Spain train question-book in advance?
 

Hi All

We are meeting friends in Spain at the end of April. They will be arriving in Barcelona disembarking from a Windstar cruise and will be going to Girona from there where we will meet up with them. They wondered if they should book their ticket in advance online or just go to Barcelona Sants and book it there?

Also I notice both Renfe Ave and Renfe trains listed. Is there a difference? The trip will be on a Sunday-the 28th and it looks like there is a train more or less once an hour. Even though Windstar isn't a huge boat, I was thinking maybe leaving the train flexible might be a good choice, but since I rarely take the train these days, wasn't sure if it is a good idea to just "wing it" anymore :)

It's just like most transportation tickets, they are often cheaper in advance and if it's a busy period, some chance they'll be sold out. Sounds like your friends don't know how to use the internet, though. AVE is a particular type of Spanish train that is high speed but you should be able to tell that from the schedule.

They did decide to purchase them in advance via trainline. They do know how to use the internet, but just haven't used trains in Spain so thought I would ask the difference here. For others, there is a great post on this topic from the "seat61" guy

https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-spain.htm