I just transferred flights at Madrid Airport and went through EES. The line initially was very long, but then there was an officer who directed tourists with biometric passports to the EES machines. I took this short cut and went through the egates. The process took about 20 minutes in total. Not bad. Just wanna share.
Posted by
1 posts
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am trying to decide how long I should plan between my flight arrival in Madrid and my train from Madrid the same day (late September) as I have been advised to buy the (probably nonrefundable) train tickets now. I'm hoping avoid missing the train, without having to sit in the train station for hours.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
4806 posts
Liz, I know it was AI, but it advised 3 hours or more after arrival before booking my train. Atocha Station is under construction and you need to go through security there too. There are ample food options both inside and out to while away the time.
Posted by
OP
Bay Area, California
1944 posts
I have come home after exiting the Euro zone at Madrid. Since I already registered my passport with the EES system, I used the e-gates upon exit. Smooth and easy. However, I want to caution everybody with a foreign passport (ie. non-EU or Swiss) transferring from Terminal 4 to Terminal 4S at MAD that they need to take the correct escalator to join the right queue.
Posted by
Washington, DC USA
1053 posts
to Lizparson: The Renfe trains offer a semi-flexible rticket called "elige" for just a couple euros extra. Renfe says that you can make a same day, same origin and arrival ticket change to a different time. This is what I bought for the situation you describe. If the new departure is more expensive, you pay the difference; if it is less, you get nothing back. I don't yet have experience using these tickets.
Like MariaF, Ai advised me 3 hours or more when I asked it how much time to allow from my expected departure terminal (T4s) for ccatching a train from Atoche station. The AI response broke down the different stages such as going through immigration, getting the local train from to Atoche, navigating Atoche and going through security with your bag. It seemed like a reasonable estimate.