Camp Nou Experience review: it’s not just for football fans

If you are a football fan then the Camp Nou Experience is a must. This tour takes you through the hallowed halls of Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain.

I was not into football before I visited Camp Nou. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and I strongly believe anyone will regardless of their view on the beautiful game. Below, you can find my Camp Nou tour review.
 

Camp Nou, Barcelona

For the uninitiated, Camp Nou is the FC Barcelona stadium and has been since it was completed in 1957. This enormous football stadium can seat almost 100,000 fans and is officially the biggest stadium in Europe and the third-largest in the world. On match days, the energy is electric as people from all over the globe come to spectate world-class football.

This Camp Nou experience review will detail exactly what you’re in for if you decide to go one step further than just showing up on match day and opt for all-in immersion. Take note that the cheapest and easiest way to visit Camp Nou is to choose the self-guided Camp Nou Experience. This is a fraction of the price of using an actual real-life tour guide and just as informative.

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The Camp Nou Experience

1. The Stadium

First, and most obviously, the Barcelona soccer Stadium tour will show you around the Camp Nou Stadium. This iconic football stadium has a lot more to offer than just grass and seats. Your stadium tour will take you to places that most people cannot access when they attend on match days.

Of course, on the Camp Nou Experience tour, you’ll spend some quality time with the pitch. This is, after all, where the magic happens. You’ll get to explore the first team dugout, the field, and the stands. It is quite the experience being able to drink this all in and imagine the legends who have walked and sat in these exact spots over the past few decades.

You’ll also be able to visit the guest changing rooms. For some reason, you’re not allowed into the Barcelona FC changing rooms, although the audio guide suggests that they are much more impressive. As you explore the changing rooms, you can only imagine the atmosphere that is created when coaches and managers give their half-time pep talks to adrenaline-fuelled players before the game resumes.

Next up, you’ll visit the player’s tunnel, through which so many champions have walked before. The stadium will be empty when you walk through, so you’ll have to use your imagination to picture what it would be like to emerge from the tunnel to the sound of 100,000 screaming fans.

As I walked through it, I was torn between wanting to get it all on camera and knowing that photos would never do it justice. The photos don’t do it justice but at least I can look back at them and feel transported back to that time and place.

After the tunnel, you’ll get to visit the press rooms, where press conferences take place pre and post-match. Then you’ll enter the Mixed Zone, where teams comment on their performance after the game. And, finally, you’ll head to the commentary boxes, where the commentators sit and give a running narrative as the game is underway.

The Camp Nou tour gives you a holistic view of the stadium. As you visit each part of the football stadium, your audio guide will explain its significance and give you its history along with some facts about what you can see.

The audio guide is well worth paying a bit more for as it'll help you get the most out of your Camp Nou Experience.
 

2. The Camp Nou Museum

After you’ve exhausted your guided tour of the stadium, your Camp Nou experience turns to the history of the stadium and the players of Barcelona FC. The Museum is dedicated to the football legends that have made this internationally renowned club what it is today.

The history of the club goes back over 100 years and every big moment throughout those years is commemorated in the Museum.

The Museum steps away from the Camp Nou football stadium itself, which you have already seen in detail, and focuses on the club and its achievements. From the club’s beginning in 1899 through to the present day, FC Barcelona has won an astonishing number of trophies.

In the shiny glass cabinets that make up the bulk of the historical section of the Museum, you will see the club’s five Champions League trophies. If you’re up for it, you can have your photo taken as you hold a Champions League trophy aloft. For true football fans, this is an absolute must.

If that’s not enough, you can pick up some merchandise in the FC Barcelona shop on your way out of the Camp Nou stadium. What better way to honor the beautiful game than by taking home some club Barcelona stash. Just remember you might have a baggage allowance on your flight home (although if you do, there is an FC Barcelona shop in duty-free so you can stock up on merch there).

It might not surprise you to know that there is a section of the Museum entirely dedicated to Lionel Messi. Often dubbed the greatest football player of all time, this player is so highly decorated he needs a whole room to display all of his awards.

This space is called the Messi Zone and within it, you can check out his trophies while all of his goals are projected on a screen in the background. Not only can you relive the glory over and over again but you can even vote on which goal you think is his finest.

There are also a number of temporary exhibitions that come and go, which are usually really interesting. Even if you’re not a museum person, this one is well worth taking the time to see properly, especially for the football fans among us.
 

3. Camp Nou Virtual Experience

Virtual Reality headsets are included with the Camp Nou Tour Plus and will revolutionize your Camp Nou Experience. You might feel silly with the goggles strapped to your head, but that will quickly melt away when you begin the virtual experience.

It only lasts a few minutes, but the VR experience will give you a sense of what it is like to be in the Camp Nou Stadium when a game is on.

Through the virtual reality headset, you can watch the players in action, playing and training, and see the 100,000 fans cheering them along. As I said, the experience is short but sweet and worth the €6 (if it isn’t already included in your tour package) if you aren’t able to experience a matchday in the flesh.
 

4. Robokeeper Game

Quite often football fans dabble in the sport themselves. If you consider yourself the next Leo Messi and want to wow onlookers with your striking skills, the Robokeeper Game is one minute of football fun. But, that is all it is.

You have one minute to take three shots at the robotic goalkeeper. If you score all three goals you get a prize, but don’t count on it being easy. Even Messi himself needed a few goes before he managed to beat the Robokeeper.

You can buy a ticket for the game for €5, which is a bit steep considering you literally only play for one minute. But, it is good fun and who knows, you might win a prize.
 

