Matt N’s Excursion to España 9th-12th September 2024 (PortAventura Park/Ferrari Land)

[Matt N]

9th September 2024: Travel
Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the start of my big foreign theme park trip for the year. This year, that trip is my first ever trip to PortAventura World in Spain! This will be my first time ever experiencing the likes of Shambhala and Red Force, amongst other major rides, as well as experiencing a pretty major European theme park resort in the form of PortAventura World for the first time and seeing the delights it has to offer through a fresh set of eyes! It’s also my first time ever going to Spain despite doing a GCSE in Spanish… there are quite a lot of firsts this trip!

We set off early this morning, leaving our Gloucestershire home at a little before 7:30am. With us living in the South West of England, we flew from Bristol Airport, our nearest airport. Despite us not living very far from Bristol, it took us over an hour to get there; I can see why my dad jokingly calls Bristol Airport “Bedminster International”, because it’s miles out of Bristol… anyway, when we got there, check in and security were nice and prompt. Bristol Airport has a fancy new check in system where you don’t take anything out of your bag and it just checks the bag… other than me needing to take my shoes off and have them sent back round the carousel due to some sort of anomaly, it overall worked well and we got through quickly!:

When we got into the airport, we then headed for our flight. It was an EasyJet flight to Barcelona El Prat Airport, and it was excellent! The plane was very nice, and everything ran to schedule; it took a little under 2 hours, and we even landed a few minutes ahead of schedule! The time went quite quickly on there; we ate lunch, and I played some games on my iPad and also read How Westminster Works… And Why it Doesn’t, an excellent book by Ian Dunt that explains how every part of the English political system is apparently structured to work against meaningful scrutiny and change. It’s a fascinating read… political books might be a fascinating new genre for me to delve into! Anyway, that’s besides the point; the flight was good, and immigration was also relatively quick:

After we landed, we headed to find our shared transfer, booked through PortAventura. This was interesting… it was relatively easy to find and set up, but they like to send you walking for this! We landed in Terminal 2C, but the desk to arrange transfers was at the very end of the check in desks in Terminal 2B, which was a decent walk from where we landed, and then we had to walk even further to all the way past the taxis to catch our bus:

The bus itself was easy to catch and we got on it with relative ease, but when we were on it, the flaws of coach travel began to emerge; I’m not sure how long the drive from Barcelona El Prat to PortAventura would normally be, but it took us around 2h 45m to reach our hotel from leaving our pick up point, in large part due to us spending at least an hour going on a whistle stop tour of the many different hotels of Salou to drop different people off. As such, we reached PortAventura at around 5:30pm despite leaving the original pick up point at around 2:45pm. On the positive side, however, I must say that from having driven along the road, Spain is probably one of the more picturesque foreign countries I’ve been to; the mountainous landscape and clear blue sea is absolutely gorgeous! I also found it interesting how large parts of the road network seem to be encased in tunnels; it was almost like being back in the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport back at home, except without nearly the same volume of queueing!

Anyhow, after our bus ride, we arrived at our accommodation for the trip; Hotel Gold River, one of the on-site hotels at PortAventura. I’ve often heard deeply mixed reviews of PortAventura, which gave me some degree of trepidation… but on first impressions, Hotel Gold River is absolutely stunning! It’s impeccably themed, with so many little details around the place, our Superior Callaghan Room is lovely, the place is pristine, it has a lovely ambience about it, and overall, the whole place is just wonderful! From a theming and ambience standpoint, it’s as nice as any theme park hotel I’ve ever been to, and that includes the ones at Europa Park; from the hotel, I’m getting a real Europa Park vibe, and given how excellent those hotels were and that park was, I think that’s encouraging:

(I apologise for the bombardment of photos… Gold River is such a photogenic hotel, and there was so much I wanted to photograph!)

After arriving and checking in, we initially went for a little stroll around the hotel complex to explore our surroundings (where many of the above photos were taken) and had a drink in one of the bars. My mum and dad were thrilled at the drink prices; 2 large Estrellas for them and a Diet Coke for me only cost €13.30, which seems very cheap!

Later on, we then went for our evening meal at the Grand Hall buffet. This was lovely; the food was really nice, and we all enjoyed it! Although it was nothing too fancy, the food was lovely, and I’m not a huge foodie, so that suits me fine. Another interesting thing that happened during our meal is that at one point, the waiting staff all suddenly erupted into a song and dance show to a song with the primary lyrics “Hola, hola!”, where they were dancing and clapping along to the music! I’ve never seen that in a restaurant before, and I thought it was quite a fun touch… the restaurant also erupted into a chorus of “cumpleaños feliz” a couple of times for people’s birthdays, where the waiting staff were going through the restaurant clapping with cake to tables where people had birthdays, but I’ve seen that in plenty of restaurants. I’m already getting the impression that PortAventura is quite a “showy” park where they like to do a song and dance, and I’m sensing that that “hola, hola” song could be a recurring theme during the break, as we also heard it from one of the shows in the saloon bar…

After our lovely meal at the buffet, we then got more drinks from the bar and sat outside in the central plaza area of Gold River. The hotel just has such a lovely ambience about it, and with the pleasant Spanish climate, being sat outside with drinks soaking up the night time ambience of Hotel Gold River was just lovely:

After that, we headed back to our room for the night, ready for our first day in PortAventura Park tomorrow.

So, that wraps up the first instalment of this series of reports from my first ever visit to PortAventura World in Spain! I have to say that based on my experience at the hotel tonight, it’s looking very promising for the park itself; Hotel Gold River is wonderful, and with its wonderfully detailed theming, nice food and lovely ambience, I could not say enough nice things about it! It’s made me very excited to set foot in PortAventura Park and see all of the delights it has to offer tomorrow; I can’t wait for Shambhala in particular, and I’m just excited to see what’s on offer at a new major European theme park!

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I’m sorry that it’s a bit more of a boring one today, but tomorrow’s will be far more interesting, as we’re setting foot into PortAventura Park for the first time!

 

[Matt.GC]

You West Midlands/East Wales lot using our airport to go to Spain? They cancelled our flight and we ended up driving to bloody Gatwick! I live around 15 mins drive from Bristol airport but had to drive all the way to Cockney land (east of Swindon basically).

Under 3 hours on a coach isn't bad. It didn't take us far off that with a fast food break in a hire car. I learnt my lesson once before with transfers and I never do them now. That was definitely a trip where I appreciated having a car.

Gold River was better than I expected. I found it to be very good, and walking around there at night when everyone is asleep is so peaceful, especially around the pools. Estrella is well cheap out there, I got pissed on it every single day I was there. Made the rough as hell coasters more tolerable. You wait until your folks discover the cheap refillable yard things in the parks. They won't be standing by tea time.

Just as well because it takes the sting out of the dreadful "hola hola" song. By the third night, I wanted to murder the poor restaurant staff just to put them out of their misery. Poor sods.

 

[Matt N]

10th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 1
Today was the day, folks; our first day inside PortAventura Park! I couldn’t wait to get inside, ride attractions like Shambhala for the first time, and just generally see what the park had to offer for the very first time!

