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Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Let us pull back the curtain and show you how you can maximize money you're already spending to earn enough credit card points and miles to travel with your family for nearly free.
We've used credit card points and miles to take our family of 5 on trips to places like Costa Rica, San Diego, Disneyland, Oceanside, NYC, Washington DC, Hawaii, and next year we have already booked Paris, Spain and Japan!
Using credit card points and miles (often called travel hacking) doesn't have to be overwhelming or take a ton of time, and we can show you how.
Can you earn a lot of points and miles without opening up multiple credit cards? Only if you have a really high amount of spend each month. For people with larger families, opening new cards is the easiest and fastest way to earn enough points and miles to take a couple of really low cost (but not low budget) family vacations every year!
If you want to learn ways to help you and your family travel more affordably using credit card points, this show is for you.
Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Madrid on Points and Miles, as a Family of 5!
The activities we did in Madrid (Food Tour and Flamenco show!): vi.me/1T9xd
If you're planning a trip to Europe using points and miles or have questions about traveling as a family of five, follow us on Instagram @TravelPartyofFive where we share highlights and tips from our adventures.
In this episode:
We travel to Madrid as part of our two-week European adventure, staying at the Hyatt Centric Gran Via using points, free night certificates, and suite upgrades for our family of five.
• Taking the train from Barcelona to Madrid is simple and stress-free compared to flying
• The Hyatt Centric Gran Via Madrid offers excellent location, service, and a memorable breakfast experience
• Experiencing a flamenco show provides cultural entertainment even children can appreciate
• The Royal Palace of Madrid showcases incredible opulence with special access to the royal kitchens
• Madrid's tapas culture is perfect for families, allowing everyone to try small portions of different foods
• Adjusting plans for rainy weather led to unexpected discoveries like the Museum of Illusions
• Retiro Park offers a beautiful outdoor space for kids to play when weather permits
• Following recommendations from "Somebody Feed Phil" led to authentic food experiences
• Using Hyatt Globalist status maximizes value with free breakfast and potential room upgrades
If you've been wanting to visit Madrid using points and miles, we're going to tell you exactly how we did it as a family of five in today's episode, so listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dwayne.
Speaker 1:And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.
Speaker 2:We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.
Speaker 1:So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.
Speaker 2:So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip. Hi friends, Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Happy Monday, tuesday, wednesday, whatever day it is you're listening. This episode will come out on Monday. We are going to dive into part three of our two weeks in Europe, and today we're going to be talking all about Madrid.
Speaker 2:Yes, my favorite.
Speaker 1:Was it your favorite?
Speaker 2:Yeah what made it your favorite, just the hustle and bustle of the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was hustly and bustly, that's for sure. Reminded me of Tokyo Interesting. I've never been to Tokyo yet. So as a side note, before we dive in, dwayne had some dental work done the other day and is having a lot of mouth pain. So if he's not speaking as clearly as usual, that is why, and we apologize.
Speaker 2:Bear with me.
Speaker 1:So let's dive in. So when we left off on the Barcelona episode, we were in the Grand High at Barcelona, and to get to Madrid, we actually took a train, and so the trains in Europe, if you've never been, are fantastic. When I was in Europe in 2012, that was the only way I got around through I don't know, maybe 10 different countries was to take the train, and so I knew that we didn't want to take flights every four days on this trip, because I find airports very stressful and I'm trying to relax, so we took a train. It was super easy. We left the Grand Hyatt Barcelona, we actually took a taxi from the hotel to the main train station, which is Barcelona Sants, I think, is how you say it, and we got like you have to go through a like a kind of a security screening, but it's nothing like the airport.
Speaker 2:Nothing like it.
Speaker 1:Like I think they're really just looking for like weapons, and so you kind of run your bags through a scanner and that's about it. Then you get in line for your train. There's a screen that'll show you okay, you know you're on this train, you know this is your track, and you just line up and get on the train Super easy. I booked the train tickets a couple of months before our trip through Omeo O-M-I-O. I've used them before. They do charge like a couple of dollars extra as like a surcharge, as opposed to booking with the trains directly. So in Spain and also similar.
