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PortAventura: General Discussion

Sam said:
Parks have a lot of control (or influence) over how people get there, in what infrastructure they choose to fund (or contribute to). DLP have a high-speed railway minutes from the park's entrance. That railway station isn't there by accident or as a coincidence.
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PortAventura has its own high speed railway station.
 
Sam said:
Parks have a lot of control (or influence) over how people get there, in what infrastructure they choose to fund (or contribute to). DLP have a high-speed railway minutes from the park's entrance. That railway station isn't there by accident or as a coincidence.
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My understanding was that portaventura wasn't particularly near an airport, and had its own train station?

Regardless, better to reduce single use plastics than do nothing at all. And it certainly doesn't 'mean nothing'.
 
I have to say, @Sam - for all the agreement I usually have with you over theme parks and indeed my widespread irritation about the shambles at PortAventura, your statement about the use of transport to get to the park being somehow the park's 'fault' is one of most ridiculous things I have read on here in the past month.

PA have a train station yards from the park, a taxi rank etc. I don't know what more they are supposed to do? They could probably lobby RENFE to improve the train service, or lobby local transport executives to improve bus connections... but what are they supposed to do with regards to people from elsewhere in Europe? They can hardly walk?

Sorry, pal.
 
Besides DLP, PA sounds like it's the easiest park to get to by train in all of Europe (except for the likes of Tivoli and Blackpool). Compared to other places like Efteling, Europa, Towers, Asterix and Gardaland, it's a piece of cake.
 
Efteling and Asterix are both easy to get to via public transport, probably just as much effort as PA could be for me...
 
Benzin said:
Efteling and Asterix are both easy to get to via public transport, probably just as much effort as PA could be for me...
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Was more thinking in that at PA it looks like you can walk it from the station, where as at least at Asterix you gotta get a bus (although that is pretty easy too).
 
Sam said:
That isn't true from what Richy and Simon said about their visit a few weeks ago and Dan about his visit earlier this year - in fact, operations sound worse than ever?

Also, any environmental improvements they make mean nothing when visitor numbers are increasing at a park that almost everybody reaches by flying.
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I can confirm that the operations were dire. Despite waiting over an hour minimum in the Express train, many rides, and in particular Furious Baco, were in skeleton staff, and often being dispatched with many empty seats.

Also re public transport to get there... it may have a train station, but unless you are coming directly from Barcelona, it does not have a regular service. From anywhere in the West you have to go to Camp Tarragona station, which dumps you in the middle of nowhere. Or continue into Barcelona and then get a train back to PA station, adding on at least 2 hours to the journey
 
siralgenon said:
I don't see how people flying to the Resort is anything to do with PortAventura themselves, plus the Resort is located in central Europe, so I'd imagine most people will arrive via cars, trains, buses as opposed to planes.

Hotel Colorado Creek is also the Resort's first 0 emissions hotel with the others being modified to follow suit in the future.

Staffing has definitely increased across the parks, in previous years 1 staff member would do the job of about 3 people yet this year has improved. For example El Diablo would previously have had 1 operator and 1 person batching and checking restraints. However at the moment there is 1operator, 1 batching and 2 checking restraints. I've taken photos because obviously I've made it all up. :)
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Staffing in June - when there was a phenomenal amount of people in the park - was not sufficient. El Diablo, my second ride in the middle of the afternoon, was dispatched half empty. And as per my previous post, Furious Baco with a 2 hour queue and 1.5 hour Express queue was dispatched half empty with one staff member doing batching, restraint checks, and station dispatch
 
See this is what I find quite odd when I read other people’s experiences of PA.

I’ve visited at quiet, busy and medium levels of crowds and, from my experience, PA run rides on really skeleton staffing during quiet and medium periods but they do nearly always increase the numbers of staff and generally improve operations when the park becomes busy.

It always surprises me to hear that this hasn’t been the case when other people have visited during busy periods.

As for Baco’s 1.5 hour Express queue, Baco’s queue is nearly always near enough empty between 3 and 4pm because nobody is in that bit of the park at that time of day. If you go to Baco first thing in the morning, it will be rammed, of course. But PA is one of the few parks that displays queue times for ALL major rides at the entrance to every ride. So if Baco’s queue is long, you just have to look on the board and find a shorter queue.

This is also much easier to do now that staggered openings have been drastically reduced with nearly all major rides elsewhere in the park opening at 10:30 or 11.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
As for Baco’s 1.5 hour Express queue, Baco’s queue is nearly always near enough empty between 3 and 4pm because nobody is in that bit of the park at that time of day. If you go to Baco first thing in the morning, it will be rammed, of course. But PA is one of the few parks that displays queue times for ALL major rides at the entrance to every ride. So if Baco’s queue is long, you just have to look on the board and find a shorter queue.
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When I was there in June, there wasn’t a single time throughout either of the days when the queue fell below 1.5 hours
 
EuroSatch said:
When I was there in June, there wasn’t a single time throughout either of the days when the queue fell below 1.5 hours
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Sorry to hear that.

Baco never runs the three train service that it used to back when it first opened. I’m not even sure it has at all since opening year. This generates a throughput of only about 800 or less and that’s not even taking into account Express.

This sort of capacity just isn’t suitable for a coaster which stands alone at the park entrance and therefore has no support rides to soak up the mass exodus of people who descend on that area every morning.

Shame really as it’s in a position where it can be a pretty poor first experience for a lot of people arriving at the park.
 
I've never seen them manage to dispatch it before the other train has returned to the station (not even close, more often than not), so a 3rd train is pretty much redundant anyway.
 
A response today to the complaint I sent to the resort following my visit last month (see my trip report)

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Laughable lack of accountability
 
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