Now before I start this report, I should declare that perhaps controversially, we decided not to buy any form of Express Pass for our visit to the park today. We figured that if it was terrible today, we could always buy it for tomorrow and/or Thursday. Before spending all that money, we decided that we should at least try the park without Express first before assuming that Express was needed.

Anyway, let me start off our day at PortAventura Park.

After having breakfast in our hotel, we headed down to the Gold River entrance to the park at around 9:45am, and were ultimately let inside at just after 10am. This was very convenient, and put us in good stead to do our first attraction at the 10:30am opening time:

As we entered into the Far West section of PortAventura Park, we decided to initially head to a nearby attraction that apparently had quite poor capacity…
Uncharted: El Enigma De Penitence
Uncharted was nearby and had a relatively short pre-queue, so we decided to give it a go. I had been informed that the ride had low capacity and often built up a substantial queue, so I thought that it might be a sound idea to get that one done first seeing as our hotel entrance put us very close to it. The ride had a technical fault, so opened 15 minutes later than planned, but our decision to do it first proved an astute one, as we only waited 15 minutes for it once it opened and the advertised queue time was 1h 40m when we got off! Anyhow, how was the ride? Well, I actually went in knowing remarkably little, as I purposely didn’t spoil it for myself, and I have to say that I thought it was great fun! In terms of the coaster itself, I thought it was excellent; it had some fun twists and turns and fun launches, it was fast and dynamic, and I really enjoyed some of the tricksy elements (I’ll try not to spoil what those are)! I must admit, however, that I thought the on-ride theming left much to be desired for a coaster of this style; aside from the very first scene, it was pretty much a pitch black warehouse, and the screen scenes had practically nothing aside from said screens, with maintenance sheds and blank walls visible all around them. It’s a shame, as the queue is gorgeous and the coaster itself is excellent and offers potential for a great dark ride roller coaster. With marginally better on-ride theming, this could have been something quite special. Nevertheless, I still thought that Uncharted was great fun, and an excellent indoor coaster that I really enjoyed:

After getting off Uncharted, we headed to a hotly anticipated headliner of mine…
Shambhala
Shambhala was on an advertised 50 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on it. This queue ended up being marginally understated, taking more like 60 minutes, but I have to say that for all the tales of woe and horror I’ve heard about PortAventura’s supposedly dire operations over the years, operations on Shambhala were not nearly as bad as I was expecting, and the queue didn’t move terribly slowly. While I’d hesitate to call the operations fast, they were not half as bad as expected. The ride was getting just over 800pph and running 2 trains, and Express allocation did not seem excessive, so the queue didn’t move too badly. But enough about the queue; how was the ride? Well seeing as my current #1 is a B&M Hyper and Shambhala is often touted as the best of the type, it was a hotly anticipated ride for me; my most anticipated of the park, and possibly the whole year. I had very high expectations, but I was seated in the back row of the 6th car, and it did not disappoint; Shambhala is absolutely sublime! There’s so much good stuff to talk about with this ride! For starters, the first drop is absolutely phenomenal, with such strong sustained airtime all the way down; it sits proudly alongside Mako and Iron Gwazi as being one of my favourite first drops I’ve ever experienced! There’s also such wonderful sustained airtime, and it’s over every hill; Shambhala delivers right to the end! I think you also really feel the additional speed of Shambhala compared to the other B&M Hypers I’ve ridden, it’s absolutely glass smooth and comfortable… it’s just such a wonderful ride! My mum and dad loved it as well, and it definitely did not disappoint:

After our sublime first ride on Shambhala, we initially planned to do Dragon Khan, but instead decided to stroll further around the park, eventually settling on something a little different…
Tutuki Splash
Tutuki Splash was on a 10 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to take a ride on there. The queue took marginally longer than advertised, taking around 15-20 minutes, but it still wasn’t a long queue, so we couldn’t really complain too much. So, how was the ride? Well, I had a mild degree of trepidation seeing as I’m not a massive fan of absolute saturation soaking on water rides, but it was actually good fun and wasn’t too bad wetness-wise; it was more Jurassic Park than Valhalla, which suits me better! The theming was also lovely; the volcano is really cool, and I liked the jungle surroundings! Overall, Tutuki Splash was good fun, and although pretty wet afterwards, we dried out quickly in the Spanish sunshine:

After Tutuki Splash, we sat down and had lunch from a cafe in Meditarranea; I had a lovely margherita pizza slice! We then planned to do Furius Baco, as we’d previously seen that it only had a 20 minute queue, but after we had our lunch, it had broken down, so we instead headed back to Far West to do a different coaster (or duo of coasters) that had now opened…
Stampida
Stampida was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give one of the coasters a ride. We opted for the Blue track for our first ride, and the queue ended up being very accurate, taking around 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was sat in row 8, and the racing element was good fun, with John Wardley’s surprise tunnel touch being particularly fun, and it hasn’t got a bad layout, but I wasn’t a massive fan of Stampida Blue. It was quite rough in numerous sections (albeit I’ve admittedly ridden rougher woodies; something like Grand National, for example, was definitely rougher), and I also thought that the trains were very uncomfortable, with a lap bar that seemed to tighten noticeably and really clasp you in as the ride went on, ensuring that you got precisely zero airtime. It seems like the sort of ride that could be vastly better if they gave it new trains and/or some retracking work, because there are some very decent wooden coaster foundations there. Overall, then, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Stampida Blue, despite it having a decent, long layout and fun racing features:

After getting off Stampida Blue, I whipped straight back round to nab the other Stampida credit, Stampida Red, while the queue was short. I was sat in the front row on the Red side, and it wasn’t an awful lot different to the Blue side, albeit it felt perhaps marginally smoother. This could have been caused by me being sat in the front, being sat on my own or both, however.

Following Stampida Red, me and my mum nipped to ride the other Far West woodie while the queue was short…
Tomahawk
Tomahawk was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on there. As with Stampida, the queue was bang on the advertised time, taking 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was perfectly all right for a family woodie, if somewhat unremarkable. There were some fair drops on there and it picked up some speed in sections, and I personally found the ride smooth enough and with comfortable restraints. My mum, however, was somewhat pinned in and found the train uncomfortable. Overall, then, Tomahawk was a perfectly fun, if somewhat unremarkable, family wooden coaster:

After riding Tomahawk, we decided to go for another water ride…
Grand Canyon Rapids
Grand Canyon Rapids was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give it a whirl. If anything, 10 minutes was slightly overestimated, as we were on the ride in only 5 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, it looked like a somewhat unassuming rapids from off ride, but it was proof that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, as it was a very strong rapids! The river was fast, there were some good waves and some good water effects, and it was overall a very surprising rapids, with a certain ferocity that you don’t really get on a UK rapids anymore! While not Bilge Rats level soaked, we walked off surprisingly wet after being struck by a particularly vicious wave! The girls batched into our boat with us came off somewhat drier… proof if it was needed of the complete lottery rapids rides are! Overall, then, Grand Canyon Rapids was a very surprising rapids that packed many unexpected elements:

