… Air Europa sucks. I was scheduled to depart at 8:05 PM on Thursday and on a whim checked the Air Europa internet site to see if my flight was on time. Delayed was what showed up so I checked the flight from Madrid (the plane we were to fly from San Juan back to Madrid) and it wasn't in the air. Called the local number. No answer. Called the Madrid number and after a while they informed me the plane was broken and it was scheduled to leave San Juan on Friday at 10:00 AM. Heck no! So my wife and I rushed to the airport with our baggage at 3:30 PM to make other arrangements. There was a flight leaving from Santa Domingo at 9 PM so all we needed was Air Europa to get us there in time. No one from Air Europe appeared in the airport until almost 6 PM. No chance to do a work around. We ended up leaving Friday at noon 16 hours late. Arrived at Madrid at 1:30AM. Picked up the checked luggage and went through customs. No one from Air Europa was there to take our checked baggage. We had to lug it around. A ride to a hotel for a couple of hours was offered but I had a foreboding feeling that I should stay in the airport. At 4:00AM they showed up at the desk but didn't open until 4:30 AM with a scheduled lift off at 6:30 AM. I was first in line and just wanted them to take the checked luggage. Well, we had boarding passes and luggage checked through to Lisbon but no tickets in the system. Off to the ticket sales line. Long story short, we made it easier for those that went to the hotel because with us they realized no one had tickets in the system, just like us. Don't fly Air Europa people. The plane crew was professional but all the ground personnel were inexperienced and inept, though super nice. More later on the actual vacation. We're in Lisbon now and fighting the bad beginning karma.

Les