Practical Tips for Visiting Camp Nou

1. Getting Camp Nou Experience tickets

If you’re going to take the time and spend the money to tour Camp Nou, you want it to be as pleasurable as possible. That means you’ll need to do a bit of planning before you go – but it will be well worth it.

If you don’t get your Camp Nou tour tickets in advance you risk having to wait in a very long queue to get them. Plus, buying tour tickets at the door is usually more expensive (and the Camp Nou tour price is pretty hefty as it is).

The cheapest way to get Camp Nou tickets is by booking them online before you want to go. You’ll also need to choose which FC Barcelona stadium tour you want to go on. The cheapest tour is the Basic Tour, which includes a tour of Camp Nou and entry to the Museum. The tickets for this start at €26.

However, if you upgrade to the Camp Nou Tour Plus you’ll also get the audio guide and virtual experience included in the ticket price. For the Camp Nou Tour Plus, prices start at €35 and change depending on when you visit.

If you want the Rolls Royce experience, the ultimate way to tour Camp Nou is by splashing out on the Players’ Experience Tour, which starts at a staggering €149. If that eye-watering price hasn’t already put you off, let’s have a look at what’s included in this package.

For starters, you will have an actual guide with your rather than an audio guide. Secondly, you’ll be able to view the club Barcelona changing rooms instead of just the guest changing rooms. Thirdly, you get to walk along the Camp Nou pitch and have professional photos taken of you and your pals throughout the tour. Plus, at the end of your Camp Nou experience tour, you will be gifted a memento of the day courtesy of FC Barcelona Camp Nou.
 

Tours that include Camp Nou

 

2. Getting to Camp Nou

Camp Nou is Barcelona’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia. As such, the city has put in place plenty of different transportation options to get there. Remember, they need to get 100,000 people there on match days!

The easiest way to get to the stadium is to take the metro. The following three stops are the closest to Camp Nou: Les Corts (green L3), Badal (blue L5), or Collblanc (orange L9). The metro map is pretty straightforward so just work out which Camp Nou metro stop is closest to your accommodation and follow the route from there.

You can buy metro tickets from the stations or on the TMB app. There are several different types of tickets, but the best option, if you’re just in Barcelona for a short time, is the T-Casual card, which allows 10 journeys across all modes of public transport.

Alternatively, you can get single tickets as and when you need them, but these are expensive (5 single tickets costs more than the 10 tickets in one with the T-Casual card).

If you would rather travel by bus, any of the following buses will get you to Camp Nou: 50, 54, 57, 70, 75, D20, H8, H10 and V3. Take note that buses can get stuck in traffic and therefore generally take longer than the metro, so factor that into your travel time.
 

3. Tips for Making the Most of Your Time at Camp Nou

First of all, make sure you give yourself enough time to experience the Camp Nou stadium tour and the museum without feeling rushed. The whole thing can take up to three hours so allocate yourself that much time. If you finish early that’s fine, it’s better than not having enough time for what will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I spent two hours exploring the stadium and museum and I’m not even a football fan. I can only imagine how long a hardcore fan might spend there.

You should aim to get there nice and early to avoid the crowds and the midday heat. This is Spain, remember – it can get very hot at lunchtime, especially in the summer months. Also, the earlier you get there, the longer you have to explore the stadium and museum. There is no time limit!

I know I have said this before but it bears repeating: buy the audio guide. It makes a whole world of difference and it is just a one-off expenditure. It gives so much context to your stadium tour that you will come away from the Camp Nou Stadium feeling like an expert and that you really had an immersive experience.

Don’t wear green if you want your photo taken on the pitch. Apparently the green of the grass swallows up anything else that is green and you will find your torso is absent from your snaps.

Take a snack and water with you. If you’re going to spend three hours on the tour and in the museum, you want to make sure you are well fed and watered. You’ll feel rubbish if you didn’t get to view certain bits because your rumbling stomach made you cut the tour short.

Tickets for the stadium tour are digital but it never hurts to print them out anyway just in case. There have been instances where digital tickets have not been accepted for whatever reason. Plus, if your phone dies then it's game over and you won’t be able to get in.

You should also know that you cannot do a Camp Nou tour if it is a match day. All of the tour facilities close when a game is underfoot, understandably. When you are booking your tickets they won’t let you book if there is a game on that day.

If you want to see a match and do the tour you will have to make two separate visits to the stadium and you will have to pay for the two excursions separately. Buying a ticket to view a game doesn’t give you access to the museum or the club rooms etc.
 

Camp Nou Experience Review: Final Comments

FC Barcelona Camp Nou is not just for the football-crazy and it is more than just a place to watch a match. Camp Nou is one of the world’s most famous football stadiums and is home to a club that is internationally recognized as one of the best in the world. Some view football as a religion, others couldn’t care less, but everyone should check out the Camp Nou stadium and museum while they are in Barcelona.

This review has gone into details about everything you can see and do at the football stadium on the Camp Nou Experience tour, but it doesn’t compare to visiting in real life. Of course, if you truly love football then your ultimate goal will be to see a match at Camp Nou.

However, if the tickets are out of your price range or there simply aren’t any available, this tour still gives you the chance to view the Camp Nou stadium and all the achievements of the club without breaking your bank.

All in all, this is a top-notch experience for people of all ages – and it is something a little different from what you might usually do on a city break. There are always churches to visit and art galleries to admire, but a fully immersive stadium tour is far more unique. So, grab your tickets and head over to Camp Nou so you can review the experience for yourself.
 

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