After Grand Canyon Rapids, my dad and I headed back over towards China, with us stopping at another coaster on the way there…
El Diablo: Tren de la Mina
El Diablo was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on there. The 10 minute advertised queue time was in fact overstated, as we waltzed straight onto row 15! But how was the ride? Well, I did not go in with very high expectations, as I’ve never heard overly good things about El Diablo, but it was surprisingly good fun and definitely exceeded my expectations! It’s a really long coaster, it’s not overly rough, and while not the most thrilling coaster, it has some really fun helixes and turns where it gains surprising speed! Overall, then, I definitely enjoyed El Diablo more than I expected to, and my dad liked it too; it was definitely a positive surprise:

After El Diablo, me and my dad headed into China to tick off a big thrill coaster we hadn’t done yet…
Dragon Khan
Dragon Khan was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give it a whirl. This queue was fractionally understated, taking around 15 minutes, but I still didn’t think that was an overly long queue for such a major headliner. So, how was the ride? Well, I’d heard that Dragon Khan was very rough, but I was seated in an inner seat on row 6, and I did not find it as bad as expected based on reviews, despite not having an overly high roughness tolerance. It has a bit of headbanging in places, and is perhaps one of the rougher B&Ms I’ve ridden, but it wasn’t anything overly terrible and the ride was overall not terribly rough. It was no rougher than, say, the retracked Hulk at Universal. The layout is also very decent, with some excellent inversions and good forces; it’s rather reminiscent of Kumba in that regard, even if it hasn’t seemingly aged quite as well. Overall, then, Dragon Khan wasn’t a bad ride at all; while not glass smooth, I didn’t find it massively rough, and the layout is very decent:

After Dragon Khan, my mum and dad left the park and left me to my own devices. As such, I decided to go for not one, but two, rerides on Shambhala using the single rider queue. This worked well; on a 30 minute advertised queue, I got onto the ride within 15 minutes the first time, and even with a stoppage of 5-10 minutes while I was in the queue, I still matched the advertised main queue time of 30 minutes the second time. As for the ride itself, I was seated in the back row of the 7th car both times, and if anything, the ride was possibly even better than it was in the morning, and seemingly grew on me even more with each ride! The sustained airtime was once again glorious, the speed was once again glorious, the ride was blissfully smooth and comfortable once again, and overall, the ride was just absolutely sublime and such a joyous experience!:

You may notice that earlier in the report, I steered clear of doing any direct comparisons and answering the question of whether Shambhala has bested Mako as my #1 coaster. After my first ride, I was unsure of Shambhala’s placement among my B&M Hypers (the other two I’ve ridden are Mako and Silver Star), but I knew it was in the conversation of top coasters… the second and third rides, however, made me think that it may have sealed the deal to become my favourite B&M Hyper Coaster, and that after 8 years, I may finally have a new #1 coaster! I’m not concluding that firmly just yet, as I still have 2 more days to ride it more and decide, but currently, I am thinking that Shambhala is a new #1 for me!

In terms of what is spurring me to provisionally place Shambhala above Mako; there are a couple of things that I feel it does slightly better while maintaining all of Mako’s best qualities. Firstly, I think the additional speed really enhances it. Secondly, I also think that Shambhala flows better and keeps the thrills going right to the end marginally better than Mako does; on Mako, you have the harsh trim and the slightly weaker ending, but on Shambhala, the ride flows beautifully, every hill delivers sublime sustained airtime and it keeps the thrills going right to the end! I also thought that Shambhala’s speed hill was a bit better than Mako’s; on Mako, that hill, while wonderful, isn’t a particularly standout moment, but on Shambhala, it provides an absolutely stunning pop of ejector airtime! Mako is still an absolutely sublime ride, but when it’s the #1 spot you’re talking about, pedantry has to win out, and Shambhala marginally wins on pedantry for me!

I pondered a 3rd reride on Shambhala, but the single rider queue looked longer when I got off after my 2nd reride, and I realised that there was still a key thrill coaster I needed to ride to get the clean sweep of major coasters in PortAventura Park. As such, I headed down to Mediterranea to go and ride…
Furius Baco
While Furius Baco had a single rider queue, it looked rather long, so I decided to chance the 50 minute main queue instead. The 50 minute main queue turned out to be perfectly accurate, taking the advertised 50 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, I was morbidly intrigued to ride Furius Baco, as I’ve always heard deeply polarised opinions about it and it has its fair share of both passionate lovers and passionate haters. One common thread, however, is that the ride is generally agreed to be quite rough, and given what some of Baco’s haters say about it, I was morbidly intrigued to see just how rough it actually was. I was seated in a relatively unremarkable seat, being in the row 4 inner seat on the left, and I can’t say I was too much of a fan. The launch was excellent and incredibly punchy, as is always the case with these Intamin hydraulic launches… but it is definitely a pretty rough ride! Interestingly, I wouldn’t say it was overly rough in the traditional sense of head-splitting jolts or jerkiness, which I tend to be more sensitive to than rattling/bouncing… but it is perhaps one of the bounciest coasters I’ve ever ridden, to the extent where the sheer degree of bouncing bordered on head-splitting joltiness on odd occasions, and I definitely came off with a decent headache! In the seat I was sat in, I wouldn’t say it was quite uncomfortably rough enough to be “the worst coaster I’ve ever ridden” or in that very bottom 1/10 tier like some declare it, and I think I have ridden some rougher coasters… but it was still a bit too rough for me, and given how rough it was in the row 4 inner seat, it’s not too hard to imagine it being utterly vile on an outer seat! Overall, then, I’m afraid I wasn’t a huge fan of Furius Baco, despite the ever punchy Intamin hydraulic launch. For me, it’s simply much too rough to be something I overly enjoy or rate highly; even if it perhaps wasn’t the most uncomfortably rough coaster I’ve ever ridden in the row 4 inner seat, it was still too rough to fully enjoy for me, and it’s not too hard for me to imagine how it could be absolutely vile on an outer seat or further back in the train!:

By the time I got off Furius Baco, the 6pm park closing time had passed, so I bade PortAventura Park goodnight for the day and headed back to Hotel Gold River to meet back up with my mum and dad:

So, that wraps up our first day in PortAventura Park! I had an absolutely excellent day; Shambhala was a particularly huge highlight, but there were many other great bits too, and in general, I just thoroughly enjoyed the day and loved setting foot inside PortAventura Park for the first time and seeing what it had to offer!

In terms of my first impressions of PortAventura Park; they are overall very, very positive, and I feel that the park is right up there as one of the strongest in Europe, of the ones I’ve visited (admittedly not too many compared to some)! It’s an utterly gorgeous park to walk around and just exist in, the theming is sublime and intricately detailed throughout, and there are some great rides (Shambhala being the main highlight)! Thus far, I’m absolutely loving the park, and I can’t wait to get back in there tomorrow; I dare say that it’s possibly exceeded my expectations so far!

