Funcahl; Saturday, 03 March, 2018

When I woke up the day looked a little more overcast than the previous one, but I was pretty certain the wind had died down a bit, so thought everything would be fine. A quick check online showed the flight as being on time and after breakfast and checkout I was met by the airport transfer and taken back up to Madeira airport.

The transfer was quite early, and drove quite fast, so I was at the airport more than 2 ½ hours before the departure time, but even by then I could tell things might not be going well. Two morning flights to Lisbon had already been cancelled and there appeared to be general chaos in the check-in area with people trying to rebook onto other flights.

Check-in for the flight to the Azores was supposed to open at 10:30 but that time came and went, checking online showed that the flight had been delayed at Ponta Delgada, but would be about an hour late. By 11:30 they still hadn’t opened the check-in and the flight had now moved to indefinitely delayed. It was becoming pretty obvious that the flight was going to be cancelled as they described the weather conditions in the Azores as being some of the worst in 50 years and with the airport at Ponta Delgada closed.

Finally, at midday, the airline announced that the flight was cancelled and that they would be arranging hotels for everyone. With the next flight not due to depart until the Sunday evening, no guarantee that they could get me back on the Tuesday, and with hotel prices in Funchal on the hotels.com app starting to tick up in price I had to make a decision whilst standing in the rebooking line as to whether to bother or to abandon the trip.

In the end I managed to speak to an airline representative who said I could get a full refund if I decided to abandon the trip – and that the call centre would be able to handle that, rather than having to stand for possibly another four hours in the rebooking queue to be seen, so I decided to leave the que – very quickly book a hotel in Funchal – and head over to the aerobus back into the city centre.

An hour later I was checked into my new hotel, and after doing the admin of contacting the airline to arrange the refund; the tour company I’d booked two days’ worth of tours from Ponta Delgada with to let them know there wasn’t any point in trying to collect me; and then booking more tours this time on Madeira for things to do over the next couple of days, I headed out of the hotel to make significantly more use of the open-top bus tour ticket than I had expected.

I was part way round the costal tour when I felt the first drops of rain and decided at that point – given there was nobody sitting in the covered section – to move there. About 90 seconds later the bus was being lashed by a heavy downpour and the sky was being illuminated with a pretty spectacular lightning display.

By the time the bus got back into the centre of Funchal it had stopped raining, so I went for a little wander along the prom and had an early dinner before heading back to the hotel, arriving just before another lengthier downpour started that showed no sign of stopping so I had a drink in the hotel bar and then turned in for the night.