Island Odyssey: Two Years to Madeira

This May we took a two-week trip with Lindblad Expeditions, their Island Odyssey journey. This year it started in Madeira and went on to the Azores, the Isles of Scilly, Fowey (on the English mainland), and the Channel Islands of Sark and Guernsey.

It took us two years to get onto this trip. If you would prefer to jump right to the trip itself, scroll down to "Madeira, Day 1."

It Takes Two Years to Get There, and Many Changes

We first signed up for the 2010 version of this trip, which was to begin with Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and then Madeira, the Azores, and flying back from Lisbon. We put down our deposit early, in April 2009; in June the trip was canceled, probably due insufficient response. Lindblad returned our deposit, but we lost $850 of travel insurance premiums. (If you want travel insurance that covers financial default of the operator, or coverage for pre-existing conditions, the insurance companies want the policy to be purchased within 14 days of signing up for the trip.) If we were to take a different trip before the departure time for the original trip, we could have transferred the insurance, but that didn't work in our case.

In the spring 2010 we saw that Lindblad now had a version of this trip for 2011, somewhat altered, dropping Cape Verde but including the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores, and the new "English stuff." Still good, so we signed up quickly. Airfare was not part of the package.

In October 2010 we saw that Lindblad was now offering $1,000 off and free international airfare (Lindblad chooses the airline and schedule) for the trip. It was in their brochures and in promotional emails that they sent us. Lindblad's policy in earlier years had been to reimburse already-booked guests, if asked, with vouchers for future travel of value equal to the special offer. This time, they said they could not do anything for us.

Here is where having an experienced travel agent to fight for you is invaluable. We were working through Susan Schneider at Twin Horizons Travel, a division of Travel Solutions. Eventually we received the incentives, applied to this trip, even though we had booked months before.

Lindblad's free, economy-class group flights were with TAP Portugal, departing from Newark and returning into JFK. The New York airports are not our favorites; Joan found a US Airways alternative that would depart from Charlotte and return into Philadelphia. And we could get business class seats for half of what Lindblad would charge on TAP! Susan convinced Lindblad to credit us the value of their free economy airfare, which we applied to these seats.

Lindblad charges an extra fee to process airline reservations that aren't part of a group flight, but we had them do so. If your return flight goes poof (think Icelandic volcano, or fog in the Orkney Islands), if you made your own reservations, you are on your own to cope with the emergency. Lindblad will assist only if you made the air reservations through them.

There were side effects of not being on the group flight. Lindblad made it clear that if we were not on the group flight, we would be responsible to transfer from the airport to the hotel on Madeira. Further, if the group transfer from the dock at Portsmouth, England to Heathrow for the return flight did not fit our schedule, we would be on our own for getting to Heathrow -- about a $150 taxi ride. And by the way, the ship should not be expected to have that many British pounds for us to purchase, so we should get them elsewhere. We grumbled, but getting business class at ½ the price was still worth these annoyances, especially for the 8-hour overnight flight out. (We later learned from other guests that the free TAP seats were in the back of the plane, some were not reclinable, and all had a knee-busting lack of air space between seats.)

In December we were notified that the ship, the Explorer, would be in drydock in the Canaries longer than expected, and that therefore the trip would no longer include the Canaries, but instead there would be an extended 3-day visit to Madeira before the ship would catch up to us. To their credit, Lindblad said they would pick up any change fees incurred on air travel (we wouldn't book our flights for another month) and would house the group at the historic Reid's Palace luxury hotel in Funchal, Madeira.

About a month before departure Lindblad informed us that they would take care of transferring us from the airport to Reid's. Susan further got them to be responsible for getting a refund from Reid's for our transfer, which they did. Then when we received our final travel documents from Lindblad, two weeks before departure, we discovered that there would also be an early transfer from Portsmouth. Those guests whose flights were up to an hour sooner than the group flight would not need to hire a taxi!

Joan and I did have a six-hour layover in Gatwick, which was unremarkable except for the system of gate information we saw both in Gatwick and Heathrow. In the U.S., the airport will typically display the expected gate for a flight well in advance -- many hours, in fact. Your boarding pass for a connecting flight that you won't be boarding for, say, six or seven hours likely as not will have a gate number printed on it. In the London airports, until about 45 minutes before the boarding starts the airport displays show only "Gate will open at XX:YY." Thus, passengers spend much more time at shops, bars, and food courts and don't clog the gate areas until closer to boarding time, when the display will change to "Proceed to Gate ABC." 

After a four-hour flight from Gatwick we landed in Funchal, Madeira. In the photo below, the causeway to the right is not an automotive bridge, but an extension of the airport runway! Not wasting space, the land underneath the runway is a park with tennis courts and more.

Disembarking, we were met by not only a Lindblad representative (there were five of us on that flight), but by a limo driver sent by the hotel. Even though our cancellation had been confirmed, our limo reservation had not been purged from the hotel's list! The driver was upset, not knowing how he would be paid, but we stuck with the Lindblad group and arrived at the hotel 20 minutes before the welcome-to-the-trip cocktails and dinner. Fortunately Reid's did not require our group to don formal wear, although we were asked to dress nicely. I had time to change my shirt. The formal dining room is a stunning sight with high vaulted ceilings. The hotel is full of memorabilia from famous personages, such as Bertrand Russel and Winston Churchill.