Speaker 1:Similarly in Italy, there are different trains that you can book, and I had a hard time for Italy specifically being able to book from the United States on their website, and so I ended up using Omeo then and it was super simple, so I just used it again this time. They also usually are like 2% cash back on Rakuten, and so that's another bonus that makes me not really feel bad for paying a few extra dollars in fees, and it's just super easy. You have the app on your phone, that's where your tickets live and it's it's. I would recommend it, and I booked us in business class, I think, or first class or whatever. And I kept telling, like Dwayne and the kids, like just lower your your expectations because it's not like flying business class on a plane. But the seats were big, comfy, we had plenty of room. What did you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I thought it was great, it was very comfortable.
Speaker 1:Yes, the like the economy class is just it's fine, like there's nothing wrong with it. That's how I traveled in 2012. Like every time, there was no first class for backpacker Raya, but with kids, I just wanted to have a little more space. I wanted the option of being close to food and we were right next to, like, the food cart because it was going to be lunchtime, and so I think it was maybe $90 or $95 total for all five of us to go from, like, the lowest class to the higher class.
Speaker 1:The one thing I will say when you're booking a train is just be careful, because there are some quiet cars and you don't want to book that. Like, especially if you're traveling with kids, you don't want to book the quiet car. So just pay attention to that. And also a really good reference for trains in Europe is seat 61. So I believe the website is seat61.com, but you can find information on almost any route and any type of train that runs that route and the different classes available and what they mean, and so I would recommend seat 61 as a train resource if you're planning a trip like this. But anyways, we took the train. It's about three hours.
Speaker 2:Super easy.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it was snowing. At one point as we were driving through the country of Spain, there was snow on the ground, which I thought was kind of crazy actually.
Speaker 2:It was kind of crazy to see that.
Speaker 1:And we arrived in Madrid mid-afternoon. We took the metro actually from the train station to our hotel. This was the only time we didn't take a taxi, and that was because we were already in the train station, like we literally just had to walk from the train area to the metro area and we had one transfer, I think, to get on the line that went closest to our hotel. I think Dwayne was skeptical when I said we were going to take the metro, but it was fine, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was totally fine, super easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we stayed at the Hyatt Centric Gran Via Madrid. It was maybe five minutes from the metro. What were you gonna say?
Speaker 1:super nice hotel yes, it was fantastic. So really briefly how I booked it. Currently it's a category six Hyatt, which is between 21 and 29,000 points a night. I actually booked this a full year ago when it was a category five, and so we paid less points than that per night. We again had two rooms and I used a combo of points, and also I had a free night certificate that I ended up applying. It was one of the category one through seven free night certificates that we earned last year for making our way to globalist status with Hyatt, and I also had to use a suite upgrade on one of our rooms in order to get us to have a an occupancy of five in the room. But because one of the nights was a free night certificate you can't combine a suite upgrade and a free night certificate so we did pay one night cash upgrade for that night. It was 150 euros and I emailed prior and sorted this all out, so I knew that that was coming and I was prepared for that. I just thought that's fine. If that's the only upgrade that we have to pay for all the upgrades we had on this trip, like whatever, that's fine.
Speaker 1:The other thing that was interesting is I don't even know if I told you this, but I had. Also, when I was emailing trying to confirm the occupancy and that we had connecting rooms and all that, I asked if they would extend my globalist benefits to Dwayne's room and they said no. And so I told Dwayne, I don't know, there was no club or anything, so I couldn't give him a club access award. So Ine, I don't know there's no club or anything, so I couldn't give him a club access award. So I said I don't know if they're going to honor it, but we're just going to go and see. And if they don't, then they don't. But they did, we never paid.
Speaker 2:Never paid for breakfast yeah.
Speaker 1:Never saw a bill for breakfast. I don't even know what the breakfast cost, to be honest, like there charge posted anywhere, so I have no idea. What did you think of the hotel?
Speaker 2:again, like I said, it was great. Uh, breakfast was also great. They had a lot of wait. Talk about check-in first. We'll talk about breakfast check-in. We get there to check in. Um, it took a while. They had to look at all their passports, but they offered us snacks and drinks, which I thought was a great touch Straight from the bar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they sat us, they took our passports, sat us down on the couch and asked us if we'd like a welcome drink and snacks. And their welcome drink is like a vermouth, which in America vermouth is something you use when you're making a like a martini. You kind of like line the glass with it, I'm going to say, and then you pour in the martini. This was not that.
