My first post in the Spain forum after making all of my Italy plans with some help from people of the Italy forum.

In Rome we decided to hire a driver to pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel rather than hassle with baggage and trying to find a cab. Would that be a good approach in Madrid or can I have confidence in easily finding a cab? What would the difference in price be? If you suggest a limo, do you have anyone you would like to recommend?

There are a ton of cabs in Madrid - you will have no problem getting one at the airport.

We paid around 20 Euro to get to the city center.

Agree with Shannon, it shouldn't be much more than 20 Euros. HOWEVER, make sure the cab driver puts the meter on. The only place in Europe where I have been "taken for a ride" is in Madrid.

I should have added that I've been taking some night school Italian classes, but speak no Spanish. I'll do some simple "traveller Spanish" CDs before I go, but certainly wouldn't be able to carry on much of a conversation with a cab driver if I needed to. I suppose as long as I give him the name and address of the hotel he should be able to get me there, as long as he doesn't take me for a scenic tour of the countryside in order to run up the fare.

jwilock,

you should be fine without spanish. Trust me, it wasn't a communication problem as spanish is my native language. Both times I was traveling by myself, got complacent and didn't notice that the guy had not put the meter. When we got to the hotel he wanted some amount which I knew made no sense.
Finally I paid something less that what he wanted but didn't want to argue too much more and have him leave w/o giving me my bags that were in the trunk!

Yes... I have heard about ruthless taxi drivers in Madrid (like lots of other places...)

I was nervous but our cab was perfectly honest and we had many more cab rides in Spain after - maybe we were just lucky, but all was cool.

Definitely make sure the meter is on though!
And have your address written on something.

It always helps to know a bit of the language, but I keep lapsing into bad Italian!

We used a number of taxis in Madrid on our last trip with no problems, including one from the airport. In fact, our cab from the airport had an inbuilt GIS navigational system so we were able to watch as the driver entered the requested address (we handed him a sheet with this on) and then follow on the map as the journey progressed. Like you, we only had basic spanish.
Cheers
Christine