I also feel that I should address those old chestnuts that people always moan about with PortAventura; the operations, the queues and Express Pass. Overall, I did not feel that those things were nearly as bad as I was expecting. Express usage did not appear to be excessive, and while I’d hesitate to call the operations fast, I didn’t think they were overly awful by any stretch of the imagination; I’ve seen far worse. Shambhala was doing over 800pph on 2 trains, Stampida had 2 trains on both sides and was doing a combined 1,200pph, the water rides were sending boats at a decent rate, and in general, the operations did not seem that terrible. The queues also weren’t that bad either. I did not buy Express Pass today, and personally, I don’t think I needed it; on the whole, the queues today were no worse than on a busy day at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park, and I’ve certainly waited in longer and slower-moving queues at some of our UK Merlin parks. I’d also argue that PortAventura actually had an advantage over those in that it seemed easier to find major rides with a short queue; rides like Stampida, Tomahawk, El Diablo and the water rides seemed to have queues of 20 minutes or less all day. I was certainly very content with my ride count of 12 in 7.5 hours without using Express Pass; I managed to get on every major coaster, as well as 2 water rides, and get in rerides on Shambhala!

Overall, though, I had a fantastic day at PortAventura Park, and my first impressions are overall very positive!

Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, we’ll be heading back into PortAventura Park, as well as also visiting Ferrari Land. I can’t wait to get on Red Force for the first time!

 

[Matt.GC]

I agree with you in regard to Express pass. It's often touted as "essential", but I found it overall a better operated resort than Chessington, or the way Alton Towers has been these last 2 seasons. I think it's a case of it's reputation proceeding it (sometimes justified), whilst not acknowledging how conditioned we've become to rapidly declining Merlin operations here. I'm more likely these days to buy AT fastrack than PA Express. I didn't purchase a single Express in my 8 days there, and on one of those days Shambalha reached 140 mins, whilst Stampeda blue sat on 20.

That's not to say that I didn't find some of the operations intolerable though, and the Friday in that place seems particularly bad. It sounds like you've had a better experience, and I think that pretending that there's no planned route you can do around PA to avoid very long queues without having to fork out on Express is a myth. Just don't be a mug and go on busy days in high season, get the furthest away rides done first thing in the morning, and don't do rides near the main park and Gold River entrances near open and closing time.

I'd be interested to know what you thought of Dragon Kahn compared to Kumba? I last rode Kumba in 1994 and I absolutely loved it. I rode it back to back 5 times on one visit (I also rode it many times the year before). I couldn't get enough of it. I tried Dragon Kahn multiple times, and knew that I probably should be enjoying it. Indeed, it was intense and I love the design of the layout. But every ounce of enjoyment was damped down by and immediate ear bashing or violent vibration. Although I always sat in an outer seat, I tried it over a dozen times in different rows and came off roughed up every time.

 

[Matt N]

I agree with you in regard to Express pass. It's often touted as "essential", but I found it overall a better operated resort than Chessington, or the way Alton Towers has been these last 2 seasons. I think it's a case of it's reputation proceeding it (sometimes justified), whilst not acknowledging how conditioned we've become to rapidly declining Merlin operations here. I'm more likely these days to buy AT fastrack than PA Express. I didn't purchase a single Express in my 8 days there, and on one of those days Shambalha reached 140 mins, whilst Stampeda blue sat on 20.

That's not to say that I didn't find some of the operations intolerable though, and the Friday in that place seems particularly bad. It sounds like you've had a better experience, and I think that pretending that there's no planned route you can do around PA to avoid very long queues without having to fork out on Express is a myth. Just don't be a mug and go on busy days in high season, get the furthest away rides done first thing in the morning, and don't do rides near the main park and Gold River entrances near open and closing time.

I'd be interested to know what you thought of Dragon Kahn compared to Kumba? I last rode Kumba in 1994 and I absolutely loved it. I rode it back to back 5 times on one visit (I also rode it many times the year before). I couldn't get enough of it. I tried Dragon Kahn multiple times, and knew that I probably should be enjoying it. Indeed, it was intense and I love the design of the layout. But every ounce of enjoyment was damped down by and immediate ear bashing or violent vibration. Although I always sat in an outer seat, I tried it over a dozen times in different rows and came off roughed up every time.

Based on yesterday, I definitely agree that Express Pass isn’t essential, although I digress that the park did not seem overly busy. The only rides that seemed to have a ridiculous queue (i.e. 1hr+) pretty much all day were Uncharted and Hurakan Condor, and even they had their lower moments; Uncharted got down to about 40 minutes later on in the day, and Hurakan Condor started at around 20 minutes. Hurakan Condor is one of the things I didn’t get done yesterday that I’d like to do today or tomorrow, so I’m thinking that I should aim for it whenever it opens.

I think today, we’re going to try and start in China rather than in Far West near our entrance. This did suit us well to get on Uncharted with a relatively short wait, but in waiting for it to open, we did seemingly miss out on a good few minutes of Shambhala and Khan with very short queues.

How is Dragon Khan compared to Kumba, you ask? Well, I did Kumba only last year, so I should be able to give a fairly up to date view. To me, Kumba felt smoother than Dragon Khan; quite remarkably, my ride on there felt pretty much glass smooth, and it was probably the smoothest of the 3 B&M sit down/floorless coasters in Florida (Kumba/Kraken/Hulk) for me. As with Khan, though, I was sat on an inner seat; my dad sat on an outer seat seemed to think Kumba was a bit rougher than I did. By my experiences, I would say that Dragon Khan was rougher than Kumba and Kraken, but roughly on par with new Hulk smoothness-wise (surprisingly not smooth for a recently retracked B&M). It was certainly no worse than new Hulk for me, anyway.

 

[Llama]

Great report Matt

I was there on a couple of weekdays in June of this year and the queues were all 60+ minutes, with Shambhala and the other bigger rides reaching 90 or even 120 throughout the day. The Express Pass seemed necessary in this case, at least for me, because those cattle pen back-and-forth unthemed queues are like Kryptonite for me in terms of enjoying a day at a theme park. Glad to hear it's not necessary to spend that money 100% of the time though.

Completely agree on Uncharted. It was a little inexplicable to me how the entire land surrounding the ride and the queue have world class theming and yet the ride itself is, as you said, a handful of screens and a small number of physical props in a dark warehouse. With a little more effort into the visuals it could have been a really great ride but at present it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

[Matt N]

11th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 2 and Ferrari Land
We had our second day today! Today, we headed back into PortAventura Park for another day of fun, and also headed into Ferrari Land to get on Red Force for the first time!

Similarly to yesterday, we entered via the Gold River hotel entrance at a bit before 10am. It looked a little busier here today, and I did have some trepidation about whether it could be busy due to it apparently being a public holiday in Catalonia today, but we decided to initially try the park without Express once again and see how it went:

We decided to tackle the park in a slightly different manner today, starting in China to knock off Shambhala and Dragon Khan early. As much as doing Uncharted first yesterday got us on the ride with a short wait compared to anything we saw at other points in the trip, we did note that as per the app, we ended up missing half an hour of Shambhala and Dragon Khan being incredibly quiet, so we thought that we should take advantage of that today…
Shambhala
Shambhala only had a very short pre-queue, so we decided to ride that first. This proved a good decision, as we only waited around 5 minutes for it; you can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front part of the very back car, and it was sublime once again; you really feel the pull over the first drop and the hills in the back, the airtime is sublime, the speed is sublime, and everything about it is just wonderful! You’ve undoubtably heard me rhapsodise about Shambhala enough by now, so I’ll end my take there:

After our ride on Shambhala, me and my mum headed to the other Chinese coaster…
Dragon Khan
Dragon Khan was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. This queue was if anything overstated, as we only waited 5 minutes for it; I would never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in an outer seat on row 2, and similarly to yesterday, it was not a bad ride at all! It was maybe fractionally rougher than it was yesterday, but still nothing too bad overall, and the layout is excellent on there, with some brilliant inversions and great forces! My mum was not a massive fan, although that perhaps isn’t overly surprising given that she also doesn’t like things like Nemesis and Kraken:

After Dragon Khan, I went in the single rider queue for another reride on Shambhala. I waited 40 minutes (exactly the same as the advertised queue time) and got dead centre in the train that time, but it was still sublime, and I noticed that you got stronger force going up into the hills sitting a bit further towards the front!

