Spanish Consulate Reviews Summary

Staff and Service Quality

Pros:

• "Very kind, helpful and friendly staff, but they are under pressure like the rest of us."
• "The particularly wonderful lady at the passport counter and the cashier."
• "From the Guardia Civil lady at the entrance to the cashier, everyone was dedicated to their roles and performed them admirably."
• "Just received our visa. The staff were brilliant from the man meeting you on the street, to the Guardia at the door."
• "The staff were really friendly and helpful my appointment was for 9.00am and was called in 15 minutes early."
• "The staff was very helpful and they resolved my admin work properly."
• "The staff were brilliant from the man meeting you on the street, to the Guardia at the door."

Cons:

• "Disgraceful, deceitful, inept and incompetent are words that do not do justice to the diabolical non existent service of a consulate."
• "As usual with any Spanish public service (in my experience at least), they are generally rude, lazy and unhelpful, apart from a couple of people."
• "This consulate deserves less than 0 if possible. It is the WORST consulate I've been to, cannot get an appointment at all, was waiting nearly 3 months very AQWARD."
• "Spanish consulate London staff are useless, rude, arrogant, unhelpful, incompetent, unsympathetic bunch of A-holes."
• "Absolutely disgusting treatment. I’ve been waiting months for a passport renewal which they have made impossible!"
• "Awful experience, the staff are rude and act as if it’s a chore to help you."
• "Very unhelpful staff, emails are being ignored."

Appointment and Accessibility

Pros:

• "Recently changed their system so you can book an appointment for your Visa application which works much better."
• "Amazingly efficient in my last request - certificates of residence for DNI issuance in Spain for my 3 children."
• "I even got replies to my emails during weekends on a Sunday evening."
• "It was easy to book an appointment for Visa application and we went in early."
• "Very easy and quick contact by the email, appointment in just 3 weeks and all sorted in 4 weeks."
• "The process for getting an appointment and actually being there was fantastic."
• "I booked an appointment to renew my passport and 15 minutes before it was due, a lovely lady called my name and I got in straight away."

Cons:

• "When you go to the consulate, you wait in the street until they are ready for you."
• "Getting an appointment was hard, as available dates get booked within minutes."
• "Another month, another website crash."
• "On 1/7/22 made a non-lucrative visa application, 10 weeks now and still waiting for my passport to be returned."
• "No one would ever pick the phone up, it doesn't allow you to book an appointment online."
• "To get a passport appointment is like to play euromillions and win the jackpot."
• "It's impossible trying to get an appointment. The system is incredibly out of date."

Facility Conditions

Pros:

• "The website to book an appointment doesn’t work and it only works at certain times."
• "However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well organised they got in order to comply with COVID-19 restrictions."
• "They took the pandemic seriously and took the necessary steps to ensure everyone remained safe."
• "A very discrete building by all means. It blends in with all the other surrounding buildings with its retro red brick look; you could easily pass it, if not for its flags."

Cons:

• "The worst was the place, is falling apart seriously, it need a very good reform."
• "Unhelpful website and preposterous working practices due to unsuitable, disabled unfriendly building."
• "This is not a nice building. Not appropriate at all as a public space with a lot of people coming in and out, and as you can expect, it's usually overcrowded, noisy, too hot and generally uncomfortable."
• "Full of stairs and the lift only works to go to two floors, 2 floors walking up to change my baby’s nappy."
• "They have chaos and old fashioned ways of facilities."
• "Endless queues of over half an hour waiting OUTSIDE like cattle, in this freezing weather."
• "THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE. GETTING A PASSPORT IS NOT A SERVICE CHOICE, IT'S A LEGAL REQUIREMENT."