Renfe Reviews 

We travelled as a family by train from Valencia to Barcelona, and unfortunately, our journey was overshadowed by the extremely unpleasant behaviour of one of the train employees responsible for checking tickets.
One member of our family had been assigned a seat in a different carriage. Although there was clearly one empty seat available in the carriage where the rest of our family was sitting, the employee refused to allow our family member to sit there and even ordered them to leave the seat.
What happened next was absolutely shocking. To make sure nobody used that empty seat, the employee actually sat himself on the small table next to the seat, physically blocking it, simply to prevent us from sitting there. He even wrote something down on a piece of paper and went around showing it to other employees, apparently to make sure that nobody would allow us to use that seat.

His attitude was incredibly arrogant, rude and completely unprofessional. Communication was also extremely difficult, as he spoke very little, if any, English, and made no effort to explain the situation in a polite or reasonable manner.
We fully understand that seats are assigned for a reason and that railway rules must be respected. However, there is absolutely no excuse for treating paying passengers in such a disrespectful and humiliating way.
This was one of the most arrogant and unpleasant examples of customer service we have ever experienced. We strongly encourage the company to take this complaint seriously and pay much more attention to the behaviour, attitude and customer service standards of its employees.
A train journey should not turn into such an unpleasant experience simply because of one employee’s attitude.

Extremely horrible people working there. Really hope they get the worst time of their lives, just like they give their passengers. Disgusting

like it for emmy. really love it.

I don't even own a computer but I could probably create a better website than renfe

Oscar Puente should stop making twitts in X and he should do his job.
I have been more then 2 weeks here and the train are always late ..
Unreliables .
Dirty...
Spanish peoples should stop paying for this silly service !!!
I wanted to give minus 5 stars but it's no possible.

Never on time. take your car. never on time. load up the gas, air conditioner and live life. not one train company can make more than 50% on time in spain. hopeless from the top to the bottom, no one wants to work. They know there's scheduled work but they only tell you when you're on the train. avoid.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST website I've ever encountered! Beyond bad.

The AVE service from Madrid to Alicante left ten minutes late, and after years of being told the First class service was "wonderful", "marvelous", "amazing", we were to discover it was everything but.
No catering service for First class whatsoever; it was a complete disappointment. All we saw was a trolley that entered the carriage, and was quickly withdrawn.

Too many delays in 1 trip. Unacceptable ,never again.

Platforms in Spain have multiple Via with same numbers servicing different lines, which is super confusing. So there are 2 Via 1s in Madrid Alvaro for instance.
Then if you ask Renfe staff for help or clarification even in (broken) local language, they have a condecending unhelpful attitude. Passengers pay big money for these train services, it's not free so a decent level of customer service is naturally expected. The staff seem to be more interested in chatting among themselves than attending to customers at the window requesting help, with pardon as a start.
Then the screen showing position of coach number showed the coach positioning wrong, adding to confusion.
Luckily, along this whole way 3 sets of local passengers helped us out willingly.

During the booking steps, Renfe website would freeze just prior to payment stage. Hence eventually bookings had to be made via third party platforms. At least more information and tracking of delays are provided well and thoroughly by the third party platforms.

Worst compagny ever, shitty website Nothing work on this

Hesitating between plane, car or train?
My many recent years experience in Spain tells me that train should be dismissed. Renfe and other regional operators are absolute jokes.
Bases on other reviews they know it and do nothing about it.
Long live the planes and the cars.

Staff are as indifferent as you could possibly imagine. We missed a train because we were held in a queue for another train (we were held by barriers) and staff just shrugged when we complained. We lost €140 . Absolutely awful experience. Renfe do not care about tourists experience, despite it being a significant component of their revenue. Genuinely awful service with staff thinking a shrug and "no se" is helpful. My partner works for a major rail network and was genuinely astonished at how poor her travel experience was in Spain.

Train had zero signage for where the coach number was located??. We were located in coach 4 but got on at coach 9. Apparently there were coach numbers listed somewhere but all the digital displays were dimly lighted. You couldn't really see which coach car you were entering. We had to walk thru 5 cars and switched seats 3 times. The smell of an unclean bathroom is also apparent. Zero stars if i could. Clean up your bathrooms and make larger numbers and identify coach cars would have helped loading. Everyone o this train was confused

I booked a high-speed Renfe train from Girona to Barcelona-Sants, paying double the price for what was supposed to be a significantly faster journey. The entire service was an absolute disaster. Not only was the train severely delayed, but it arrived at the exact same time a cheap regional train would have completely defeating the purpose of paying extra for high-speed travel. To make matters worse, there was massive confusion surrounding the platform numbers and real-time delay updates, causing unnecessary stress and disruption to my travel plans. Paying a premium price for high-speed transport only to get slow-train results is completely unacceptable. Renfe fails to deliver the speed they charge and leaves passengers stranded with disrupted plans. Highly disappointing service. Avoid.