I then met back up with my mum and dad, and we headed into SesamoAventura, an area we only briefly walked through yesterday, and did something a little more unique to our trip…
Sesame Street: Street Mission
Street Mission was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on there. The queue time board was true to its word, as we waited exactly 20 minutes; it’s always quite satisfying when these things are bang on the nose! So, how was the ride? Well, I went in with somewhat low expectations and was unsure of what to expect other than that it was an interactive dark ride themed to Sesame Street… but this possibly ended up being the biggest positive surprise of the trip so far! Street Mission was an absolutely fantastic dark ride! The 3D technology worked very well and the screens were excellent, but there was also an abundance of physical theming that was blended in seamlessly with the screens, the simulator section at the end was excellent, and overall, it was just such a fun and well executed dark ride! Overall, we all thoroughly enjoyed Street Mission, and I’d go out on a limb and say that it’s my favourite interactive dark ride I’ve done (yes, I would even say that it beats out Men in Black at Universal); it was fantastic, and such a positive surprise! We’ve even talked about possibly doing it again tomorrow:

After Street Mission, we further explored SesamoAventura, and as it was on a short queue, me and my mum did another ride to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters…
Tami Tami
Now as I don’t generally ride kiddie coasters, I was not originally expecting to do Tami Tami, but it was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, and it honestly didn’t look too embarrassing in person (it looked big enough to possibly qualify as a “family coaster” rather than a kiddie coaster), so me and my mum went to give it a go. The 10 minute advertised queue time was if anything overstated, with the queue taking more like 5 minutes, and we were on the ride within only a train or two’s wait. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row, and for a smaller coaster, it actually wasn’t half bad, with some good bits of speed! These coasters are what they are, but some of the turns were surprisingly good fun for a smaller coaster! Overall, then, Tami Tami wasn’t a bad kiddie/family coaster at all, and better than we were expecting; it did feel good to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters:

After Tami Tami, we headed over to Mexico to do an attraction me and my dad had already done yesterday…
El Diablo
El Diablo was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so as my mum hadn’t done it and me and my dad thought that she might like it, we decided to take a ride on there. The queue moved quite quickly, with the ride attaining a decent throughput of around 1,000pph or slightly under, and we were on within 15 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front row, and similarly to yesterday, it was quite a fun mine train coaster with some fun bits of speed, albeit it was perhaps a tad jerkier than it seemed yesterday:

After El Diablo, we went for some lunch before my mum and dad left me to my own devices in the park for a bit before we entered Ferrari Land in the evening. As we’d eaten lunch in Meditarranea and it was on a relatively short queue, I decided to take a ride on…
Furius Baco
Furius Baco was on an advertised main queue time of 30 minutes, but as the single rider queue looked better than it had yesterday, I decided to chance that today. It ultimately took around 25 minutes, which I don’t think is too bad given some of the queue times I had seen for the ride at points. So, how was the ride? Well, I was once again seated in an inner seat in row 4, albeit on the right side rather than the left this time, and my thoughts were very similar to yesterday. The launch is excellent, but I’m not a massive fan of it as it’s pretty rough; however, it was not quite as bad as some of my worst fears and it wasn’t quite rough enough to be in contention for my “worst coaster ever” like I know it is for some. I have only ridden it in the inner seats, however:

After my ride on Furius Baco, I decided to hot foot it back towards the back of the park, taking a ride on another coaster with a short queue on my way there…
Stampida
Stampida was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to have a go on there. I picked the Red side, and the queue time board was true to its word, with me queueing exactly 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6, and similarly to yesterday, I’m afraid I wasn’t the biggest lover of Stampida; the ride was pretty rough, and it also had very uncomfortable lap bar restraints that really dug in and constrained any kind of airtime potential:

After my ride on Stampida Red, I made a beeline for Mexico, as Hurakan Condor, which had spent pretty much all of my time at PortAventura on a ridiculous queue, was advertising only a 10 minute wait. When I joined, however, it became abundantly clear that this queue was longer than 10 minutes, and while I initially stuck it out thinking that the queue didn’t look too long, I decided to bail after 15 minutes of practically no movement:

After bailing on Hurakan Condor, I decided to head to Shambhala for another single rider queue reride. I waited marginally longer than the advertised queue time this time, waiting 35 minutes compared to an advertised 30 for the main queue, but when I got on, I scored the front car this time. Shambhala on the front was phenomenal, and possibly one of the best rides yet; the unencumbered sense of speed felt slightly stronger up front, and the sensation of getting pushed up into the hills was sublime:

After my reride on Shambhala, the single rider queue was unfortunately too long for me to have another reride and get back to meet my parents in time. As such, I instead decided to check out Hurakan Condor again, but the advertised queue time was back up to 1h 20m, so I gave it a miss for today and instead rerode El Diablo on a 10 minute advertised queue time as I was walking by. I was seated in row 3 this time, and it was similar to earlier:

After getting off El Diablo, I pondered doing a reride on Dragon Khan on my way back to Meditarranea to meet up with my parents, but it was already approaching 4:30pm, so I thought that the queue looked a tad too long for me to be able to ride it and walk back to meet my parents by our agreed meet up time of 4:45pm. As such, I decided to just steadily walk back to Meditarranea and close off my day at PortAventura Park there:

That was not quite the end of the day, however… when I met back up with my parents, we went to head into Ferrari Land for our one visit of this trip. We were at the entrance a little before the opening time of 5pm, so we had to wait for a bit before they opened the gates:

When we headed into Ferrari Land, we decided to join the masses and head into the pre-opening queue for…
Red Force
Red Force had a modest, albeit not small, pre-opening queue by the time we reached it, so as it was the primary draw of the park for us, we decided to join it and wait for the ride to open. We initially felt quite good about our prospects, as we were ahead of much of the pre-queue… but the ride unfortunately failed to open at the park opening time of 5pm. It was inactive for a while due to a technical fault, and 1h 10m of additional waiting passed before they started sending test trains around and a full 1.5 hours of additional waiting passed before the ride actually started operating with people on board at 6:30pm. On a side note, I got to see them manually push the train slowly up the launch track and manually pull it slowly back along it, which I’ve never seen before; that was interesting, if nothing else:

