about 35 minutes’ drive to Martinhal at Park of Nations, Lisbon where we were spending the next six nights at a cost of €1,488. I could be wrong but I think the driver dozed off on the way. Sadly, Freddo did not. The fare was the same as two days earlier. We attempted to check in at 2:40pm but our apartment was not ready. The smiling receptionist informed us that check in was not until 3pm anyway. The cleaners “were just finishing up in our apartment” and we could take the boys to the kids’ playroom while we waited. Our boys loved the kids’ room in the other Martinhal but this one was a complete fail. No ping-pong. No air-hockey. No table-football. One gaming PC and one PS4, both of which were problematic to use. Kermit sulked and Freddo threw himself at beans bags.

At 3:15pm the boys were rebelling so we tried at reception again. They were now dealing with a minor maintenance issue in our apartment. We were offered a glass of wine in the bar but the boys were getting bouncy. We could see a trampoline outside in close proximity to an emptied swimming pool. There were a few cones next to it as a friendly reminder not to fall in. The boys could use this trampoline under parental supervision. We were escorted to it via a fire escape. Some 25 minutes later I was starting to become annoyed so I went back to check with reception. This was foiled by the fire escape having shut behind us. I realised we were locked out of the hotel and there was no way round to the front. I called reception who graciously came and rescued me. I then explained my frustration to reception i.e. do not tell me the cleaners are just finishing off and that check in is not until 3pm and then keep me waiting for an hour until well past 3pm. We had laundry to do, groceries to go get, and hopes of settling into an apartment.

The receptionist called housekeeping to be told that our apartment was ready. Of course it was. Up we went. It was very nice with a twin room for the boys and a king room for us. Of note were the Smeg kettle (£129 at John Lewis) and Smeg toaster (£149) which Mrs Froggee now wants as our ones are not smeggy enough. Delonghi, deshmonghi. I will probably buy them for Mrs Froggee for Valentine’s Day as that is the point you get to after nearly 15 years of marriage. Apparently she has no further use for lingerie and would rather have a LEGO® Icons Bouquet of Roses than actual roses.

I digress. Over the stay the apartment became annoying. It was as if the builder had tried to reproduce something they had seen in a design magazine. The kitchen area had only two power sockets which were positioned on the wall well in front of the cooker. So to make a cup of tea or use the toaster you had to sling the power cable along the wall with the only place to put the kettle or toaster being behind the stovetop. And you would be ill advised to cook anything while boiling the kettle or making toast. The only dining table was a breakfast bar connected to the kitchen worktop. This is an interesting choice for a place focusing on families. Freddo could not easily get in or out of the bar chair without help. The boys’ room had a shower room next to it and the master bedroom ensuite had a bath incorporating a rainfall shower and a small screen but no standalone shower. It was impossible to shower there without covering the floor with water. So the boys bathed in our ensuite and we showered in their shower room. They could not shower in their shower room as it was impossible to get a stable temperature in the shower. The control was very sensitive and it randomly liked to become scalding hot. Like dangerously hot. The master bedroom had a large flat screen tv on the wall. No dressing table. Not even a chair to put things on. And tiny little bedside “tables” protruding from the wall. And bedside lights that didn’t work. Nothing individually that would be a dealbreaker but it is hard to believe that this was designed and built by a company that has been in the family hospitality game for ages.

We were staying over New Year and we had been emailed weeks prior about the gala dinner. An evening’s knees up for the bargain price of €380 for grown-ups and €190 for children. They then telephoned a week or two before our arrival as by some Christmas miracle they still had a few tickets left and did not wish us to miss out. I demurred given that the cost would have been almost as much as our six-night stay. And we had no desire to eat at 9pm and make the boys stay up until 3am. Or indeed stay up ourselves. There was a bargain New Year’s Day Brunch at only €125 for adults and €62.50 for children. I actually briefly considered this and then thought, nah. We were reminded about the gala dinner on check-in and were then telephoned about it the next day. No enquiries about our apartment or our stay, just the hard sell.

Apart from breakfast we didn’t eat in the in-house restaurant. This was because they seemed to have lofty expectations of children with the kids’ menu being:
– Chicken satay spring roll – €5
– Thai beef salad (cucumber, honey roasted peanuts, radish, mint) – €5
– Basil (caramelized onions, port wine, pine nuts) – €5
– Turbot (crab, quinoa, sea vegetables, curry jam) – €26
– Black cod (pack choi, Asian pear, miso) – €16
– Rack of lamb (vindaloo, potato gratain) – €13
– Moussaka (lentil stew, crispy aubergine) – €7
– Roasted heritage tomato tart – €6

This was basically just an edited highlights of the main menu. And while the boys would have been willing to try some of these dishes the chance of an “I don’t like it” was too high. Clearly we are far too unsophisticated. Breakfast was a simpler affair. The buffet was €20 for adults and €10 for children. We went three times and each time the gang had the buffet but I stuck to a la carte having a cappuccino (€3.50) and Superfood porridge (€9.00) featuring “chia, flax seeds, blueberries, raspberries and maple syrup”. The first day I received the sum total of four raspberries, the second day, three blueberries and the third day, three raspberries. Super. Food. The respective bills were €42.50, €32.50 and €29.00 with 5% service added on top each time. I always queried the undercharge but the staff seemed to think it was funny. It warranted a five euro tip.

