My husband and I, along with our 4 year old daughter are taking a Mediterrean Cruise on Royal that leaves out of Barcelona. We decided to fly into Madrid and take a train to Barcelona instead of sitting in Madrid airport for 5 hours. We still are paying less with a first class train ticket- I think. My question is how to get from airport to train station, train station to hotel in Barcelona and hotel to port- without getting totally lost or wasting any time or money.

I noticed your post that referred to the www.renfe.com (I think, but I'll verify) for booking the train. What about the other details?

Thanks for all of your extremely useful info.

For connection information once you get to Barcelona, you can take a look at the TMB site, which is the official Barcelona transit agency. If you know the station where you'll be arriving and the address of the hotel, you can find the best route on that site.

It looks like there's a similar site for Madrid here ; although I haven't personally used it, it looks like it has the same type of information as the TMB site.

One last thing, though...make sure you take a look at the RENFE timetables to see how long it will take to go by train, and if it's worth the extra steps; the trip from Madrid to Barcelona is a little over 600km (in northern Ohio terms, about the same as the distance from Cleveland to NYC ) and the train travel time seems to be just under five hours. Add in the transfer times and the time you wait for the next train, and you may be better off going by plane. Just a thought...in any case, enjoy your trip!

-greg

If you are going straight from Madrid airport to the train station then all you need to do is take the Metro (should only cost around 1 Euro 30 per person). You will need to change trains so I hope you don't have too much luggage. Check which station you are leaving from as Atocha is on the southern side and Chamartin is on the northern side of the Metro network. Also be aware that pickpockets operate in busy Metro and train stations so keep your money and valuables well hidden and secure.
There is also a Metro system in Barcelona but you will have to find out where your hotel is located. Please maintain your awareness here too as regards pickpockets.

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't understand why you prefer to travel between MAD and BCN by train rather than plane, having arrived in MAD by plane.

There are four companies that, alltogether, have more than 50 daily flights MAD-BCN, so it is materially impossible for you to wait for 5 hours at Barajas to go to BCN, unless you arrive at Barajas at 1am or so.

The four companies are: Iberia , Spanair , Air Europa , and Vueling . Apart of the scheduled flights you will find in the Websites above, there's the Iberia Air Shuttle that doesn't need (actually doesn't allow) previous reservation. You buy your Air Shuttle (Puente Aereo in Spanish) ticket, go to the check-in desk, and receive a boarding card for the next available flight of this service. Expensive but convenient.

Anyway, if you decide to travel by train, the Website of RENFE, the National Train System is the one you mentioned. All day trains to BCN depart from Atocha, and the two night ones from Chamartin. To see how to get to and from the stations in both BCN and MAD, please refer to the Websites pointed by ggladman in his post, but be aware that in Madrid case, the Chamartin metro station is under improvement works and, depending on the time of your trip, it could be closed. I don't know if the route planner of the Madrid Transport Consortium takes this into account.