Once the ride opened, we ultimately waited around 35 minutes for it, which we didn’t think was too bad given that the back of the queue when the ride opened was pegged at 1h 30m. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 2, and it was an absolutely fantastic coaster; it was incredibly fast with a phenomenal sense of speed, and it had some great airtime at the top of the top hat! I also felt that the overhead lap bars were much more comfortable than the old Intamin OTSRs! However, if I’m being totally honest… I perhaps controversially prefer Stealth, and given that Red Force is the tallest and fastest coaster I’ve ridden by quite some margin, I was maybe expecting a tad more. The launch was a bit rattly towards the end, notably more so than on Stealth, but the main critique I had is that I think this ride style does miss a little something without the hydraulic launch. Red Force is undeniably a very fast coaster and provides an awesome sense of speed, but without the rapid acceleration of the hydraulic launch, I almost felt that the ride didn’t feel quite as fast as it actually was. Nonetheless, Red Force was still an absolutely fantastic coaster that I loved, and I’m very glad I got to ride it (I was honestly slightly doubtful that I would even get to ride in the initial moments of our Ferrari Land visit):

After getting off Red Force, the ride had a 1.5 hour advertised queue and my parents had booked an evening dinner reservation in the hotel for later, so any notion of reriding it went out of the window. As such, I instead decided to try…
Thrill Towers
Thrill Towers was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so being a fan of a good drop tower, I decided to have a ride on there. The queue ultimately only took 20 minutes, as a second tower that was initially closed reopened while I was in the queue; you can never moan about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was allocated the shot tower side, and it was good fun, with a fun launch and some fun floaty airtime, but I think I’ve ridden better examples of the genre elsewhere:

After I got off Thrill Towers, I met back up with my parents. I pondered doing something else, but our evening dinner reservation was looming, and Flying Dreams had a queue too long for us to ride it and get back to the hotel in time for dinner, Racing Legends was broken, and Red Force also had a queue too long for us to feasibly reride it, so we decided to call it a day there and head back to our hotel. Interestingly, we walked past the main entrance to PortAventura, which we hadn’t properly encountered previously:

So, that just about wraps up our second day at PortAventura Park and our visit to Ferrari Land! I had a great day; PortAventura Park once again delivered, with Shambhala rerides being sublime, surprises like Street Mission being awesome, and the park generally being wonderful, and it was great to get into Ferrari Land and ride Red Force! Crowd levels also weren’t nearly as high as I’d feared despite it being a public holiday in Catalonia; I didn’t feel that the crowd levels and queues were an awful lot different to yesterday, and I was still perfectly fine without any form of Express Pass.

In terms of Ferrari Land; I admit that my experience there was probably discoloured by waiting an extra 1.5 hours for Red Force to open and not spending an awful lot of time in there, but my opinions on it are very, very mixed. What’s there is excellent; Red Force is an absolutely superb headline coaster, and there’s also some lovely theming throughout the park. However… there frankly isn’t nearly enough of it. Ferrari Land is a very small park, and with only one real headline attraction, I think it is much too small for a stand-alone theme park; Red Force is basically the sole noteworthy attraction. It would have worked far better as an additional themed area of the main park, in my view. I also take issue with the way in which it is operated in some regards. I think the model of opening it in the evening from 5pm-10pm, while a nice idea on paper, causes issues because it causes practically everyone in the resort to converge on Red Force at once when the main park closes, which makes the queues for it very long and means that it struggles to handle the demand. I also take issue with you only being allowed one visit to Ferrari Land in the package holiday deals; I feel that it would work better if they operated an unlimited 2-park park hopper ticket, similar to what Universal does, as then you could mix and match PortAventura Park and Ferrari Land more freely. Nonetheless, Red Force is excellent, and the park has some nice thematic foundations, so if PortAventura can expand and develop it in the years to come, many of these points will become moot.

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, we’ll be heading into PortAventura Park for our final day there before heading home, so keep your eyes peeled for that report!

 

[Matt.GC]

You visited Ferrari Land, and experienced downtime on Red Force, at the busiest time. It clears out after 8pm. After 9pm, you can walk on Red Force as many times as you like.

 

[Zeock]

It's great that you love Shambhala, as it does seem to be right up your street.
Quite a few people seem to prefer Stealth to Red Force. I haven't been on it, but Red Force's launch apparently, due to the fact that it is not hydraulic, is nowhere near as powerful as Stealth's.

 

[Matt N]

It's great that you love Shambhala, as it does seem to be right up your street.
Quite a few people seem to prefer Stealth to Red Force. I haven't been on it, but Red Force's launch apparently, due to the fact that it is not hydraulic, is nowhere near as powerful as Stealth's.

I’d agree with that. The way Red Force builds up speed is cool, but it definitely lacks the initial gut punch of the hydraulics.

 

[Benjsh]

Two things:

1. Firstly great trip report. It's a fantastic place.

2. Become a writer in your career. You're made for it.

 

[Matt N]

12th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 3
It was our final day in PortAventura Park today before heading home! We weren’t really able to have a full day today, as we had to be out of the park by 3:30pm to catch our shared transfer back to Barcelona Airport to fly home, but we nonetheless headed back into the park to mop up some more goes on some of the best attractions!

I headed into the park early on my own this morning, with my mum and dad joining me later. I headed down to the Hotel Gold River entrance at around 9:50am, and entered the park a bit before the 10:30am opening time:

Upon entering the park, I decided to repeat my winning strategy from yesterday and head to China first. Resultantly, I started my day on…
Shambhala
Shambhala had a very short pre-queue, so I decided to start my day on there. I was in the queue early enough to be batched onto the very first train of the day… but unfortunately, wind (well, “adverse meteorological conditions” as per the tannoy announcement) meant that the ride didn’t open until 20 minutes after park opening. Curiously, they had to take off a train and run the ride on 1 train for it to be able to open in the wind; I’ve never seen this on a coaster before. Whether it’s a case similar to The Big One where the ride supposedly has slow and fast trains for different weather conditions, I don’t know, but to be fair, it was windy enough that I can believe it might have caused a 250ft coaster to experience difficulties with operating. Anyhow, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back car, and it was absolutely sublime; it was possibly in contention for the best Shambhala ride yet! The airtime was strong and phenomenally sustained, the ride was so fast (and felt faster than usual in the windy conditions), and overall, it was every bit as sublime as I’ve come to expect from Shambhala! That ride was a wonderful way to kick off the day:

After Shambhala, I then decided to head onto the other coaster in the area…
Dragon Khan
Dragon Khan was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on there. Like Shambhala, Dragon Khan had been forced to drop down to 1 train to operate in the windy conditions, so capacity was reduced, but the queue still took only 35 minutes nonetheless, which I didn’t think was too bad, personally. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in an outer seat on the very front row, and it was similar to previous rides; it was a bit rough in places, but overall not too bad, and the ride had a decent layout with good forces, good pacing and decent inversions:

After I got off Dragon Khan, my mum and dad had entered the park, so I met up with them in the square in China before we headed to an attraction we hadn’t yet done…
Templo del Fuego
Templo del Fuego was on an advertised 20 minute queue time and we hadn’t yet done it, so we decided to give it a go. I’ve often heard that this attraction doesn’t open very often, and I’ve also heard that it’s very good, so I was intrigued to try it out. The queue ultimately only took around 5 minutes, and we were inside the attraction promptly. So, how was it? Well, this style of actor-led attraction isn’t entirely my sort of thing, but I have to concede that it was rather entertaining! Even though I didn’t understand too much of the speech, as it was in Spanish, the actor did a good job of entertaining the crowds, the premise was quite clear even without knowing too much of the script, and the special effects were spectacular! There were also some surprises that I wasn’t expecting… overall, Templo del Fuego was quite an entertaining detour for a few minutes, and I’m glad I got to do it:

