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PortAventura: General Discussion
- Thread starter DynamiteDaly
- Start date
siralgenon
TS Member
"PortAventura World & Hard Rock International present BCN World"
Yesterday morning PortAventura World and Hard Rock International revealed that the two companies are working in collaboration to bring a new 745,000 square meter resort hotel, casino and dining and entertainments district to PortAventura World in the near future. The project aims to make PortAventura World one of the largest year-round tourist vacation destinations in Europe.
The new 600 million euro district located adjacent to Hotel PortAventura and PortAventura Convention Center will be constructed in two phases over the next few years.
The first phase will include a new 500 bedroom PortAventura Resort Hotel (rumoured to be a Polynesian theme with direct access to PortAventura Park) and up to 75 retail and dining outlets with a combination of both PortAventura and external brands. The second phase will include the focal point of the district, a 600 bedroom Hard Rock Hotel, Casino, world famous Hard Rock Cafe & Rock Shop and a 5,000 seat Hard Rock Live venue for musical, regional and international shows, possibly bringing Cirque Du Soleil to a more semi-permanent venue as opposed to its temporary home adjacent to Hotel Gold River.
This comes as brilliant news for PortAventura, it's something the Resort has needed for a few years now, with the Parks, Hotels and other attractions expanding in recent years, the Resort has always fell short of things to do in the evenings (as a lot of people on here have pointed out!). I think the Hard Rock brand would suit PortAventura very well, I've always been very impressed with the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Orlando and the Hard Rock Cafe's dotted around, so I hope they will do this project justice.
Yesterday morning PortAventura World and Hard Rock International revealed that the two companies are working in collaboration to bring a new 745,000 square meter resort hotel, casino and dining and entertainments district to PortAventura World in the near future. The project aims to make PortAventura World one of the largest year-round tourist vacation destinations in Europe.
The new 600 million euro district located adjacent to Hotel PortAventura and PortAventura Convention Center will be constructed in two phases over the next few years.
The first phase will include a new 500 bedroom PortAventura Resort Hotel (rumoured to be a Polynesian theme with direct access to PortAventura Park) and up to 75 retail and dining outlets with a combination of both PortAventura and external brands. The second phase will include the focal point of the district, a 600 bedroom Hard Rock Hotel, Casino, world famous Hard Rock Cafe & Rock Shop and a 5,000 seat Hard Rock Live venue for musical, regional and international shows, possibly bringing Cirque Du Soleil to a more semi-permanent venue as opposed to its temporary home adjacent to Hotel Gold River.
This comes as brilliant news for PortAventura, it's something the Resort has needed for a few years now, with the Parks, Hotels and other attractions expanding in recent years, the Resort has always fell short of things to do in the evenings (as a lot of people on here have pointed out!). I think the Hard Rock brand would suit PortAventura very well, I've always been very impressed with the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Orlando and the Hard Rock Cafe's dotted around, so I hope they will do this project justice.
Rob
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
I'm hearing news that the casino is set to close at 11pm each night, but to make up for this early closing time you will be able to purchase an express pass for quick entry to avoid the queue to get in! 
Sounds like an exciting development though! Hopefully it will include better links between the existing resorts as well otherwise those staying in Gold River for example would find it difficult to make use of all the new facilities.
I also assume that this means the end of the Ferrari hotel (for now at least)?
Sounds like an exciting development though! Hopefully it will include better links between the existing resorts as well otherwise those staying in Gold River for example would find it difficult to make use of all the new facilities.
I also assume that this means the end of the Ferrari hotel (for now at least)?
siralgenon
TS Member
Sounds like an exciting development though! Hopefully it will include better links between the existing resorts as well otherwise those staying in Gold River for example would find it difficult to make use of all the new facilities.
I also assume that this means the end of the Ferrari hotel (for now at least)?
As far as I'm aware the Ferrari Hotel has already been dropped to make way for more land to expand the Ferrari Land Park.
As for Resort transportation you can hop on a Resort Shuttle at the front of your hotel to the Parks, PortAventura Golf or Beach Club up until two hours after PortAventura Park closes.
Rob
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Not ideal though if you are staying in Gold River yet want a late evening up at this new Hard Rock development! Hopefully they will look into some form of connection, even if it is just a safe walkway.
Spike
TS Contributor
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
Not ideal though if you are staying in Gold River yet want a late evening up at this new Hard Rock development! Hopefully they will look into some form of connection, even if it is just a safe walkway.
