Algarve Family Holiday part 2 - Arrival

The cab arrived at an o'clock in the morning I had forgotten existed.  The drive to Southend Airport was pleasant enough - hardly a car on the road.  We and the other members of our party arrived in the car park about the same time, and we all trundled through the Airport together.  Bag drop, security, air side restaurant, gate plane, take-off, flight, landing - all pretty straight forward, all as pleasant as possible.  A great start, but this isn't about the journey, this is about the first few hours on Portuguese soil.
Initially getting through Faro airport wasn't a problem, once we had our bags we had to pick up the cars.  I had booked then on RentalCars.com. One with Avis, one with DriveOnHoliday.  Avis are easy to find, so with a mixture of drivers we got in the queue.  At the desk the excesses were different (less) than Rental Cars had said.  They also offered us extra insurance to completely remove any excess in the event of a claim.  They provided us with documentation in English and Portuguese. - A slow, if satisfactory experience, although the car we got was not what we booked, and could have been booked cheaper on the RentalCars website, it was a good car.  We loaded it up, and after fiddling about with giving the driver the location of the villa sent them on their way.
The remainder of us, with almost no bags, but with a two year old, went to try to find DriveOnHolidays.  Eventually we found their representative who directed us to a queue in the car park.  It was a hot day and the queue was in the open.  Some of us found shade, while one held the place in the queue.  We started to try to work out how long it would be - we guessed at about 90 minutes, we weren't that far wrong. The car hire garage is off site.  There we joined another queue.  So of those ahead of us had a row with the representative.  I'm not surprised - the excess here is higher than on the RentalCars website, and the additional insurance only brought it down to €1000.00 - that's a lot of money.  Still we eventually got the car, and tried to set the satnav to English.  Finally one of the staff set it for us, but it couldn't make sense of the google co-ordinates I had, so we ended up using the phone.
We found the villa, the other half of the party had been there for ages.

Lessons Learned
1) If you have to rent two cars get them from the SAME supplier.
2) Never ever book cars through RentalCars.com.  Really - NEVER.
3) Use a recognised company that you can deal with here if you need to.
4) Make sure the Rental Cars are available at or very near the Airport

Algarve family holiday Part 1 - Preparation

Arranging a family holiday when your children are all grown up and have children of their own can be difficult.  By now they all have commitments in their lives and may not be able to get away at a particular time.  I wanted the family to get together as a celebration of my 60th birthday.  We settled on the last week of May, the one leading up to the bank holiday.  So, a big thank you to my children, and their spouses for making it possible.  I know there were some difficulties and I appreciate the effort some of you made.
Then the question is "Where to go?"  As one of our party does not fly, the first choice - Florida - is not an option.  We agreed on the Algarve.  Then to find somewhere to stay. I found and offered a selection and the choice was unanimous, so the Villa was booked: Villa Ana. Next, Brody also needs his holiday, and we are wary of kennels.  We heard about PetStay, and decided to give them a try.  As the dog / dog sitter must meet prior to the holiday, we arranged a time to travel to see the sitter.  There was some sort of mix up, so we had to reschedule and the eventual meeting went very well.  Meanwhile we received a notice that the Villa is no longer with HomeAway and we have to deal direct with the owner. 
Now I'm starting to wonder if there even is a Villa Ana.  Fortunately in the internet age it is possible to find out and Liz managed to find it on Street View, even if the address we were given could not be found - it appeared to be 800 metres from the location we had found.
Finally we needed transport, arranging drivers and cars had to be done as well.  I used RentalCars.com, because they offered a wide selection.  I was looking for space, seats and comfort.  Their site does not handle two rentals at all well, and it got very confused on the second booking, so much so that I had to close the browser and start again.
Flights had to be booked too.  We started by doing a few basic comparisons, we wanted to fly from Southend, but the cost was very high, however while I was waiting for various passports to arrive the costs at Stanstead rose significantly, so Southend became worth the premium.  Booked with EasyJet, and we were pleased with their treatment of families with children. 

All booked and ready to go two weeks before travel, but there's still the question of the Villa - have we really booked Villa Ana - the one on the website, or somewhere else, or not at all?