After Templo del Fuego, we started to gradually work our way around to Meditarranea, firstly stopping off at…
El Diablo
El Diablo was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on there. As advertised, the queue took 10 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well similarly to yesterday, it was a fun mine train coaster with some fun helixes and good bits of speed, and it also felt a bit smoother than yesterday:

After El Diablo, we decided to head over to Street Mission, which was advertising a 10 minute queue, for another ride after enjoying it yesterday. However, it unfortunately broke down while we were in the queue for it, so after 10 minutes or so with no action, we eventually bailed:

We then decided to head down to Meditarranea for lunch, after which my parents took the train from Meditarranea to Far West to leave the park. Being left to my own devices for a little longer, I initially decided to check out Hurakan Condor, as I hadn’t ridden it yet, I’m a fan of a good drop tower, and it was on a 30 minute advertised queue time. However, as with yesterday, it unfortunately was a pretty much static queue; I stuck it out for 10 minutes or so, but I left after it didn’t move. This proved a sound decision, as the advertised queue time had shot up to 1h 30m by the time I left:

I then decided to head to China and scope out Shambhala for a reride, but it was unfortunately closed for a weather delay (it was still pretty windy at this point). As Dragon Khan was still on 1 train at this point due to the weather and had an eye-watering 2.5 hour advertised queue time, I decided to veto a reride on that too. However, a favourite from earlier in the trip that I had yet to reride was on an unusually low queue, so I decided to head to…
Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence
Uncharted was advertising a 40 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on there. This was the first occasion where I’d seen it on an advertised queue time of much below an hour, so as I’d found Uncharted an excellent coaster earlier in the week, I decided to take full advantage of this! The queue time was in fact overstated; the queue only took 30 minutes, and moved fairly decently. You can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, my thoughts were very similar to what they were on the first ride. The coaster hardware itself is excellent, with the launches, fun twists and turns and various tricks making for another excellent example of an Intamin family thrill coaster, but the on-ride theming leaves much to be desired for a ride of this style, with the ride largely taking place in a pitch black warehouse and the screen scenes being really rather poor in terms of theming. I find the on-ride theming (or lack of) on Uncharted baffling, as the queue is gorgeous and Street Mission across the park shows that PortAventura clearly has strong dark ride prowess and can make absolutely superb immersive attractions. Nevertheless, the coaster itself was still excellent and put a smile on my face, and as much as I can nitpick, that is the most important thing after all:

After getting off, I pondered another ride on Uncharted, but it was getting closer to 3:30pm and reriding Uncharted at the queue time it was at would have been cutting it a bit too fine to get back to the hotel for 3:30pm. I scoped out other attractions, but a lot of things either had a queue too long to get back in time for 3:30pm, would have taken too much walking from my current location in the park to get back in time or both. As such, I decided to call it a day there, bid PortAventura Park goodbye for the last time and head back to the hotel to meet my parents and get our transfer to the airport:

So, that wraps up my final day at PortAventura Park! Today was definitely a weaker day than others on the trip, but PortAventura can’t help the weather. It really was very windy; if we had been in Florida, it felt like a very “there’s a thunderstorm coming imminently” sort of wind, and seeing as I saw Alton Towers practically grind entirely to a halt in similar, if not weaker, wind back in March, I don’t think PortAventura dealt with the circumstances badly at all. We also never went into today under the pretence of it being a full park day; we always knew we had to be out before 3:30pm to catch our transfer, so we were pleased with anything we got, realistically. Given I was only in the park for around 4.5 hours, I’ve done far worse than 5 attractions in that sort of timeframe before!

That isn’t just the end of the day, but also the end of the trip. I’ll write a longer summary post when I’m back in the UK, but in short; I’ve had an absolutely fantastic trip! I loved PortAventura World, and it’s definitely right up there as one of the strongest theme park resorts I’ve visited in Europe for me!

Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report, as well as the wider series of reports from the rest of the trip! I’ll post a longer review of PortAventura as a whole when I’m back in the UK, but trip reports-wise, I think that’s probably it from me for theme park trips this year. It’s been a terrific year, and PortAventura was an excellent way to end it!

 

[MikeD]

Enjoyed reading your reports Matt and glad you enjoyed the parks. I first visited back in 1996 and can confirm Dragon Khan was very smooth back then (it quickly became my favorite coaster at that time). I was also lucky enough to ride Stampida back with the original trains. Not visited since 2019 but your report has made me want to head back there next year!

 

[Matt.GC]

So Matt, if you could think of just one word to describe Shambalha, would it be 'Sublime'? I don't think you've used that word enough .

 

[Matt N]

PortAventura: An Overall Review and Trip Summary
Right, then; I’ve now landed back in the UK, done all of my post-trip spreadsheet stuff, and just about recovered from the journey home! Spending 4 hours waiting in Barcelona Airport and arriving back in Bristol Airport at 1am to temperatures of 6 degrees when used to (and dressed for) the beautiful climate of Salou was certainly a rude awakening from that trip bubble, but the journey mostly went well, and now I’m back, I’m in the mood to write a bit of a trip summary and do a slightly more comprehensive review of PortAventura overall through my first timer’s lens.

Before going to PortAventura, I was excited, but I’ll profess to having slightly more bated breath than when I went to Europa Park, the last major new European theme park I visited, for the first time. Over the years, I’ve read all kinds of diatribes and horror stories about PortAventura, saying about how dreadful the operations are, how dreadful the Express overuse is, how dreadful the food is, how dreadful the hotels are, how dreadful the queue jumping is… despite PortAventura’s widely accepted status as a major European theme park resort, I’ve heard all kinds of dire reports from it over the years. Hearing these reports which are at best extremely mixed did make me quite hesitant about the sort of experience we might have at PortAventura.

But having now visited, did I mirror these reports in being similarly disappointed with PortAventura? I have to say; no, I didn’t. I absolutely loved PortAventura and would definitely rank it as one of my top European theme parks! It had big shoes to fill after the splendour of Europa Park in 2022, but it did not disappoint for me, and I had an immensely pleasurable visit to the park and resort! With some of these reports I had gone in having heard, I would definitely say that the overall product at PortAventura exceeded my expectations.

Let me start by discussing the rides and attractions on offer at PortAventura World…
Rides and Attractions
Firstly, you have your roller coasters. I like to call myself a theme park enthusiast, but in reality, I do have a definite slight bias towards coasters over other varieties of attraction. PortAventura has a good coaster selection, but I will say that if talking about coasters alone, I have been to stronger places coasters-wise than PortAventura, particularly if excluding Red Force from the equation and only counting what’s in the main PortAventura Park. I would probably put Alton Towers and Thorpe Park higher overall for coasters, as well as a pre-Voltron Europa Park. If I’m being very picky, I do maybe think that the main park could do with another modern headline thrill coaster to complement Shambhala.