Speaker 2:I mean no, but I wasn't a fan. I wouldn't like it no it was a little too thick and too tart. Was it tart or fruity, or something about it was off.
Speaker 1:Think about it like it was like actually okay. So we had vermouth a couple different times and they were actually quite different tasting, but this one from the hotel was think of like a red wine soaked in like herbs and maybe like some type of liqueur. Also, I didn't mind it actually. I felt like, oh, if this is what they drink in Spain, like I'm going to drink it because I'm in Spain, you know. Like I didn't mind it at all. And yeah, they brought us these like little empanadas. They brought juice for the kids and so it was a really nice little touch. We just sat on the couch and they checked us in.
Speaker 2:We't do anything yeah, and everyone was super friendly and helpful.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and so we got checked into our room. We didn't have a ton of time because we had something booked that night, which we'll get into all the activities we did in a bit, but I mean overall fantastic hotel. It's right on grand via, which is a major street in Madrid with tons and tons of shopping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, like I said, it reminded me of, like Tokyo. It was super busy stores everywhere, people everywhere, cars everywhere, just so much traffic of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we got checked into our room, the that we had again it's two rooms combined. They called it a family suite, so basically there was like a, a double room or a twin bedroom, and then a king room was the two rooms I had booked, but we had to upgrade to a junior suite in order to get them connecting, and so that's what. That's what we had, and so one room had two beds that were I'm going to call them twin, but I felt like they were maybe a little bigger than a twin.
Speaker 2:They were bigger.
Speaker 1:And then our room had a king bed Bathroom and each, obviously you know the connecting door we just left open. Do you think it was like the same size as our Paris hotel, or a little bigger?
Speaker 2:Oh no, it was bigger.
Speaker 1:It was bigger and I did ask for a roll away because we had the king bed and then the two other beds. They said they couldn't bring in a roll away, but our youngest two ended up sharing one of the beds in the kid's room and that ended up being fine. It was actually plenty of room for for both being fine. It was actually plenty of room for for both of them. They're as a reminder, they're five and eight. They're both pretty small. They slept fine. It was no issues whatsoever. Okay, so now you can talk about the breakfast.
Speaker 2:Yes, sorry, um, yeah. So had quite the varietyruits fresh squeezed juice, they had mimosas, they had pastries, they had meats, and then there was a menu you can order off the table or from the table Omelets, pancakes, waffles.
Speaker 1:And those were like small plates, yeah. So you're not going to get like three giant pancakes, it was like a few small pancakes or one small waffle. Or you could order Eggs Benedict and it would come with like one Eggs Benedict versus your normal like two, but it was fantastic. They had this chia pudding with this really thick sweet mango sauce on top that by the end I had all the kids eating because it was so good. And, yeah, tons of fruit cereal pastries.
Speaker 1:You know, the european breakfast is like a lot of cured meats, I feel like, which is not really what we like, but they had a lot of that, yeah. And you know, cheeses and salads and just I mean, it was like Just a variety. Yeah, I don't think that you would have a problem finding something you could eat there. They had even had some gluten-free options that were like sealed so that they weren't contaminated with the gluten products. So, and by now we were in very much a routine of like waking up at a not super early time, like maybe seven, eight, and then go, you know, getting ready, going down, having a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and this was true for Paris, barcelona and also Madrid and you could get coffees made to order. So we would get cappuccinos. We would probably spend about an hour at breakfast and Duane and I would each have two cappuccinos and just relax and kind of talk about the day. Two cappuccinos and just relax and kind of talk about the day.
Speaker 1:Let the kids, like our kids, know their way around a breakfast buffet. They, for the most part, can get all their own food. Our daughter needs a little bit of help because she can't always reach it. So you know, either Dwayne or I help will help her, and sometimes same thing for our eight year old if he can't reach something. But for the most part we let them get their own stuff. And they were making avocado toast and putting scrambled egg on top and they were loving that and that's a super healthy breakfast. So no issues, no issues from mom or dad on that. And yeah, the made to order food was all really good. So and again, we never saw a bill. So I do not know how much the breakfast costs. Even on the little thing on the table where you can order the like the menu of made to order items, there was no prices next to them. So I mean, I don't know if everyone gets breakfast. I have no idea, but we never paid a cent and we never saw a cost.
