Renfe Ave

It’s a train. It goes to places you want to visit. It isn’t cheap, but affordable if you consider the alternatives. It takes you from the Airport to this station at Sants where you can connect to trains going everywhere in Spain. It also takes you to downtown Barcelona — Placa Catalunya.
Local trains stop more frequently, but run on time. The loading of passengers is a real third world experience of pushing and shoving as idiots try to go through one turnstile while ticket takers are reading each ticket like it was a treasure map or their rich grandfather’s will. The waiting areas are like old Greyhound bus terminals replete with odd characters. A trip to the bathroom is truly an experience in risky health behavior. There are crews of African hustlers who hog the McDonald’s Wifi bandwidth all day — probably sending out scam mail soliciting money from Westerners.
Renfe does not accept American credit cards on their website. After going through an arcane booking process that only a software programmer can successfully navigate, surprise! your payment and reservation are blown into cyberspace — ha ha Americano. They do accept PayPal — huh?
We had a 2 hour layover between trains so we left the station to eat and drink which was the best idea of the day.

Horrible service! Best trains in the world, but the worse service!
I’ve used AVE trains several times. The AVE bullet trains are really nice, specially the Siemens trains which are very comfortable. This review is for the overall service experience.
Renfe’s online portal to purchase tickets is not at all user friendly and does not work very well with credit cards from outside Spain. At best, Renfe’s online portal is a reminiscence of the early days of e-​commerce during the .com boom.
Purchasing tickets at the station is also a major nightmare, after standing in line for 15 min at a ticket window that was labeled «long distance», I was told to go to another window and wait another 15 min in line. The people at the window tend to be rude, unhelpful and may only speak Spanish (and may not understand gringo Spanish). While I’m sure that working at a ticket window is probably not one of the most fulfilling jobs, Renfe’s window employees must really hate their jobs or have little or 0 training in customer relations. In general European customer service standards are well below those of US companies, however I would say Renfe is well below the lower European standard.
On my last trip to Spain, I bought the tickets from the US using Renfe’s authorized US portal
I paid extra to purchased flexible tickets so I could try to board an earlier train when returning from Madrid to Barcelona. At Madrid’s Puerta Atocha station I was sent from one service desk to another for some 20 min only to be told at check-​in that the flexible ticket I paid for couldn’t be changed for an earlier train. Perhaps the earlier train was full? Not the case, in fact there was plenty of available seats I was told. However, if you purchase the tickets outside Spain, even though the tickets look just like any AVE Renfe issued ticket and the contract is exactly the same, they just can’t honor any changes on it. They will tell you so, of course in a very rude and unhelpful way. After insisting, the only solution offered was to go to a travel agency. If it weren’t that I know Spain well, from that answer I would have concluded Spain has not been part of planet earth in the last 20 years.
I do recommend riding the AVE, that is if you can get a ticket.

oh renfe! how you take me to one exotic place after another! this was our best friend as we traipsed all over the spanish countryside in our 2 week stay in espana. these trains are modern, clean, more spacious than american trains, and most importantly, very fast! i believe on the bullet from sevilla to madrid, the train was going somewhere around 200mph, and yet, it was such a smooth ride that i never would have guessed!
walking around the train, to stretch my legs a bit, i found a café car selling hot beverages, sodas, sandwiches and snacks, a restroom in almost every car, and a preferred class section with larger, more comfortable seats. even though hubby and i sat in the tourist class section, our section was still quite comfortable with a reclining seat, a foot rest, ample leg room and a tray table. they even gave out headsets for free so that we could watch the movie… in espanol, of course!
i highly recommend taking the renfe as the quickest way to get from one spanish city to another. tickets can be a bit pricey, especially if you convert everything into usd, but check online for travel specials. note that many of the renfe staff do speak some english so if you don’t speak spanish, it’s ok. buen viaje!

High speed train from Madrid to Valencia is really good but Valencia Barcelona is standard one with delay etc…

THERE AIN’T NO SNAKES ON A TRAIN.
Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe for the first time. An entire day was spent on the AVE bullet train from Barcelona to Malaga. It travels up to speeds of 193mph. This is some new wave shit. Real life TRON!
I was in a First Class Club Car with huge, comfortable seats and leg room galore. Our car had two friendly waitresses who I communicated with through smiles. Note to self: Learn the language before you go to a foreign country so you don’t feel like an ass.
The wine kept comin’ and comin’ so I kept drinkin’ and DRANKIN if you know what I mean. It’s fun to watch everyone get faded and stumble to the restroom on a bullet train falling all over the place. They also had a full bar/​snack bar in the car behind me where we did shots for some stranger’s birthday.
If getting drunk and taking in the beautiful, lush landscapes of Spain are not enough for you they also have music stations and movies that haven’t been released in the US.
The food? You tell me. I don’t know what it was. It looked like fancy cat food so maybe it was tar tar or space food. I enjoyed a roll and the soup and did I mention the wine? Hey, it’s fucking Spain, people.
Overall I loved every second of this experience and highly recommend it to everyone who gets the opportunity. It ain’t no Soul Train so pay the extra euro for the First Class Club. You can be a cheapo at home.