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Any tips for a first time visitor to PortAventura World?

September is a great month to visit the park! Hope you have a great time there.

From what I’m hearing, in the closed season they’re upgrading the park quite a lot. We got an ex-Disneyland París as our new director so he seems to have a pretty good eye on small details (something the park quite lacked in the recent years) I think the park will be beautiful this next season.
 
I've booked April 12th to 15th at Gold River. My thinking is for my first time (and we're a family of 4) it's better than the alternative of summer. That's the only reasoning 😂

Any chance of it being dead? Easter is the end of the week or will every man and his dog be there regardless?
 
With only around a month and a half to go until my trip to PortAventura, I had a question about Ferrari Land.

Realistically, how long would we need to allocate to Ferrari Land to get everything done? Will it require us to allocate a full half a day to a day, or is it doable in a couple of hours?

I mainly ask because I was pondering whether it might be a good idea to get Ferrari Land done on the evening we arrive. Looking at PortAventura’s opening times, it appears to be open from 4pm-10pm for our whole time there, whereas PortAventura Park shuts at 7pm on the day we arrive and at 6pm every other day. As our flight doesn’t land in Barcelona until 1:45pm and it’ll probably be at least 4:30pm by the time we’ve checked in at the hotel (I’m imagining it’ll take us a good hour to get out of Barcelona Airport and another good hour to get to PortAventura from there via shared transfer, at minimum), I thought that Ferrari Land’s opening times might make it a good choice on the night we arrive.

However, looking at the website, 9th September appears to be a day with “very high” crowds at Ferrari Land… whereas the other 3 days are listed as “medium” crowd days. In PortAventura Park, 9th September is listed as a “medium” crowd day and the other 3 days are listed as “low” crowd days. I’m not sure how accurate PortAventura’s website crowd calendar is, but it does seem odd to have 1 Monday in September singled out as having “very high” crowds and putting everything else in that week as “medium” without some reason to do so…

So my question is; how long does Ferrari Land actually require? Does it really matter if we go in there and it’s heaving, or is it a park we desperately need to visit on one of the quieter days?
 
I wouldn't bother with either of the dark rides, or the drop towers. Red Force is the only thing worth doing and Junior Red Force for the +1. The main thing is how long would you queue for Red Force?
 
I went to Ferrari Land on the evening of my first day and headed straight to Red Force. With the exception of one ride on the shot tower I didn’t even bother with the other attractions there (I think Junior Red Force might have been down but I wasn’t bothered about doing it anyway as I’ve already done the exact same ride at Gullivers). The way I see it is you are there for Red Force so go and get as many rides on it as you can, it’s a great ride and a brilliant experience the first time you ride it.

Definitely spend the full amount of time there, queues for it can be quite long at first and it’s not uncommon for it to go down for short periods. The last hour or so is where it gets really fun, the queue gets quite short enabling lots of rerides and if you are there at a time when the sun is setting it’s a beautiful ride (and night rides are even better).
 
Am I right in saying that Ferrari Land only really has 4 major attractions anyway (excluding Junior Red Force, as I don't generally do kiddie coasters)? Off the top of my head, doesn't it only have:
  • Red Force
  • Racing Legends, a 3D simulator like Jimmy Fallon at Universal
  • Flying Dreams, a flying theatre
  • An S&S shot tower, whose name I can't currently remember
Please tell me if I'm missing anything, but even if we did end up wanting to give everything major a go, that's only 4 rides.

It is useful to know that Red Force is the only properly worthwhile ride out of these if queues do end up massive and/or we end up pushed for time in there for whatever reason. I quite like flying theatres and I quite like S&S shot towers, so I might give those a go if queues for them are short, but if they're long, I might just stick to Red Force.

On another note; am I right in thinking that you can only do the front row of Red Force and some other coasters if you buy Express? I seem to remember that being mentioned somewhere once...
 
Flying Theatre is awful there and the queues for it and Racing Legends Do. Not. Move. they were running Flying Dreams on 1/3 capacity whilst we were there and this is not uncommon.
 