Speaker 2:No, I saw them bring checks to some people. Oh, they did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you check in with your name when you go and your room number, and so they must have just known that we had status.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were Familia San Agustin.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, would absolutely recommend this hotel, would definitely stay again. They also have like a cute little lobby bar where you could order some drinks and snacks. We hung out there a couple of times during our stay and they had a rooftop restaurant which we did eat at, and we'll talk about that here in a bit. Okay, you want to talk about things we did in Madrid, and we'll talk about that here in a bit.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, you want to talk about things we did in Madrid so the first night we were there, we had a flamenco flamenco show booked, yep, which this is not gonna sound crazy, but I had the best olives there.
Speaker 1:Dwayne's been talking about those olives for weeks now.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the F they did to these olives, but they were the. I'm not even lying. They were the best olives I've ever had in my whole life.
Speaker 1:When we were leaving, dwayne was looking around at other people's tables who did not eat their olives and he was like what is wrong with?
Speaker 2:these people? Why aren't they eating their freaking?
Speaker 1:olives. So I let me tell how I booked it and then you can tell what you thought about the show. So I booked this through Viator. There's a lot of options for flamenco shows in Madrid. A lot of them are like long and they have they come with like a dinner. I didn't want any of that because I didn't know how long my kids were going to sit still, and I also, like a lot of the reviews seem to be like oh, the show was good but the food was not good, or the food was good but the show was not good. I didn't want to be like tied to whatever the food was if it was not good, because my kids would not eat it. So this this show was one hour from start to finish, again booked through Viator, for like maybe 12% cash back or something.
Speaker 1:When it was elevated and we were seated second row back, we had great seats and our tickets came with a one drink per person and the olives. They also brought out candy for the kids, like gummy bears, and then they asked permission first and what else did they have? There was peanuts or popcorn, or it was peanuts, peanuts, yeah. So plenty of little snacks for the kids. That I don't. I don't think everyone got that. It was just the kids tables to keep them occupied. And yeah, what did you think of the show?
Speaker 2:I thought the show was great. Um, the highlight of the show was the guy playing the guitar. He was great. Yep, the highlight of the show for me. But I mean the whole show in general was pretty cool yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1:Our daughter at one point looked over and she said like there was like a pause in the show and she said is it over? And I said no, not yet. And she's oh. She says oh, good, because I want to keep seeing this. I thought okay. And so towards the end the kids were kind of like. My boys especially, were kind of like are we done? Are we we done? But they were all very good and we did enjoy it and I think it was a good experience for them to, to you know, see something that's kind of out of the norm for them. So we enjoyed it. I will put a link in the show notes to the one that we did, so if you want to do it, I would recommend uh, something else.
Speaker 1:oh, as a side note, it was like a seven minute walk from the hotel, so yeah super easy.
Speaker 1:Something else that we did that we did not book in advance, we booked this the night before was we went to the Royal Palace of Madrid. This was one of the things that I kind of had on my list, but I didn't book it because I don't like to overschedule and it was supposed to rain all the next day, so that was part of why we thought, okay, we'll do this because it'll be indoors. Part of it is indoors, part of it is not. So what did you think of the palace? I?
Speaker 2:thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:We had a tour booked, which Well, we had a kitchen tour booked.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that you can do in the palace is you can go like I mean, it was in the basement, right Like you go downstairs underneath the castle and you can tour the kitchen, like the royal kitchen, which which was enormous. It was huge and I was super interested in that. You have to book a special ticket to get access to the kitchen tour, and we had to show this special ticket to approximately nine different security guards throughout the palace, like everyone making sure that we had the right, like, basically, that we had paid to see it. Um, the downside is the tour is only offered in Spanish and, um, we do not speak Spanish, but it's the only way to get down there.