Porta offer free Taxi's within the resort to take you to the other areas. We stayed in Hotel Portaventura and went for a meal in the posh restaurant on the Gold River site and they drove us there and picked us up for free, we tipped the driver of course, who on a side note was a Spanish Adonis, mega Barnes
Got back yesterday after spending a week staying at Hotel Caribe, overall had a great week and thought would post a few thoughts from the trip. I have been before the last trip was in 2014. Although stayed a week it wasn't just to visit the theme park it was more to combine a beach/pool hol with the added extra of the theme park. We mainly visited the park in the evenings, we find this give you a much better experience in the park, as its not as busy and also not as Hot!. The shows and entertainment across the park is fantastic and of great quality and all the shows play to packed audiences, there was also lots of street entertainment going on across the park as well. Also visiting in early July is much better than visiting in June as we have done previously, although a little more expensive you don't have any of the school trips so queues are a lot shorter and they are not running around the hotel causing issues..
Operations: I know the park get knocked for this on a regular basis but overall they were good during this visit and would say better than any of our previous visits. The staff seemed to be trying to max throughputs on the major rides and were batching guests much better than on any visit previously, often moving people around to ensure know empty seats and calling out for different group sizes in the queue rather than leaving empty seats. Queues seemed to averaged 30-40 mins for the major rides and into evening dropped to 10-20 mins with others walk-on. Also during the week didn't see one single breakdown on any ride. Some of the flats rides were fairly slow loading as only one operator, however there was never really more than one ride full of guests waiting anyway. One thing they could have improved on was running Shambhala and Dragon Khan on 3 trains at all times and not drop down to two when the queue is less than 30 mins
Express- We did have the hotel express passes and seemed a bit better managed than previously, even if there was a fair few people waiting in the express queue they would only let a certain number through at a time Ie two rows or so on the big rides, rather than again previously always seemed to just give the express line full priority. Having said that most of the time the express queues weren't that long anyway.
Ferrari Land- The area is very well done and seems to be of a high standard, although lacked a bit of atmosphere as it just wasn't busy. Red Force was fantastic, especially on the front row. Also Flying Dreams is very well done, in the queue line and the pre-shows it reminded me of being in Epcot, the ride experience wasn't that far behind Disney's Soarin' so was pleasantly surprised., the other simulator was ok but nothing special. The park is struggling to attract large numbers of guests and most of the guests who are visiting are those staying onsite. as an add on attraction its only 15 euros to visit which is great value really, especially considering how much you pay for many up-charge attractions at other parks around the world. But for day visitors there is already too much to do in the main park to fill one day without spending extra for Ferrari land.
If they keep it as standalone attraction they need to add more attractions like a family coaster and a bunch of other stuff, they could also easily integrate into the main park as there is already an entrance into the park from the Main theme park. will be interesting to see what they do. I would like the main park to add some new stuff soon like a dark ride of some kind and another major coaster (a B&M Inverted or Flyer would be a good option in my opinion)
Overall a really positive experience and the best visit we have had to the resort and while the resort does have its faults (have experienced many of these on previous visits) I would much rather spend my time at Port Aventura than at any of the UK merlin parks currently.
Operations: I know the park get knocked for this on a regular basis but overall they were good during this visit and would say better than any of our previous visits. The staff seemed to be trying to max throughputs on the major rides and were batching guests much better than on any visit previously, often moving people around to ensure know empty seats and calling out for different group sizes in the queue rather than leaving empty seats. Queues seemed to averaged 30-40 mins for the major rides and into evening dropped to 10-20 mins with others walk-on. Also during the week didn't see one single breakdown on any ride. Some of the flats rides were fairly slow loading as only one operator, however there was never really more than one ride full of guests waiting anyway. One thing they could have improved on was running Shambhala and Dragon Khan on 3 trains at all times and not drop down to two when the queue is less than 30 mins
Express- We did have the hotel express passes and seemed a bit better managed than previously, even if there was a fair few people waiting in the express queue they would only let a certain number through at a time Ie two rows or so on the big rides, rather than again previously always seemed to just give the express line full priority. Having said that most of the time the express queues weren't that long anyway.
Ferrari Land- The area is very well done and seems to be of a high standard, although lacked a bit of atmosphere as it just wasn't busy. Red Force was fantastic, especially on the front row. Also Flying Dreams is very well done, in the queue line and the pre-shows it reminded me of being in Epcot, the ride experience wasn't that far behind Disney's Soarin' so was pleasantly surprised., the other simulator was ok but nothing special. The park is struggling to attract large numbers of guests and most of the guests who are visiting are those staying onsite. as an add on attraction its only 15 euros to visit which is great value really, especially considering how much you pay for many up-charge attractions at other parks around the world. But for day visitors there is already too much to do in the main park to fill one day without spending extra for Ferrari land.