⭐️ 1 star – Extremely disappointing experience from Barcelona to Madrid

The experience started badly with a huge queue. We had to wait for quite a long time before finally getting on the train.

The journey itself started well, but after about 30 minutes the air conditioning became unbearable. Instead of turning it down, they seemed to make it even colder. It felt like sitting in a freezer. We asked if they had blankets or anything we could use to keep warm. We were told they would lower the temperature, but absolutely nothing changed.

The toilets were another disaster. They smelled absolutely horrible and were practically impossible to use because you could barely breathe inside.

And the Wi-Fi they advertise? Honestly, it was slower than my grandmother. 😂 One webpage takes what feels like two and a half days to load.

For the amount of money you pay for this train, there is nothing about the experience that makes it worth it. No comfort, terrible toilets, useless Wi-Fi, and freezing temperatures. Definitely not what I expected for a premium train service.

1 star, and only because I can’t give zero.

Excelent organisation of buses replacing temporarily the trains between Alicante and Elche- due to train station works, in these 8 days of August.2026. A lot of young people present in the stations willing to help and provide support to travelers, nice and confortable buses but moreover the care for the confort of passsengers by avoiding to be filled until crowded, by allocating enough buses and being on scheduled times in the stations.. I was day by day impressed and happy with the services provided. Good job and congratulation, Dear Renfe team! And a big and grateful Thank You!

At RENFE I spent numerous hours in queue, I newer got any correct information from anybody, always conflicting information, often I got only "No se" to questions one would expect an answer to, I was shouted at (just like other customers were), and since a ticket seller was so incompetent she could only shout louder and loeader at me, incabable of doing her job, selling me a ticket, a security person demonstratively positioned himself behind me, which only made the incompetent RENFE employee shout louder. Even when RENFE employees appaered to understand English they didn't, one had to physically show them facts before they got the point.

It took me more than 24 hours, having just had a traffic accident (I was torpedoed by a car, no other traffic, when I was inside a roundabout, after 50 km in Spain having just done 7000 km in USA without issues) to finally get a ticket out of Madrid (had to have a bike transported too), and the transport itself was a hell until I finally sat in the train. I was so relieved when the train left this horrible place they call the Spanish capital.

Do never (!!!) go to Madrid if you need to travel with "train" which in fact turn out not to be train but partly busses.

As soon as I got to Barcelona, things worked again, people were mostly helpful and friendly, except the employees at RENFE who were still, even in that beautifull city, the de facto capital of the spanish part of the peninsula, shouting at the customers. When I reached the small town of Cerbère in the south of France it was just an enjoyable train journey to the Swiss border, despite travelling with the bike damaged in Spain.

Hello,

I tried submitting a complaint on your website but the form won't go past the 2nd step: Datos personales. Oh and btw, it is ridiculous to ask for my passport number in the formal complain form.

The booking process on your website wasn't clear. I thought I had booked the Confort category for both train rides. Turns out I had booked it for only one of the two. I regularly book and ride train across Europe and I highly encourage you to review your booking process. I didn’t want to travel cheap, I wanted to travel comfortably.

However, on top of the overall disapointment of sitting in a very unconfortable carriage, here are two dysfunctionments that are leading me to ask for a refund:

1. The foot rest is not working, meaning that the aircon is blowing very cold air on my barefeet (wearing sandals) for 3 hours, which is both unpleasant and unhealthy. To keep my feet from being too cold I have to put them in my jacket on the floor. Btw, I asked a crew member to look into the foot rest, she said that her colleague would come but that never happened - great service!

2. The window I am sitting at is making an insane noise of vibration. It is constant and very loud. The kind of noises that is unbearable. So much that I have to place a book between the window and my arm so that I can “hold" the window and prevent it from making a crazy noise.

Please understand that I am not criticising the overall quality of the ride (which is aweful), but pointing out issues that are making the trip even more of an annoying experience.

Thanks.

very bad i had a train ticket at 15.25 i was there at 15.20 and the train was closed and they didn’t wanted to open the doors , better get a taxi this is very bad awful everything thats bad.