Speaker 1:So we did the tour and I tried to use Google translate to understand what she was saying, but one, she wasn't speaking very loudly and two, I don't know the there wasn't good service down there, so I don't think my Google Translate was working very well. So we got the gist of a couple of things she said, but for the most part, it was just like being able to look around and see it. It was huge and I mean, I was just imagining, like, imagine all the meals that were cooked down here 200 plus years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm not even exaggerating, but there had to have been like 500 pots and pans down there.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, and they had like a section where it was like I'm pretty sure they were devices that you would skewer meat with and when I say meat I'm talking like a whole pig right, Like you would put a like a spit. Right, you would put a whole pig on this and you would put it over the fire. There was probably 15 different types of devices for that, all different sizes and shapes, and so that was interesting too. And then we did like we walked through the regular palace and saw the different rooms and I mean it's just like, like, it's just so like massive and and like the gold and the it's it's and they still use it for like state events and stuff today.
Speaker 2:You won't find anything in the US like no, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:The closest thing is going to be the White House, and it doesn't even compare, I would say.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:The other thing we wanted to do at the palace, which I was super excited about, and so were the kids, was you can see the armory palace, which I was super excited about, and so were the kids, was you can see the armory, and that's where you can see like the um, like the armor that they used to wear in battle and they have, like even like the armor for like the dogs and stuff.
Speaker 1:but it was closed when we were there yeah, they were like doing repairs or something, or renovating it but what's frustrating is it didn't say that on the website anywhere that I could see, so I was kind of frustrated by that, but we weren't able to go, so instead I just looked up pictures on my phone and showed the kids. This is what it looks like. What else do we do?
Speaker 2:Again. I mean, the weather wasn't cooperating with us in Madrid either, so most of the time it was raining, yeah so it rained our entire first day there.
Speaker 1:The second day it actually did not rain and we had a food tour booked, so that was good. Yeah, we had some sun for maybe the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, was actually able to wear shorts that day, yeah so the food food tour I booked through Europe.
Speaker 1:They have food tours in other cities. I think they started in Italy and the Madrid one is fairly new and when I booked they were offering a 30% off coupon. I don't know if that's still available or not, but I would check out their website and see if it is. We enjoyed the tour and see if it is we enjoyed the tour. We it was us, the five of us, plus another family from New York that their daughter was studying abroad in Madrid, and they came to visit. So it was the mom, the dad, the daughter and then the brother, and so we, you know, chatted with them a bit ch it with the guides, and we got to taste the I guess viral calamari sandwich, which it was okay. It was okay, we like calamari with sauce, and there was no sauce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was no sauce.
Speaker 1:So it was very fresh, though I will say yeah.
Speaker 2:It definitely tasted good and the line for the sandwich was very long, very long.
Speaker 1:We didn't have to wait in it because the food tour has an agreement, but it was very long. We also tried uh jamon, which is, you know, like the iberico ham. It's aged a minimum of four years, which is crazy, and we got to each slice our own if we wanted to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, off a leg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was cool. Even our 11-year-old tried that and he was like first in line when they said we could do that, so I think he was pretty excited about that. We tried squid ink risotto. That was very good, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:It was okay for me.
Speaker 1:It was very savory and it didn't taste fishy at all.
Speaker 2:It wasn't bad. It definitely didn't taste fishy, it wasn't bad, but it needed some meat. Oh well, some sustenance.
Speaker 1:What a man thing to say. I thought it was delicious. We also had some stuffed mushrooms that had like some kind of sausage in it. What's the Chor? What's the? Um? Chorizo, yes, chorizo, thank you. And we ended with some violet ice cream, so not lavender but violet, which I found. I thought that was quite interesting. But all in all, we enjoyed the tour. We got some, you know, some history out of it and I I would recommend it.
Speaker 2:I would do another one of their tours, yeah their tour is pretty good and both tour guys we had two of them um spoke really good english.
Speaker 1:Uh, answered everyone's questions one of them was from america and one was from ireland she wasn't from America.
Speaker 2:Her dad was American. She was born and raised in Madrid. Oh, maybe that's it. Yeah, but her dad was American. Met her mom while he was in the Navy, yeah.
Speaker 1:The other thing we wanted to do, but could not because of the weather, was we wanted to do a day trip to Segovia. This is something that you can book, like with a tour guide, but we were just going to go, like take the bus and go and kind of explore for the day. Segovia is around 90 minutes outside of Madrid. There is a former Roman aqueduct there, as well as a castle that is said to be said to have been the inspiration for Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle. However, the weather again was rainy, cold, windy, and we decided not to go because I didn't want to spend all the time to get there and be freezing and cold and wet the whole day. So we will have to do that on our next trip. Instead of doing that, we ended up exploring a few places from the show Somebody Feeds Phil.