Matt N said:
Am I right in saying that Ferrari Land only really has 4 major attractions anyway (excluding Junior Red Force, as I don't generally do kiddie coasters)? Off the top of my head, doesn't it only have:
  • Red Force
  • Racing Legends, a 3D simulator like Jimmy Fallon at Universal
  • Flying Dreams, a flying theatre
  • An S&S shot tower, whose name I can't currently remember
Please tell me if I'm missing anything, but even if we did end up wanting to give everything major a go, that's only 4 rides.

It is useful to know that Red Force is the only properly worthwhile ride out of these if queues do end up massive and/or we end up pushed for time in there for whatever reason. I quite like flying theatres and I quite like S&S shot towers, so I might give those a go if queues for them are short, but if they're long, I might just stick to Red Force.

On another note; am I right in thinking that you can only do the front row of Red Force and some other coasters if you buy Express? I seem to remember that being mentioned somewhere once...
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I’ve got lucky and had front row on Red Force from just the SRQ with no Express Pass.

With regards to the S&S Thrill Towers each tower gives a different ride, one tower runs as a drop tower and one is a shot tower.
 
I visited Ferrari Land on a "busy" crowd calendar day, and between 4 and around 7 it was indeed pretty intolerable. We got the flying theatre done (shocking throughput but the queue line is well air conditioned) and one ride on Red Force (around 80 minute cattlepen queue with loads of Portadventura signature queue jumping). We spent a few hours in PA park beforehand. Was also packed but managed to pick up a few rides including Baco as we were heading away from the crowds.

It got particularly busy around 6pm. But come half 7 the crowds thinned out massively, even though the main park had closed then. The drop towers were pretty much 10 mins, Junior Red Force around 15. After half 8, the park was deserted. I managed 8 rides on Red Force in an hour and a half, and that was stopping 3 times to have my Estrella yard glass thingy refilled (I was pretty drunk by the end of the night). I met 2 friendly German guys and we talking about Europa, Nemesis Retrack, the Monkey coaster at Chessington, and how bad queue jumping in PA is! The same group of riders walking on again and again.

Not sure that helps as it's one snapshot of one day. But it was the second busiest day in the main park of our entire visit. We easily got everything done, not thar there's much there to do! It was busy early on but absolutely dead for the last 2 hours. Plus night rides. So it seemed to me the later the better.
 
Good thread that's helped me out a bit thank you. Good to hear the opinion from people in Spain too.
I'm braving Easter at PA with my family (I have 2 boys, 10 & 13 who love all the UK headliners like Hyperia/Smiler/Icon/Stealth/Wickerman/Nemmy etc). This is our first European park. My eldest is doing his Spanish GCSE this year and he'll be our interpreter :p

Although it's Easter period, we thought we'd at least avoid the Bank Holiday madness and try and get in before it all kicks off properly.
Firstly we have some good opening hours to play with over 3 days. Water Park shut obvs. So it'll be PA and FL only with 1 evening in FL only.

Timings:
Sat April 12th (1030-2000) - Crowd calendar forecast 66% from Queue-Times
Sun April 13th (1030-1900) - CCF 46%
Mon April 14th (1030-1800) - CCF 33%
Ferrari Land 1 day pass for any day, but it's open till 2200 each day.

Quick q's for the board.
Flight touches down at 0915.. after transfers, check in it might be 1130ish entry.. Fully prepared that the CCF may be actually around 90%+ based on March swings... it's a 30th year anniversary/Easter so not doubt that'll be the busiest day and walking into it at nearly lunch time might be a shock to the system with the major rides peaking at 90 mins to 2 hrs judging by March. Not sure on the plan of action here... would you just go to anything under 90 mins and hope for the best? We don't really plan to do fast pass as 3 full days. If Saturday is a blowout we do have the Ferrari Land 1 day pass we can activate if we feel we've not done enough but seems stupid not to save it for Monday night when the park closes at 6pm?

Early access is available from the Gold River package we have... Is Uncharted a given for 1 day of early access being it seems to have longest wait averaging 90 but peaking at 120 this month and Condor or Baco for the other morning? Or is it possible to get Shambala and DK done in one 30 min access window given how close they are?

Do you have to give a time for evening buffet too? That's the tricky park on Sat/Sun. Monday 6.30 looks ok.
 