With that being said, the resort is still no slouch in this regard; Shambhala is an absolutely stunning top coaster for the resort for me, Red Force is also absolutely superb, and Uncharted, while somewhat sub-par in terms of on-ride theming, also stood out to me as an excellently fun family thrill coaster that I thoroughly enjoyed. There’s also quite a wide variety of other types of coaster in PortAventura Park that I enjoyed, and there is certainly plenty to satisfy a coaster fan, in my view. At very least, plenty of rerides on Shambhala should do the trick!

Some of the main surprises of PortAventura for me, however, came in the form of its non-coaster attractions. Some of the ones I did were really pleasant surprises! For example, Street Mission was an absolutely fantastic dark ride, with awesome fusion between screens and physical sets, lots of excellent theming and an overall incredibly fun and well executed experience! Grand Canyon Rapids, despite being quite an unassuming rapids ride at first glance, was also an excellent example of the genre, with some really good waves, a generally fast pace, great theming and some fun water effects! Templo del Fuego, while not being entirely my sort of thing, was also quite entertaining, with some excellent special effects on show! While not quite on the level of Europa Park in terms of sheer amount of attractions, I think PortAventura does offer some decent non-coasters, a nice variety of things to do, and at least one very decent attraction in most genres.

Let me now talk about what I feel is one of the strongest aspects of PortAventura…
Theming/Atmosphere
I am personally a big fan of parks where thrills and theming exist in unison, and PortAventura most certainly ticks this box! As much as the resort has some great coasters and rides, I think that theming is one of the things it does best. PortAventura Park, visually speaking, is absolutely stunning. The whole place is intricately themed and packed full of details; these themed areas are stunning! Far West is gorgeous, Polynesia is lovely, Mexico is lovely, China is wonderful, Meditarranea is gorgeous… I don’t think there’s one themed area in PortAventura Park that is anything less than gorgeously themed and lavishly packed with detail! Ferrari Land is also very nicely themed, with those Italian streets being lovely!

The resort is a feast for the eyes visually, and I think this contributes to it being an incredibly nice park to walk around and just exist in. It has a very nice atmosphere, and I think that it’s just very pleasant to walk around and not stressful to be in. It’s a park where I think you could be quite satisfied by just walking around or sitting taking in the sights and sounds!

Another point I’d raise is that I think new additions to the park have been integrated incredibly seamlessly and stayed very in-keeping with the original design. Sometimes, new additions can contrast a bit with what was there before and look a bit jarring, but I think PortAventura does an excellent job of maintaining consistent area visions. For example, Shambhala integrates seamlessly with the rest of China, and Uncharted integrates seamlessly with the rest of Far West.

In my opinion, theming is one of the areas where PortAventura shines brightest, and in this sense, I think it is every bit as nice as Europa Park is.

Let me now briefly discuss the on-site hotel and my experience there…
Hotel
We stayed on site at PortAventura in Hotel Gold River, in one of the Superior Callaghan Rooms. I’d heard incredibly mixed reviews of the hotels at PortAventura, but I have to say that personally, I could not fault the hotel at all and would say that it’s as nice as any theme park hotel I’ve stayed in. As with the theme parks, Hotel Gold River is a gorgeously themed complex packed with detail. There is so much to look at and so many details to see! The room was also very nice (arguably nicer than the room we stayed in at Hotel Castillo Alcazar at Europa Park, although that may be helped by us having upgraded to the slightly more expensive Callaghan room), and it was absolutely spotless and cleaned every day. We also thought that the food was absolutely excellent; breakfast was lovely, and the evening buffet was very nice, with a different offering every day! It also had a very nice atmosphere; sitting in the central courtyard section with some drinks was a very nice way to spend an evening!

Overall, then, I would definitely stay on site again, and I think it offers excellent value for money! For 3 adults for 3 nights with park tickets (unlimited entry to the main park and 1 entry to Ferrari Land), half board, shared transfers and flights, the entire holiday booking through PortAventura cost around £1,280, and I think that the experience offered is absolutely excellent when considering that price!

Let me now discuss that good old chestnut that seems to get on everyone’s mind when discussing PortAventura…
Operations/Express Pass
When discussing PortAventura, people typically moan about the operations and Express Pass.

In terms of ride operations/throughputs; I will not pretend that the operations are fast, or that they rival Europa Park in any way, shape or form… but I was expecting worse. I did not think that PortAventura’s operations were that dreadful at all given common discourse, personally, and based on my personal experience, I think their notoriously rock bottom reputation is not entirely deserved. Shambhala was typically running 2 trains and attaining around 800pph. Dragon Khan was typically running 2 trains and attaining 700-800pph. Stampida was running 2 trains per side and getting a combined 1,200-1,300pph. El Diablo was running 2 trains and getting around 1,000pph. Furius Baco was running 2 trains and getting around 600-700pph when I timed; I’ve seen Rita at Alton Towers do worse than that! The water rides were also sending boats at a decent rate. Single rider queues worked effectively where present, and the batchers were mostly good at filling empty seats. They are not lightning fast operations, and there is certainly room for improvement, but I’ve seen worse.

One possible exception to this is Hurakan Condor; they only appeared to be running 2 towers out of 5, and I didn’t ride it because both times I tried to, the queue pretty much didn’t move.

In terms of Express; despite common reports, I’ve seen far, far worse allocation to non-main queue riders elsewhere. Express exists, but I did not think that usage or allocation appeared to be excessive on any ride I saw, or out of the ordinary compared to other parks I’ve visited. This was hardly, say, Oakwood, where I saw with my own eyes whole trains of Fastrack being loaded and queues hardly moving. I’d even argue that the number of non-main queue riders was possibly lower than at some of the UK Merlin parks; I’d argue that at times, the Fastrack/RAP combo at the likes of Alton Towers slows down queues more than Express appeared to at PortAventura during my visit. We did not buy Express once during our visit, and we got on fine in terms of rides; in the first day alone, I rode every coaster in PortAventura Park apart from Tami-Tami, including both sides of Stampida, I rerode Shambhala twice more after the first ride, and I also rode Tutuki Splash and Grand Canyon Rapids.

I admit that I went in September, and as I’ve only been once, I can hardly declare myself the authority on the subject; I understand these things may differ a lot. With that being said, a public holiday, which was listed as a “very high” influx on the PortAventura website, fell during my visit, and even on that day, I did not think queues were overly excessive and I got on plenty of rides without Express. Based on my experience, I did not feel that Express was essential and I did not feel that the operations were bad enough to warrant their rock bottom reputation.

So in summary, I have to say that I absolutely loved PortAventura and would definitely put it up there as one of my favourite European theme parks! The rides are great, the theming is spectacular, the on-site hotel was excellent, and I did not feel that the operations were as bad as their rock bottom reputation would suggest.

Let me end by plonking in a few summarising stats from my trip:

• Coaster count before the trip: 124
• Coaster count after the trip: 134
• New coasters ridden: 10
• Number of coaster rides: 24
• Number of overall rides: 29
• Favourite coaster ridden: Shambhala (#1/134)
• Favourite non-coaster ridden: Street Mission
• Biggest positive surprise: Street Mission

So, that ends out my first ever trip to PortAventura World in Spain! Thank you for following this series of trip reports; I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed this trip!