Speaker 2:It's Somebody Feed Phil for the second time.
Speaker 1:Sorry, somebody Feed Phil, okay, whatever. So first of all, if you've never seen the show on Netflix, 11 out of 10 recommend. Think of it like Anthony Bourdain, except Phil is the polar opposite of Anthony Bourdain he's just really goofy.
Speaker 1:Super goofy, super happy, just loves life and everyone in it. But he goes to fun places, and so we watched the Madrid episode quite a few everyone in it, but he goes to fun places, and so we watched the Madrid episode quite a few times in preparation and we went to Casa Dani, which serves what is apparently the best tortilla in Madrid Voted best tortilla in Madrid so we went there and tried that.
Speaker 2:So a tortilla though.
Speaker 1:It's like a potato omelet, kind of.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's not like a tortilla you get in the US.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is like literally a potato omelet is the best way to describe it, and so we tried that. It was quite good, and we also ate there for lunch. So we had a bunch of other things like shrimp, I had the oxtail, yeah, the kids got some kind of like fried chicken type dish and we had some chorizo, I think we got to. So, again, more tapas, like spain in general seems to be like there's a lot of tapas and small plates, which I again think is great for kids, because you can order a bunch of little plates and then they can try whatever they want without feeling pressured to like this is your only meal and eat it or starve, and our kids try pretty much everything. I'm like proud of them for that. And so the other place we went to from the Madrid episode on, somebody feed Phil, go ahead.
Speaker 2:What is it?
Speaker 1:called, I don't remember the churro place San Guinness, san Guinness, something like that Churro, choco and churros Basically the oldest churro place. San Guinez, san Guinez, something like that Churro, churro, choco and churros Basically the oldest churritaria Is that the word? The oldest churro restaurant in Madrid. They were good, it was pretty good. Again, we ate churros every single day, sometimes twice a day, and yes, this was good.
Speaker 2:We enjoyed it and yes, if you plan to go here, just know again, this place had a super long line. Yeah, but there's like three locations, like right it weird to explain, but there's like three different places you can get it from all within the same? Yes, city block, yeah, and so so like the main part was packed with people and then we kind of like snuck into this other spot that was right next to it. We waited like five minutes for ours, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we sat next to a group of people from Puerto Rico. It was funny, yeah, and yeah it was good, we enjoyed it. We also kind of wandered around the market where Phil goes, and that was cool too.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We went to a few different markets, a few different markets.
Speaker 2:That's the thing to do in Spain, yeah.
Speaker 1:Another restaurant that we ate at that we enjoyed. This was recommended to us from the hotel concierge. It was called Vinitus and it was maybe a seven, eight minute walk from the hotel. Again, tapas we ordered so much food, too much food.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was good though.
Speaker 1:It was good. Yes, we enjoyed that, so would recommend that for sure. We almost went back a second time, and then we also ate at the rooftop of the hotel. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it's on the rooftop of the Hyatt Centric Grand Via. The views are stunning.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're on top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the summer I'm sure it's even more beautiful. It rained while we were up there. They do have a covered part and an uncovered part, so we ended up ordering fondue, which was the kids' first time ever having fondue, so that was kind of fun, and they also. We also got sliders and something with guacamole or avocado, but it was also delicious it was. The food was very good and let's see, dwayne just reminded me of two more things that we did in Madrid that I totally forgot about again because it was raining. So not something. This is not something we would have normally done. This was not on our itinerary, but we went to the museum of illusions, again recommended by the concierge. It was actually pretty fun. Good way to kill a couple of hours if it's raining when you're there. The kids enjoyed it, you know they, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:It was pretty small, but I mean, yeah, you can kill at least an hour and a half there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we liked it. And the other thing we did, which I don't know that I would recommend, but we took a tuk-tuk tour around the city and again, we did this because it was raining and they are covered. It was okay. I didn't feel like we saw anything.