And then we collapsed into bed, looking forward to our first day in Madeira. The hassles of booking, scheduling, and arriving were over, and we knew that Lindblad always does an excellent job of running a trip.

Madeira, Day 1

We awoke and looked out from our balcony.

Technically we were on the eighth floor, but for Reid's this is only a general indication. The lobby, for example, is on the sixth floor, because the building is, by necessity, built on the side of a steep hill -- Madeira is an old volcanic island. The hotel consists of two buildings which connect only at the fifth floor. It did take us a while to learn our way around!

Gasoline costs about $8/gallon on Madeira, so the taxis do not run their engines while waiting for a fare. When the time comes to advance in the queue, the taxi drivers rely on gravity and guide their vehicles forward.

When operating from the ship Lindblad always offers several excursions to the guests, accommodating different interests and fitness levels. Today there was a choice between a levada walk and tour of the Botanical Gardens and Quinta do Palheiro gardens. We chose the levada (irrigation canal) walk, a 7-mile walk with a generally gentle downhill slope and a lunch stop at the end.

Here we have disembarked from our buses at the start of the trail (the Ribeiro Frio to Portela walk). We were led by a local guide and Lindblad staffers who had been here before.

The levadas start out narrow and shallow, collecting water at the higher altitudes on the island, and then become broader and deeper as they descend, acquiring more and more water, until the water is consumed at the lower, warmer, and more inhabited altitudes.

Madeira goes from sea level to 6000 feet (1820 meters). In the first 300 meters, bananas are grown, and at the top, it can snow in winter. On this walk, in the middle altitudes, it was both warm and moist, supporting a profusion of vegetation even on the rocky slopes.

The levadas are a popular attraction, and the inquisitive chaffinches were accustomed to tourists; they may have been looking for a handout.

At one point the trail looped around and I snapped a picture across the ravine. Portions of the trail had cables, as you see, because it was sometimes narrow and on the edge of a cliff.

Here's my artistic picture in the clouds.

The last mile or so was more on roads and had some muddy steps cut into the hillside to descend. At the end we had a hearty lunch. My apologies to Tom, Penelope, and Skip for including them in this photo, but then we all were damp and tired after seven miles in the mist. The exercise did us all good after the confined flights and time changes (Madeira is 5 hours ahead of Ohio).

On Lindblad trips an alcoholic beverage with your meal is an extra cost, except for the welcome-to-the-trip and farewell dinners. On Madeira wine is just another beverage and was included in the meals without question or comment.

As we gathered outside the restaurant to board our buses, everybody admired the promontory known as Eagle Rock. According to our guide, the feature has never had any connection with eagles, but looks like it should. We would see it from the other side on the third day.

After cleaning up, our next outing was a 7:00PM departure for dinner. The Portugese consider any time before 10:00PM much too early for dinner, and there was a hidden compromise tonight. Yes, we left at 7PM, but the buses took a scenic, roundabout route, each with a local guide, and we stepped off the buses forty-five minutes later rather than ten. Then we admired the preparations, just getting under way, for the Flower Festival that weekend, on the main pedestrian thoroughfare.

Just beyond the flowers, a troupe was performing traditional folk dances, in costume. They were very good. With my usual skill, I managed to stop this video two seconds before the music ended. My apologies!

Across the street was our destination, the Old Blandy Wine Lodge, where dinner was to be served. (Blandy is the name of a long-established English family, the Madeiran Rockefellers as it were. Our buses were also Blandy.)

Inside the Lodge, we were taken on a short tour of their wine museum. I don't remember much except the sweet smell of the larger-than-life, walk-through wooden barrel perfumed by flasks of Madeiran wine. Then we came to the hallway with the serving line, but don't form the idea that we're about to come into the proximity of food. There are three rooms using this buffet line, two occupied by our Lindblad group and a third occupied by another group.

Joan and I end up at one of the tables in one of the rooms. It is not yet time to dine, however; it is time to appreciate fado, traditional Portugese singing of loss and remembrance.

Then and only then are the tables slowly released, one by one so as to not clog the buffet area. We left the hotel at 7PM and it is now sometime after 9PM. Our table is the last to the buffet line, where for many lovely courses servers are at hand to transfer the portions to your plate. When the time comes for dessert, the dispatchers seem to have forgotten our table, and we release ourselves to sample several of the delights.

After dinner two guitarists perform, and they do a great job. They are lively and their music is varied, from traditional tunes to bluesy tunes to Hotel California. We demand an encore, and they are happy to oblige, but then they must move on to the next room.

OK, it is time to go (well after 10PM). But no, the guides appear to be waiting for all the rooms to be finished. One of the couples at our table suggests that we should just get up and go. We realize that everybody at the table is in agreement, and stand up and begin to walk out. This is a signal, and all the other tables in the room also stand up and begin to walk out. The guides dash to catch up to us, we get on the buses waiting for us outside, and get back to the hotel forty minutes ahead of the other diners.

And Joan and I need our rest. It will be a long day tomorrow, during which we will go to the top of the Pico do Arieiro twice and stay up past midnight.