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PortAventura: General Discussion

I mean they have improved operations this year, they were mediocre when I went in April but not terrible whereas before they were intentionally tragic, I'd still dread to be on park during peak times without fast track though, September should be fine.

Also redforce is my favourite ride in the resort and is in my top 10 but since you rate mako and silver star so much I'll be interested to hear what you think of shambhala.
 
I mean they have improved operations this year, they were mediocre when I went in April but not terrible whereas before they were intentionally tragic, I'd still dread to be on park during peak times without fast track though, September should be fine.
I’ve often heard PortAventura’s operations described as hit and miss. Perhaps you simply got them on a better day in April and on a worse day last year?
 
Its such a good park, I am back in September and I agree the operations are terrible if only they could sort that out with the Q jumping and it would be such an amazing resort/park. Very curious to see what investment will be made next, Thinking a world class dark ride is needed
 
I get the queue jumpers, bad ops, and niggles mentioned... But in terms of UK park context is the queue jumping at PA on a par with the UK unofficial queue jumping weekend (I know we're not allowed to name it 😉) or would you say it's worse? Is it like that all the time or just on the peak days?

And operations wise, staff aside....is reliability better than AT or Thorpe?
 
I’ve often heard PortAventura’s operations described as hit and miss. Perhaps you simply got them on a better day in April and on a worse day last year?
The consensus seems to be that operations this year have been better than in previous years. In the TPWW vlog from April this year Shawn mentions that the park appointed a new Director of Operations at the end of last year and this may account for the improvement in operations.

From: https://youtu.be/uUbIRDuyxWo?si=QCvYEw7lBKa5J9LT
 
Its such a good park, I am back in September and I agree the operations are terrible if only they could sort that out with the Q jumping and it would be such an amazing resort/park. Very curious to see what investment will be made next, Thinking a world class dark ride is needed
For the main park, methinks a Water Coaster or a SuperSplash would do the park wonders with the Spanish climate.

Ferrari Land could be perfect with a Family Launch Coaster like Juvelen or Big Bear Mountain. Something that fits between Red Force and their family SBF coaster.
 
PortAventura have introduced one-shot Express on Hurakan Condor. Since it opened in 2005, this has been the one major ride which has never had fastrack. I always assumed this was due to its low capacity and it being very prone to closures for high winds.
 
Some updates regarding Halloween

The main surprise to me is that REC is indeed returning, despite its signage, shop and finale all being removed when I visited in March

New addition of a maze in Angkor using the splash battle infrastructure (no idea how this will work)
 
For me I don't think there's anything better than night rides on Shambhala on a summers evening when there is a great atmosphere in the park.

They had 3 trains on a few days which with their terrible ops meant 2 trains sitting on the brake run each cycle. Although saying that ops were noticeably better this year.

10th visit to PA & the first time I've found Baco rough. Could never see what the fuss was about with this one before but this year it was a headache machine.

Also red Stampida was brutal. Combined the worst of Big Dipper & Coaster Express in one crazy ride. Blue was great though.
 
Unless I am missing something, just queued for Red Force now (first visit here in 16 years!) and the most pointless single rider queue doesn’t exist currently. Just a normal and fastrack queue with a third queue barred off by the station.

Luckily main queue has only been 30mins considering I arrived late to Ferrari Land due to check in faff and being given the room furthest away from reception possible.
 
Unless I am missing something, just queued for Red Force now (first visit here in 16 years!) and the most pointless single rider queue doesn’t exist currently. Just a normal and fastrack queue with a third queue barred off by the station.

Luckily main queue has only been 30mins considering I arrived late to Ferrari Land due to check in faff and being given the room furthest away from reception possible.
The single rider queue starts at the midpoint of the regular queue. You can either queue up as normal and wait until you get to the separation point to enter the SRQ, or if no members of staff are there and you feel bold enough you can walk down the side and then cross over the barrier to the SRQ point.

Edit - Just seen the post above that says that it has been changed so forget what I said.
 
So they hired a security guard earlier this year just to make sure nobody was cutting straight to the single rider queue and now they're installing a separate single rider queue, I'm happy to see it either way as someone who queued 2 and a half hours in the main queue as a single rider earlier this year 😂.
 
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