Speaker 2:It was okay, I think if we would have had a better tour guide, I think it would have been better. But I mean, he wasn't bad, he just wasn't great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, like we just found him on the street, they just line up around the touristy areas and they just try to sell you and we were like okay, like sure we'll do one, because again it was rainy and you know, one of our kids fell asleep but it was fine. I just I don't, I probably wouldn't do it again or I would do it with a guide someone really recommends, you know or when it was sunny and warm outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the other thing that we did was we went to what was the park called retiro.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah retired park in ret did was. We went to what was the park called Retiro. Oh yeah, retired Park in.
Speaker 1:Spanish Retiro Park. We went to Retiro Park and that was really fun too. They had a nice big playground the kids played at for a while. This was the day we did the food tour, so it wasn't raining this day, so that was good. We actually went to two playgrounds this day, because before we did the food tour there is a playground right next to the Royal Palace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, by the meeting point.
Speaker 1:And that was the meeting point for the food tour. And so they played at that playground, like literally at a playground looking at the Royal Palace of Madrid, Like can you imagine it was? I don't know, I think that's so, so cool for a kid. And then after we went to Retiro Park, they played again and we kind of wandered through the park.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty big park.
Speaker 1:It is very big. Yes, yeah, it's just nice when you're in a city, you know, for the kids to have room to like, run and play without you worrying about them getting hit by a car. So I enjoy parks for that reason, and cities Okay. I think that sums up pretty much everything we did in Madrid On our last day. Our flight wasn't until about 4pm, so we requested late checkout, using my globalist status, and we kind of just hung out in the hotel that entire morning. After breakfast, again, it was raining, so we just didn't really feel the need to go out and about.
Speaker 2:Let me just add I also did laundry in Madrid. So on the ship, I did laundry in madrid. So on the ship, I did laundry in paris, barcelona and madrid. So I'm internationally known in the laundry world. Um again, the laundromat. They're super easy to use, super clean, all the machines work, not like laundromats here in the? U where you hope to get a dryer that dries and it's dirty, no one cleans it. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean just know that you'll be able to do laundry if you're like me and want to take care of dirty clothes. How far was it? Not far at all From the Hyatt Central Hotel. It was literally maybe a block.
Speaker 2:It literally took me like four minutes to walk there.
Speaker 1:That's probably the closest one, huh, yes, it was by far the closest one, but again, all all the laundry mats I used were fairly close yeah, as a side note, all the hotels we stayed at have a laundry service, so if you want to pay for them to do your laundry, you can do that.
Speaker 2:But it's expensive, like $5, five euros for a pair of socks.
Speaker 1:A pair of socks. Yes, dwayne was like looking at the price list and he was like it's going to cost $1,000 if we have them do our laundry Like no thanks. So yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, so our last day there, we just had breakfast, our normal leisurely two cappuccinos each breakfast, and then got packed up. Actually, in a turn of events, duane normally does all the packing up, but duane took a nap and so I actually packed us up and, much to duane's dismay, I there were some dirty clothes, even though he had recently done laundry, and I did not pack them the way he would have packed them. I'll just let you all know that right now. He said where did you put the dirty clothes? And I said I put some in each suitcase and I just saw him die a little inside like oh no.
Speaker 2:I would have had all the dirty clothes in one suitcase.
Speaker 1:Yes, Yep, I said hey, inside, like, oh no, I would have had all the dirty clothes in one suitcase. Yes, yep. I said hey, how was your nap? Yep, okay, it's done, let's, yes. So we um flew to paris. We flew from madrid to paris again about two hour flight, no big deal and then we had an overnight layover in paris, so we stayed at the hyatt house, charles de gaulle, uh, again had two rooms booked there. We actually didn't use points. We paid cash because the cash rate was pretty cheap and I just didn't think it was worth using points.
Speaker 1:I mean it's a high house, so yeah we had two connecting rooms and each room had like a little kitchenette in it, which our kids thought was like the coolest thing, and I thought of all the hotels we stayed at on this trip. This is what you think is cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, we I mean the hotel was nice. Yeah, it was fine. They had a restaurant there, so we ate dinner.
Speaker 1:It was what you would expect from a Hyatt place.
Speaker 2:It was not that good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was late and we were not going to go anywhere. So, yep, did that? Went to bed, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the service was pretty slow yeah.