Manchester1894 said:
Good thread that's helped me out a bit thank you. Good to hear the opinion from people in Spain too.
I'm braving Easter at PA with my family (I have 2 boys, 10 & 13 who love all the UK headliners like Hyperia/Smiler/Icon/Stealth/Wickerman/Nemmy etc). This is our first European park. My eldest is doing his Spanish GCSE this year and he'll be our interpreter :p

Although it's Easter period, we thought we'd at least avoid the Bank Holiday madness and try and get in before it all kicks off properly.
Firstly we have some good opening hours to play with over 3 days. Water Park shut obvs. So it'll be PA and FL only with 1 evening in FL only.

Timings:
Sat April 12th (1030-2000) - Crowd calendar forecast 66% from Queue-Times
Sun April 13th (1030-1900) - CCF 46%
Mon April 14th (1030-1800) - CCF 33%
Ferrari Land 1 day pass for any day, but it's open till 2200 each day.

Quick q's for the board.
Flight touches down at 0915.. after transfers, check in it might be 1130ish entry.. Fully prepared that the CCF may be actually around 90%+ based on March swings... it's a 30th year anniversary/Easter so not doubt that'll be the busiest day and walking into it at nearly lunch time might be a shock to the system with the major rides peaking at 90 mins to 2 hrs judging by March. Not sure on the plan of action here... would you just go to anything under 90 mins and hope for the best? We don't really plan to do fast pass as 3 full days. If Saturday is a blowout we do have the Ferrari Land 1 day pass we can activate if we feel we've not done enough but seems stupid not to save it for Monday night when the park closes at 6pm?

Early access is available from the Gold River package we have... Is Uncharted a given for 1 day of early access being it seems to have longest wait averaging 90 but peaking at 120 this month and Condor or Baco for the other morning? Or is it possible to get Shambala and DK done in one 30 min access window given how close they are?

Do you have to give a time for evening buffet too? That's the tricky park on Sat/Sun. Monday 6.30 looks ok.
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I can't answer your questions about staying on site, as we opted to stay elsewhere nearby, but take a breath and don't stress!

The default language for the park/region is actually Catalan, rather than Spanish, just to warn your son if he starts wondering why he really can't understand Anything. All signs are typically in a mixture of languages though and you'll be fine with English.

We had two days until he park this year, for opening weekend, and didn't have fast pass.

The park is so large, without many shortcuts, that it makes it almost impossible to chase the app for queue times. Start off in the back of the park first thing in the morning, and you'll be able to get in a few rides on Shambala and Dragon Khan. Furious Baco appears to die off a bit around lunchtime, as people have moved further into the park, I wouldn't queue for it first. Baco is the coaster closest to the main entrance, it and Uncharted appear to be where everyone flocks to first thing.

There doesn't appear to ever be a good time to join the Uncharted queue. We ended up with a 45 minute wait at the end of the last day we were there, which was reasonable. If you have the PA app on your phone, and location settings enabled, you'll be able to get an English translation of the story scenes whilst in the queue, which was a nice touch.
 
I agree with @GooseOnTheLoose in saying that Shambhala and Dragon Khan are the good place to start in PA. Those rides often have very short queues first thing by virtue of being at the back! I’d also agree with Baco being best to hit around lunchtime.

With that said, I’m going to disagree with Goose slightly on Uncharted given where you’re staying. On our first day, we got into the park very early and got in the queue as soon as we were let in through the Gold River entrance, and we did get on there in not very long at all (it took a few minutes to open, but the wait wasn’t very long at all once it did open). Given you’re staying in Gold River, I would absolutely recommend getting to that entrance early on at least one day and getting on it in more reasonable time.
 
Manchester1894 said:
Thanks both. Did you remember what you did for the buffet in evenings?
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We ate in the Hotel Gold River buffet restaurant (I forget what it was called…) every night. It was very nice, with a good range on offer, and certainly good value for money, in my opinion!
 
Matt N said:
We ate in the Hotel Gold River buffet restaurant (I forget what it was called…) every night. It was very nice, with a good range on offer, and certainly good value for money, in my opinion!
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Did you have to book a timeslot and stuff you have it during park opening hours?
 
Manchester1894 said:
Did you have to book a timeslot and stuff you have it during park opening hours?
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We did have to book a timeslot, yes. In one case, we did have to have it during the opening hours of Ferrari Land, but not during those of the main park. I think we had it at 8pm or something like that, or maybe 7:30pm?
 
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