If they keep it as standalone attraction they need to add more attractions like a family coaster and a bunch of other stuff, they could also easily integrate into the main park as there is already an entrance into the park from the Main theme park. will be interesting to see what they do. I would like the main park to add some new stuff soon like a dark ride of some kind and another major coaster (a B&M Inverted or Flyer would be a good option in my opinion)
Overall a really positive experience and the best visit we have had to the resort and while the resort does have its faults (have experienced many of these on previous visits) I would much rather spend my time at Port Aventura than at any of the UK merlin parks currently.
ThemeParkCrafter
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Th13teen
I'm visiting both parks in August. How busy will it be? Also any good ride order tactics?
ThemeParkCrafter
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Th13teen
I'm only getting express on the day if queues get too insane.
Andrew
TS Contributor
Queues will be insane. It's PA. There could be nobody in the park and there'd still be queues
siralgenon
TS Member
I've gone for 15 years and bought Express twice, it's really not that bad.
siralgenon
TS Member
They're not awful at all, when I went last July with a friend we did Shambhala three times in a row because it was walk on. The park wasn't dead either.
Rob
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
That is the problem with PA. We are all prepared to wait in queues to some extent but no one can find it enjoyable standing in slow moving narrow cattle pens in the Spanish heat, even if it only for half an hour.
Express is essential if it is even remotely busy.
Express is essential if it is even remotely busy.
siralgenon
TS Member
You've got more money than me to throw away if you'd buy an Express Pass for a 30 minute queue. I think people are just over exaggerating on here when it comes to PA and queue times. Yes it does get very busy sometimes, but saying the queues are horrendous all the time is just a false claim.
Spike
TS Contributor
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
I went for my first trip a few years back in June and I took it on face value. The queues weren't horrendous the operations and fast pass over sell were Shambhalic. They look like small queues when you enter them but don't be deceived the staff have no urgency to do anything. We were there for 4 days and used our hotel fastracks wisely. Baco's queue just did not move, Khan was the same. Shambhala looked to have a relatively small queue of about 30 minutes but it hardly moved as well. Hurakan Condor was awful, one host managing whatever side she felt like doing at that moment at the world's slowest pace and we joined the queue in the final cattle pen, it took us an hour to get on.
It's a little hard to see but this was taken on a Thursday in June and Shammy, Backache and Khan all have 2 hour queues, the park was not that busy at all. There's even a fastpass booth next to the queue time board!
The queues are bad because of the overselling of fastracks and terrible operations and they're just plain awful cattle pens, which isn't something I would expect from a park like PA to be honest. I still like the park though but I have to agree, if you can't beat them, join them and purchase fastpass if you want to experience everything during busy periods. If you're there for a few days, then just keep an eye on the queue time boards and play it smart.
It's a little hard to see but this was taken on a Thursday in June and Shammy, Backache and Khan all have 2 hour queues, the park was not that busy at all. There's even a fastpass booth next to the queue time board!
The queues are bad because of the overselling of fastracks and terrible operations and they're just plain awful cattle pens, which isn't something I would expect from a park like PA to be honest. I still like the park though but I have to agree, if you can't beat them, join them and purchase fastpass if you want to experience everything during busy periods. If you're there for a few days, then just keep an eye on the queue time boards and play it smart.
June is busy than July and Aug queue wise due to the amount of Spanish school trips (I would visit again in June for that reason) Last week during the day the big rides averaged 30-40 mins and around 10 mins in the evening and the park was busy. We were staying onsite so made sense for us to purchase express as lasts for as long as the stay. However with the heat I still wouldn't want to be standing in a cattle pen for 30 mins + its bad enough when waiting for the drop tower.
Operations where fine last week and certainly didn't seem like express was being oversold (did see this a few years ago when went in June) express people took up generally two rows max per ride. The express kiosk where shut latter in the afternoon even though park open until midnight.
Operations where fine last week and certainly didn't seem like express was being oversold (did see this a few years ago when went in June) express people took up generally two rows max per ride. The express kiosk where shut latter in the afternoon even though park open until midnight.
AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
Your experiences are not the norm.
It is quite often the sheer greed that causes queues to be longer. I've never seen such fastrack sales. It's also too cheap.
The park suffers poor operations with occasional satisfactory ones, it also sells the most fastrack from any park i have seen.
With fastrack on a medium or busy day, it's fine. You effectively have to build it into your stay. Thankfully hotel offers are dirt cheap so even with fastrack, it's not an expensive holiday.
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