We went swimming. In the shallowest pool I have ever been in. Even Freddo could stand up in the 1.1m of water. Please shower before entering the pool. Sure. No poolside showers. They did not want you to drip water all through the changing room and the corridor to the pool so shower and dry off, I guess. Then after swimming, please dry yourself before leaving the pool area. Okay. Then go back to changing room and shower again? There was no soap in the showers. I filled my goggles with soap from the wash basins. The showers had push buttons that probably lasted 30 seconds a push. And took ages to heat up. And then got cold. And then got hot again. Really hot. But not as hot as the shower in our apartment. That was potential hospitally hot whereas these were merely hurty hot.

We mostly stayed in and around the Park of Nations. After paying €52.40 to eat in a place called Bad Habit Restaurant and Bar (primarily because it was open) where the healthy option was egg-fried rice, we went to the Vasco de Gamma mall. Unlike nice restaurants, the food court there were open for dinner at kiddy o’clock. The sushi place was pretty good with it being freshly made on ordering. We got heavily rained on. The forecast was invariably for light showers which we obviously ignored thanks to Hugo’s sage advice. We went to the Oceanarium which was a massive hit. We enjoyed it so much we paid €10 for a souvenir family photo. And the cafe had the best pancakes of the trip. The boys lasted multiples of the 25 minutes they managed at The Louvre last year. A combined ticket for the Oceanarium and the cable car cost €93 which wasn’t bad value particularly as we were able to take the cable car on a different day.

We went to the Science Museum. It was an even bigger hit. Lots of interactive things to do and brilliant staff explaining it all. I bravely cycled along a wire six metres above the ground. I was saved from certain death by the physics (a 200kg counterweight hanging beneath me). Although they cannot have had that much faith in the physics given there was a net. Mrs Froggee was very impressed at me as I am not good with heights. I only did it because I went with Freddo and he was not allowed as his legs are too stubby. Kermit saw me from below. “Look there’s daddy”. “What!!!???” thought Mrs Froggee. Kermit then went across without a care in the world. But he would not do the bed of nails which everyone else did. The boys danced in the water gardens. On an overcast day in January.

We went on the cable car and found playparks further along the Park of Nations. But weirdly, apart from the sole trampoline there was no outdoor play area at Martinhal. There was a reasonably large area laid to lawn but I’m guessing their desire to market 200 square metre apartments on the higher floors at €3million+ made them decide that having an outdoor play area for children would be EV negative.

We ate in the apartment on either side of New Year which was uninspired cuisine unless baked salmon seasoned with a bit of salt, pepper and a honey glaze served with fries carrots and peas is your thing. And we had two truly awful nights of sleep between the gala dinner and the apartment above us having a party on “New Year’s Day” that seemed to go on until 5am on the 2nd of January. The boys actually slept but you could not tell by how poor their behaviour was. They were thugs in the pool. Freddo hit me full pelt with his head on my goggles. I removed myself from the pool. Kermit almost knocked over a girl. He was removed from the pool. They burned through their screen time by mid-morning and then got ar$y when more was not forthcoming. It was always an argument to get them out of the apartment to go and do stuff which kind of negated the whole point of going somewhere with mild weather.

And that was it really. After the boys’ behaviour, the second biggest let down for me was the weather. Lisbon is meant to average 5 hours of sunshine a day in December/January. I doubt we even managed half of that. There was one afternoon where it was properly sunny and despite only being 14 degrees centigrade, it was roasting on our balcony. One hour of bliss for me. Mrs Froggee sent out Freddo. I put on Freddo cancelling headphones. Freddo went inside and got his headphones and put them on too. He then asked me why we were wearing headphones. Mine were wireless, his cable was not plugged in to anything.

