Could Barcelona taxi take 5 passengers from & to airport ?

A standard size taxi is not going to be able to handle your 5 passengers, with all their arrival-at-airport baggage. It doesn't matter how slender you are.
You could book, in advance, a larger vehicle, such as mini-van or van.
Or take 2 taxis, as you suggest.

And yes, I think your suspicions are correct (although I have not personally tried to get a taxi to pick me up at 3:30 am in Barcelona): it's likely to take extra effort, maybe even be a challenge, for you to get a taxi to pick you up at 3:30am.
If you were staying in a hotel, the hotel would arrange the taxi to the airport for you.
Since you're not staying in a hotel, you will have to make the arrangements yourself in advance, and possibly not in English.
As you mentioned, the reason a lot of us get stressed over getting to the airport is: it's potentially high stakes, if something goes wrong, you're risking missing your flight, and then what do you do? If the flight was back to the US and you missed it, you're looking at buying 5 very expensive tickets, on the spot.

It's a legal matter: regular taxis can take only four passengers. No discussion on this.

However, there are large taxis which are allowed to carry up to 7 passengers (minivan style). Do book one of those.

Some taxi companies (in random order!): Taxi Class Rent tel.933070707 www.taxiclassrent.com ||| Barnataxi tel. 933222222 www.barnataxi.com ||| Ràdio Taxi 033 tel.933033033 www.radiotaxi033.com ||| Servi-Taxi tel.933 300 300 www.servitaxi.com ||| Taxi Ecològic tel.932783000 http://taxiecologic.com ||| Taxi Amic tel.934208088 www.taxi-amic-adaptat.com ||| Fono-Taxi tel.933001100 http://www.fonotaxi.net/

Enric,
Thank you for the information. I'm sure the original poster will find it helpful.
We here especially appreciate the help of residents of Europe, who kindly help out those of us who are only visitors to your city.

Thanks for your post Kent. It's my pleasure to provide a local source of information to you out there choosing to visit Barcelona.

Will require at least two taxis...see the posts above for reasons why. Space and legal issues

We too are traveling with more than 4 to Barcelona in the spring. Is there any dependable public transportation into the city from the airport. We are staying in the Eixample area

I was with a group of 6 in Barcelona last year and we used a couple of different approaches. We reserved a shuttle to take us from our airport to the hotel. I used one I found via an internet search. That worked well, but required a bit of walking to get to the shuttle pick up spot (in an adjacent terminal) which I felt was a bit much for my mother. Around town we used one of the mini-van shuttles mentioned in an earlier post. These easiliy accomodated us, but were sometimes a bit more difficult to find for rides back to our hotel. For departure we used two taxis to allow for room for our baggage. The mini-van taxis do not have a trunk for bags.

For your early return flight I'd simply ask your rental company for options. They'll let you know and maybe even help you reserve something in advance or help arrange for a couple of taxis for the morning of your departure.

Have fun!

Guys, as I said earlier, it's much easier than all that... simply book a regular taxi (mini-van style) in one of the websites/phones I've provided above. Do mention you need a taxi for X passengers. Taxis are cheaper than rental companies and pick you up in front of the terminals.

As per means of public transportation to get to the city it depends where exactly are you going, l'Eixample is a big district. You have different options (bus/train/taxi) but depending on the exact address you need to go I'd recommend one or another. Also important, indicate nbr of pax and day/time of arrival.

Thank you everyone, (especially Enric & Kent) for your explanation and suggestions and tips.

We checked, and our rental company is willing to help us arrange a minivan or big Taxi for 5 of us to airport. They said it should be no problem.

As we'll be arriving after 22 hours of traveling, we will be using a Taxi to get to our place. Should we arrange this ahead or is it easy enough to find at the airport one of those van taxi Enric referred to?

Cat

At the taxi ranks of the airport (both at Terminal 1 and 2) there are taxis 24/7. A marshall coordinates them so the line of passengers keeps moving smoothly. If you need a mini-van tell the marshall so he can ask for one to move forward to the front, but note there might not necessarily be mini-vans in line all the time so you might have to wait.

For this reason, and in order for you not to be stuck at the airport should none be available in the queue, I recommend to pre-book before your arrival so you can be sure it's going to be waiting for you at the designated time. Note though, if the flight is late you'd be charged the waiting time.

Enric,

That's great info! Wow, 24/7 taxis available at airport. (Where we live, though a big enough city, our taxis are notoriously hard to find and unreliable--sometimes they don't show up for rides to airports, so now our neighborhood just take turn getting up and getting neighbors to airports. And if you do find one at the airport when you land, they yell at you if the 15 minutes ride to your house aren't worth their time).

We'll wait to get a taxi once we arrive there.

Thank you again!

Cat

... well, the worst scenario is that you have too many flights landing at the same time, in that case you might have to queue a bit... but the waiting line is rarely maddening. There are an average of 1200-1500 taxis at the airport taxi ranks.

As per your trip to the airport at 3:30am there is no problem at all... just call one of the companies I mentioned. You can pre-book it say the day before or if you prefer simply call half an hour before you need to be picked up. 3:30am is not such a bad time for finding a taxi, you could even simply pop down to the street and if it's a major street you wouldn't have too much problem in finding a taxi passing sooner rather than later.

All of the above has of course a few exceptions... (1) depending the area of Barcelona you're staying in the availability of taxis circulating in the street at 3:30am can be limited (best pre-book then!), (2) on Fri and Sat, from 3am to 4am it can be a busy time since many party-goers start returning back home.

Your note on not accepting short rides... we share the problem here :)... luckily, the airport is 12km away from Barcelona so that's not a "short" ride (<15'), hahaha!

PS: Hotels Catalonia is a brand name of a chain so you'd need to be more precise for me to understand where your apt is located. Normally these hotels have an added 'name' to the brand (ie. Hotel Catalonia Barcelona Plaza, etc)

Always have your address including postal zone written down to hand to the taxi driver in Europe -- even if you speak the language it is easy to be misunderstood.

I have never been in a city needing to go to the airport where I have not been able to book a taxi at an early morning hour the night before. It may be difficult to come by a cab the morning of a flight, but pre-booking is easy and reliable in my experience. You generally don't pre-book at airports as they have cabs of various sizes and queueing rules for the cabs.

Hi!
My wife, Me and my friends travel to Barcelona each year. I used the same taxi service for airport transfers, it's called Kiwi. Usually I order a taxi on their website ( http://kiwitaxi.com/Spain/Barcelona+Airport).
They have different cabs and I remember once we order taxi for a 5 passengers, so you can try.