hhychin

We are planning a trip to Portugal for a family of 4 -- 2 adults and 2 teens. We will fly into Lisbon and want to visit Evora and Sintra as well. If you have advice regarding hotels that have "family" rooms (2 double/queen sized beds) or similar accommodations, I'd appreciate it. We will be in Portugal for 8 nights. I'd appreciate advice on whether it's reasonable to add on places like Porto without being too rushed. We will probably rent a car for a part of the trip and any advice on that front also appreciated. We will be visiting the week before Easter and if there are special things to see or eat during that time, let me know. Thanks.

Palal

In your case - I'd suggest doing AirBNB. Rooms with 2 double beds are not super common in Europe.

Car rental in PT - check out consolidators like economycarrentals and rentalcars.com. Motorways are tolled, fuel is not cheap.

8 nights is enough to do Lisbon, Porto and a few day trips from each.

pbiflyer

For consolidators, we used Auto Europe and found them to be cheaper as they include CDW in the price. Just be aware, the actual company you use expects you to pick up the car within an hour of the time you booked for.
We were 5 minutes late and they gave us a bit of a hard time.

Would second the AirBnB recommendation. Cheap. We saw some great places near Sintra for cheap. We ultimately didn't do the family trip for other reasons though.

Hornetcoach

Car rental in Lisbon is very cheap, assuming you can drive a manual. I rented from Sixt via Rentalcars.com and it was something like $100 for a week. Make sure you have a credit card card that includes free LDW before you go, and free foreign transactions. Make sure you get the transponder for the tolls, some roads switch to toll only without warning. There are a lot of toll roads.

rickg523

I've planned a family trip in June.
Maybe you can get some ideas from this.
Our itinerary is to pickup a rental car at LIS (I booked with Amoita), drive to Evora, relax for two days. For these two nights, I booked two rooms in a a hotel, M'ar de AR Muralhas. The plan is to relax mostly, and de-jet lag, tour the town with a Twizzy Self-drive and take the Ebora Megalithica guided tour to the prehistoric sites.
Then we're driving to Obidos, where I rented a three bedroom house inside the town walls for twok nights. Obidos gets crowded with bus tours during the day, so we'll head to the beach towns just west of Obidos during the day and enjoy the medieval town in the evenings
​​​​​​After Obidos, we're driving back to LIS, dropping the car and taking an Uber to a rental apartment in Baixa/Alfama. We'll spend three nights in the city. Then take the train to Sintra for two nights, again in two hotel rooms at the Sintra Boutique Hotel. Uber back to the airport for our return flight.
The drive- times on this itinerary are short enough that we'll take some spur of the moment en route stops.
In searching for hotels with family rooms, I found the choices mostly in the nature of suites, usually one bedroom and a double sofa bed. That won't work for our family.
Two bedroom suites got too pricey. So for the hotel nights, I just went with two rooms. That also greatly increased the number of properties available.

hhychin

Thank you all. I don't drive a manual so the rental car price is a bit high and the choices are limited but I will have to bite the bullet. @rickg, we are also planning on picking up a car on arrival and driving straight to Evora. The best price I've found is on Sixt, actually. Then we will make our way to Porto and then back to Lisbon. Since we will be moving around a bit, we will probably have to do the 2 rooms for the most part. But will look into an AirBnb for the Lisbon portion.

TWA884

Check the car rental prices at Luso rent a car; they were quite reasonable in 2016.

rickg523

I also found the best price at SIXT but have read of some unpleasant service issues at the LIS office. In digging around I found Amoita was universally recommended. The prices for standard transmission vehicles isn't quite as variable as for automatics.
About renting in Lisbon,
I don't recall your dates, but it's turned out our weekend in Lisbon is during the St. Anthony's Festival. Should be fun, it's a huge street party, but I avoided properties on the ground floor right near the celebration centers in Graca, Alfama, Bica - opting for a top floor in Baixa so I can control my participation. This is an all night, noisy affair and I don't have the stamina I had in my 20's

Antonio8069

I had a very enjoyable stay in December in a pension. Breakfast included & it cost less than half of hotel prices. Also, the owner was able to advise where to walk @ night!
Lisbon is considered the most economical European capitals. Enjoy....................

MSPeconomist

There can be long lines (several hours) to pick up reserved rental cars at LIS. If you have access to skip the line privileges, I'd use that agency.

rickg523

Amoita meets you outside of baggage claim, like a private transfer driver, with your name on a card.
Now, to be fair, this rental will be my first from them, so anything can happen, but as I said, in researching them I found universal positives, both on the pickup and, more of a differentiator apparently at LIS, on the return.