By our final day at Martinhal we were more than ready to leave. We had headed into central Lisbon that morning as it was forecast to be dry but we had gotten caught in a torrential downpour. We ducked into a cafe. When I commented to the waiter that the forecast had been for it to be dry all morning he responded with “well it is Lisbon”. I don’t think he would get on well with Hugo. The boys took full advantage and demanded hot chocolate and a brownie to counter the emotional trauma of being expected to do what Mrs Froggee and I wished to do and in bad weather to boot. The brownies were massive and very rich. So we had half each. The hot chocolates were massive and made my macchiato look comically small and even dwarfed Mrs Froggee’s tea. All for a bargain €19.70. Shortly afterwards while looking at tourist tat, Kermit felt sick. I took him for some air. He thought he would be okay to go back to Martinhal in a taxi. Of course, Kermit. Freddo had purchased a small ceramic chicken for €5 which he was very pleased with and called his “five euro chick”. I thought this might make an amusing nickname for Mrs Froggee but then remembered the sharp poke in the eye a week earlier so said nothing. We headed to Hard Rock Cafe where Mrs Froggee bought a pin badge to add to her Hard Rock collection. Then a taxi back to Martinhal. Now Freddo didn’t feel great. Both went to the toilet on arrival and felt much better. The apartment smelt much worse.

Given the lack of listening and excessive horseplay after lunch I could not face taking the boys swimming so I punished them instead. We then packed as best we could, emptied the fridge and freezer and called it dinner. An anticlimactic end to a disappointing break. Mrs Froggee and I concluded it was the worst holiday since we went to the Lake District in 2018. The house we were staying in there had flies everywhere. You could not get rid of them as they kept coming from a nearby farm and magically found their way inside even with the windows closed. Every morning we would find Freddo in his cot with flies crawling all over his nappy seeking his freshly laid egg.

Lisbon to Edinburgh

The next day we were picked up at 8:15am and it was a very short drive to the airport. I had grossly overpaid by pre booking a van at €40 but we might have struggled for luggage space in a normal taxi. This time I had booked the non-premium Mercedes van so it was a surprise to be driven in the exact same van that had collected us from the airport. We were flying home with EasyJet direct on a 10:45am flight which thankfully left from Lisbon’s “premium” terminal 1. This had cost €632.43 including a large cabin bag, a 15kg hold bag and a 23kg hold bag. I had bravely not paid for seat reservations which saved €47.96. I had been rewarded on check in with four seats across row 11 which was a result. The bag drop queue was long. Kermit was unamused. It moved quickly. I was relieved. The agent told us immigration was a nightmare so best go straight there. Oh joys. We stopped off at Paul, Europe’s premier airport-focused bakery Mrs Froggee bought lunch food while I fielded questions from Freddo about the longest car journeys I have been on. The prices seemed high and she was remarkably restrained. At security we got profiled as having children. This got us sent to priority security which was nice. Then we went to immigration where the queue looked markedly familiar. As was Kermit’s reaction to it. However, it “only” took 22 minutes to get through which was 53 minutes better than when we wanted to get into Portugal.

Our flight was a little bit delayed so the four of us managed to perch on two seats. Mrs Froggee had her right buttock on the table that separated our two seats from our neighbours and my left buttock was in thin air. To give my right buttock a rest I went for a walk and after browsing in the “Wonderful World of Portuguese Sardines” I spent €2.95 on a very small tea for Mrs Froggee. As it looked like the flight was about to start boarding, Mrs Froggee insisted Kermit give up his iPad. On the third attempt she managed to wrangle it off him. “Can I go to the toilet?” said Kermit. Sure. By yourself – don’t be too long or you’ll miss the flight said I. Kermit looked like a soldier who had been ordered by General Erinmore to cross no man’s land to deliver a message to Colonel Mackenzie calling off a doomed attack. I swear he actually ducked as he ran off. I then went and joined the speedy boarding queue to ensure that our carry-on suitcase was directly above our seats.

The flight was uneventful. The difference between EasyJet, where people are allocated seats together and Ryanair, where they are deliberately separated is massive. So much quieter. This time I sat between the boys wishing I did not have half a migraine given how bright the light coming in all the windows was. Taking Freddo to pee on a plane remains an adventure and I look forward to when he is happy to go by himself like Kermit. Most of the lost time was made up and we slam dunked into Edinburgh Airport and were quickly off the plane. We had to climb the stairs to the international arrivals’ corridor of doom. But immigration was a joy. Even Kermit could not complain about the hordes of waiting immigration officials. Mrs Froggee did her best to sabotage us by running off to the “other passports queue” thinking this was for people with children but it made little difference such was the volume of happy passport stampers. Our bags were unnervingly quick also. I spent the bare minimum at M&S Simply Food being £33.40 although I admit this did include £5.50 for their best ever sausage rolls. Our car was where we left it. We returned home. The heating was working. That is it really.

Shortly after getting back, I paid £8 to cancel our February half term trip (we had been intending going back to Portugal) and we booked the boys into holiday club which seems better for all. Mrs Froggee and I seriously need a break before we attempt Singapore for Easter.

The end.