Question for Maribel
 

Hello Maribel,

My wife and I are planning a trip to Spain at the end of August and I have a few questions:

1.- We already bought our tickets through Renfe and I printed them already using Adobe Acrobat. Do I need to exchange these forms to "real" tickets once we are at the train station? or these forms are actually our tickets?
2.- I also noticed on the tickets I printed that "coche" and "plaza" are already assigned. How strict are they in regards the seats assignment? do we really need to look for the pre-assigned "coche" and "seats"? or do they have some flexibility if the train is not full?
3.- We are also visiting Granada and we already bought tickets through ServiCaixa for the Alhambra. My question is: can we go to any Sevicaixa office (in Madrid, for example) and get the tickets there? or we definitely need to exchange them at the Alhambra site only? I am trying to avoid the long lines.

Thank you for your help!

I guess Maribel is not around... anybody? help please?

thanks!

I'd guess she might be back in Spain on another trip, gathering yet more good info for us.

Hello!,

About Renfe, I will try asnswer your questions:
1. Normally tickets bought through Internet are real tickets, there are not changed it in the train station.

2. You have to respect "Coche" and "plaza" when you enter in the train. Then if train is not complet, you can move your place, but you have to say that if the train have stop stations, and in some of them, somebody get into with a ticket train with your new seat, you can move to original place of your ticket train.

3. Tickets of Alhambra only can be exchanged in Servicaixa machines of Alhambra site.

Bye,

Hi amber,

those are the real tickets. I usually saved them in my laptop so that I can print and reprint them, but you can also get them through the Renfe website.

If the train is not full and you want to change seats, you should check with the crew on board, because they usually know if there will be free seats even if there are other stops along the line. It is far better to ask them than to sit on a place and get someone telling you to move away (and please, please, please, don´t carry an american football ball and begin to throw it across the car, as it happened to me two weeks ago. Taking out the shoes and putting your naked feet in the seat in front of you is also a no-no).

Regarding the Alhambra tickets, I think that you should be able to get them at any Servicaixa. You cam find their location at www.lacaixa.es

Rgds, Cova