Speaker 1:It was not great, but it got the job done. And in the morning we again had breakfast. And in the morning we again had breakfast. I don't know if breakfast was included for everyone or just for us because of my status, but we again did not pay for breakfast. I don't even think anyone asked us our name, so maybe it is free for everyone. Breakfast was fine. You know your standard scrambled eggs like bacon, dry hash browns, fruit, coffee, juice, whatever. Toast, pastries, um, and then we headed to the airport.
Speaker 1:Was a little stressful getting to the airport because your options are to either take a like a cat, like an uber, or a taxi or the shuttle. There was some concern that we wouldn't be able to fit all five of us in the shuttle because there were also other people waiting to go, and when I say shuttle, it's like a minivan, like. It wasn't like a big shuttle, it was pretty small. So we ended up getting in first on this shuttle after I called an Uber two different times and it kept like delaying the arrival time and there were like three other people waiting to get in the shuttle and there were no seats, uh, and so fortunately the guy told them like oh, there's another one coming in two minutes and so we went. But I kind of feel like we took their shuttle. I don't know. You do pay for the shuttle, it's not free, so I think it was five euros a person, maybe.
Speaker 2:And with the shuttle they drop you off at this one designated place. It's not like I'm at Terminal 3 Air France. They don't drop you off at like the ticket counter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have to walk, yeah, and you take a. You have to take like a shuttle.
Speaker 2:A little tram. Yeah, yeah, and so, so that I mean that added like 10 minutes to our.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then, even though we had priority boarding, we I mean, it took so long. The security line took so long because we had premium economy tickets. So you know business classes like zone one and premium economy is zone two, and so you get priority boarding. But it was stressful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, line was super long by the time we got to the gate. First of all, kids need to use the bathroom. Raya's bag got flagged for something so she had to wait, so me and the kids headed towards the gate. We all used the bathroom. By the time we got to the gate, zone 1 and 2 had already boarded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the time I got there, they were boarding Zone 4. And so, of course, we just get right in line and, like you know, they kind of let you go in front. But I was annoyed because the the luggage space above my seat was full from people in first in business class. Actually, I learned I feel like we don't have time to talk about the flight back, so like maybe that should be a different episode and maybe we can like compare, because I've now flown Air France business economy and premium economy, so I could easily compare, but I will say I thought the flight was fantastic. Let's go into more details, like in another episode.
Speaker 1:One thing we should go back on, though, is in the Madrid airport, we were able to use a visit a lounge while we waited for our flight, and that was a priority pass lounge, and I'll just I mean priority pass lounges internationally are so much better than they are in the US, so much better.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was, it was. It was a fantastic lounge, and when we walked up to the counter, the girl saw all five of us and she just kind of was like, do you have more than one card Meaning like priority pass card? And I was like we do, so I was able to get in a guest, duane was able to get in a guest, obviously, one of our kids, and then our daughter was free because she was five it was five and under were free, so it worked out perfectly was five, it was five and under were free, so it worked out perfectly. And, yeah, we spent about I don't know 30, 45 minutes in there before the flight boarded, got some snacks. They had, yeah, drinks, a lot of good options. So anything else to add about madrid no again.
Speaker 2:My favorite place um madrid is just it's alive, like yeah, and I love that so even in the rain.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah was yeah, and that was my first time in Madrid. I really enjoyed it, so we would definitely go back again. Um, if you want to see the hotel that we stayed at or like see pictures of any of the things that we did, I have a highlight on Instagram, so come follow us. At Travel Party of Five, there's a Madrid highlight, along with Paris and Barcelona, and I basically have pictures and videos of pretty much everything that we did, so feel free to come check us out there and give us a follow, say hello. If you have questions, send me a DM on there. I love it when people send messages and like. More and more people are messaging, and so I love that. So come say hi and we will be back next week with kind of a what we learned, what we would do differently, logistics, stuff about we'll answer the questions you have. Yes, quite a few people sent questions on Instagram about the trip, and so we'll answer all of those and I'm excited for that episode.
Speaker 2:So, yes, and, as always, we appreciate you listening and thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Yes, if you find any value in the podcast, please share it with a friend, leave us a review and just know that we appreciate you and we will catch you on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Have a good one, bye.