Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport — Local services in el Prat de Llobregat

I don't know quite where to start, because I have nothing positive to say about this airport, except that it's so bad, that I don't intend ever again to fly into or out of it.

There are no slide walks and EVERYTHING is a long walk. After traipsing my way to the "VIP lounge" (35 minutes and about 2 kms), I was exhausted. At 77, this makes it somewhat difficult to navigate - even worse after you've read on further. We saw little electric vehicles carting people around. I'm obviously somewhat disabled as evidenced by my walking stick and slow gait, yet they refused to take us to passport control unless we rang the "company" (airline) and made a "reservation".

The shopping is NOT airside and is all BEFORE passport control. Therefore, once you pass passport control there's only one duty free shop. That's it!

The signage is seriously deficient and woeful. We walked around T1 departures for over 40 minutes !!! looking for a letterbox (circular yellow thingys) and no one who worked in the T1 seemed to know where it was located.

Information signs ("i") lead you to automated thingys, only in Spanish or Catalan, and the one actual information counter manned by a human was hidden on the arrivals floor; nothing on the departures level. When we finally did find the one real information counter, the woman manning it was abrupt, rude, unhelpful and misdirected us.

The security process was excruciatingly slow and the people manning it were rude and uncommunicative. Worst airport security processing I've ever experienced anywhere in the world and I've travelled worldwide extensively.

It was, again, excruciatingly difficult to even find SIGNS directing one to the lounge - note LOUNGE (singular), not LOUNGES (plural), as there only one! When you finally arrive at the lounge and want a nibble, it was almost impossible to find plates (we were famished when we arrived at 4PM, having last eaten brekky at 7:30 before disembarking from our cruise ship) They plates are so well hidden (back wall of the food service area, down below, tucked away right at floor level) it took 3 asks of other travellers to locate any. The lounge's offerings were disappointing, to put it mildly. And the liquor was at one end of the food area and the mixers buried at the other end 20 metres (60') apart from one another.

First world problems? Probably. But we all live in the first world and have some reasonable expectations. Barcelona's airport fails them all. Avoid,...

It's an OK airport, the toilets are not always clean, when you pass through security you are not allowed 300ml cans of soft drinks and normally at other airports people suggest that you either drink it or we throw it away, but no this lady knows only one english word, "destroy" and she would not even take it from me I had to go all the way back to dispose of it myself and then go through the scanners again. Also the first time I went through the scanner there was no issue, but the second time I went through there was maybe some issue so another lady swiped something on my hand and belt area of my pants and waited six seconds to find out that nothing was wrong. I mean is it because I drank some of the drinks before throwing it away that you detected something or what? Strange!

Another very important thing I would like to mention is the about the metro stations in the airport. Usually in barcelona before you enter a metro station you have to validate your ticket. You may validate it by inserting the ticket into the machines at the doors or by tapping if you have a T-mobilitat card. And when you exit a metro you don't need to validate, you just walk straight out. However that is not the case in metro area exits at the airport. Lets say you take the L9 Sud and come to the last stop Aeroport T1 and now you want to exit the metro area to go to the departure area. You cannot just walk through the gates, you need to also validate your ticket to exit the metro area and enter the airport. So suppose you buy a hola barcelona card for 24 hours and your flight is past the 24 hour timeframe starting from the first validation and if you don't arrive in time you would get stuck there. But don't worry they say, there are a few machines there from where you can buy another normal public transport ticket which also covers the airport to just enter the airport never needed to be used again. Pretty convenient right? I was lucky to have had a longer validity of around two more hours on my ticket and could pass through but I saw many people getting stuck there. Imagine if you were in a hurry to catch a flight and you face this nonsense at a crucial point. The fact that they want you to waste some of your money on them is just outrageous.

This is so far the biggest scam of the TMB I would say, apart from the ticket costs which are already pretty high compared to other european cities which are popular tourist...

Worst airport experience of my life! Lost my passport after going through security! I traced my steps and went to every place I went before, the coffee place, shopping areas, ect. Couldn’t find it! I was told to exit the airport to go to lost and found and the police to file a report! Leave the airport without a passport! Long story short I did and it was a nightmare getting back in and had to sleep in the airport after finding out my flight was cancelled and nobody was at the gate! I didn’t want to exit again with my flimsy police report that got me through a second time already! The airport was awful, no hotels to sleep in or pods or anywhere to rest. I was fortunate enough to get a direct flight into Atlanta the next morning and got home. The police in Barcelona told me when I called they had my passport and I had 30days to pick it up. They refuse to mail it. Just an absolute nightmare. Wouldn’t tell me where they found it. A lot of the staff at the airport were incredibly rude and unhelpful. There were a few that were absolute angels and said this airport is known for sketchy things happening. One couple was robbed in the airport. I met them at the police station when I was making a report. They said they were reaching for their coat and someone grabbed the woman’s bag with her passport and phone in it and they never caught them. In the airport! Beware! I travel a lot and never had such an experience. I think someone took it and left it somewhere when they realized there wasn’t any money in it. I’ll never know but just trying to get home was such an awful ordeal I’m hesitant to ever return Also once I slept in the airport to wake up to try to board the staff at Delta made me go downstairs and through the entire mismanaged security lines all over again and recheck my luggage! Even after I said I don’t care about my luggage, I just want to get home. They said in order to get on the flight I had to! It was such a disaster! Walked 30k the day before in the airport going from lost and found to police to different people just to get through the lines again! They had me running back Ian’s forth, nobody knew where I was supposed to even go to move forward! The embassy is 6 hrs...