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PortAventura: General Discussion

I really enjoy both Stampida and Dragon Khan and do feel that people tend to exaggerate their roughness.

Baco is a whole different ball game though. In all honesty I can't think of a less comfortable minute in my entire life. Your whole body shakes to the point where you just want the pain to stop... the launch is good though :tearsofjoy:
 
Stampida is better post-retrack but is still by some margin the least good CCI in Europe. Khan is fine, bit rattly in some seats though.

Re best time to visit: off peak days will mean closed attractions and coasters running on a skeleton staffing resulting in mediocre operations. On my 3 visits to date (October half term and twice between Xmas and new year) I'm yet to see Templo del Fuego operational.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
The staggered openings aren’t as bad as they used to be by any means. They’re also now posted on the park’s website which never used to be the case.
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As Enter Valhalla said, the staggered openings are quite reduced from what they used to be, with 11:30am being the latest opening time. I don't think this is a bad shout for a park that spends the majority of the year open until midnight.

As for Templo Del Fuego, yes it is disappointing it's not open all year anymore HOWEVER, it has been ran as a 'summer show' ever since the current company took over PortAventura which must be 10+ years ago. Because of this I don't think it's really a valid argument anymore for people to be surprised it's closed when they keep visiting out of the summer season. As with the staggered openings the website and park guides always state when and when not it's open. As I'm sure everyone knows it costs an absolute fortune to run and also as far as I'm aware it's the last attraction of its type, I know Universal removed Backdraft which Templo Del Fuego was originally based on quite a few years ago. Because of this I'd rather it only open in peak season as opposed to be removed completely.

Apologies on the mini rant that escalated into. :tearsofjoy:
 
siralgenon said:
As Enter Valhalla said, the staggered openings are quite reduced from what they used to be, with 11:30am being the latest opening time. I don't think this is a bad shout for a park that spends the majority of the year open until midnight.

As for Templo Del Fuego, yes it is disappointing it's not open all year anymore HOWEVER, it has been ran as a 'summer show' ever since the current company took over PortAventura which must be 10+ years ago. Because of this I don't think it's really a valid argument anymore for people to be surprised it's closed when they keep visiting out of the summer season. As with the staggered openings the website and park guides always state when and when not it's open. As I'm sure everyone knows it costs an absolute fortune to run and also as far as I'm aware it's the last attraction of its type, I know Universal removed Backdraft which Templo Del Fuego was originally based on quite a few years ago. Because of this I'd rather it only open in peak season as opposed to be removed completely.

Apologies on the mini rant that escalated into. :tearsofjoy:
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Is it just summer? I thought Templo was open all weekends during the main season? It’s closed during the Christmas operation but when I visited during a November weekend a few years back it was open. Has this changed?
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Is it just summer? I thought Templo was open all weekends during the main season? It’s closed during the Christmas operation but when I visited during a November weekend a few years back it was open. Has this changed?
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So it's open everyday from June - Sept and then from 2018 it was transformed into Apocalipsis Maya (an indoor / outdoor scare maze) with Templo Del Fuego as the finale from Sep - Nov.

So in short is open from June - early Sep as itself, and then late Sep - Nov as Apocalipsis Maya.
 
I've also heard that Hurakan Condor doesn't have choices for stand-up and sit-down unlike Apocalypse at Drayton Manor and that El Diablo's second lift hill is so pointless?!
 
I find it bizarre they don’t let you choose where to sit. Why can’t they just have the queue split up near the end to let you choose if you want standing or seating.

Was most annoying thing on our visit because it doesn’t have fastrack so we had to queue, for a queue which felt like it barely moved. To then get to the front and just be shoved on a side you might not want.
 
The Condor queue set up is bizarre. Sit down and standup floorless drop towers are completely different ride experiences - to the extent that Apocalypse has different height restrictions for them. It always puts me off riding as you could end up waiting ages for a fairly generic sit down drop tower. Plus if you visit off peak as I always do it'll probably be running low capacity with maybe 1 stand up side running and so the odds of getting to ride the best version of the ride aren't good enough.
 
Hurakan Condor always runs all 5 towers unless one is having technical problems. If you're moaning the queue is slow, it'd be even slower if you then had to wait for individual towers?

As for El Diablo the reason it has such a short middle section is because of the service road that runs underneath it. It was originally designed to have a helix after the second lift but because of the service road it had to be scrapped at the last minute.
 
siralgenon said:
Hurakan Condor always runs all 5 towers unless one is having technical problems. If you're moaning the queue is slow, it'd be even slower if you then had to wait for individual towers?
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I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you on this.

On most of my visits to PA in recent years, only three sides of HK have been in operation. The others have been sat there doing nothing. If you’ve not seen this, it may be bad use you have visited during peak periods? Despite Christmas being busy, PA absurdly class it as off peak and it is rare to see all 5 sides operating, causing very long queues.

It is untrue to say that having individual queues for stand up and sit down sections would create longer queues. PA operate one big queue for everyone and then cause disappointment to guests getting to the front of the queue only to be told that they can’t sit (or stand) on the seats they wanted to.
Drayton Manor on the other hand, operate two queues, one for the stand up and one for the sit down. If PA split the queue in to two in the same way, it would have little to no impact on wait times, the same number of people would have walked through the ride entrance but they would be split into two queues as opposed to one. The wait time would basically be the same. I’m surprised that you’re suggesting otherwise.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you on this.

On most of my visits to PA in recent years, only three sides of HK have been in operation. The others have been sat there doing nothing. If you’ve not seen this, it may be bad use you have visited during peak periods? Despite Christmas being busy, PA absurdly class it as off peak and it is rare to see all 5 sides operating, causing very long queues.

It is untrue to say that having individual queues for stand up and sit down sections would create longer queues. PA operate one big queue for everyone and then cause disappointment to guests getting to the front of the queue only to be told that they can’t sit (or stand) on the seats they wanted to.
Drayton Manor on the other hand, operate two queues, one for the stand up and one for the sit down. If PA split the queue in to two in the same way, it would have little to no impact on wait times, the same number of people would have walked through the ride entrance but they would be split into two queues as opposed to one. The wait time would basically be the same. I’m surprised that you’re suggesting otherwise.
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Whenever I have visited they've all been running, don't get me wrong it has technical faults quite frequently but say if towers 4 and 5 were closed one morning they're notmally open later in the afternoon or next day. It makes no sense for them to randomly close off the towers as it needs the same number of staff if they run 3, 4 or 5.

Of course it would make your wait time longer if the queue were split into two. As it stands now you're waiting to ride one of five towers (20 seats), if they spilt the queue you'd be waiting to ride two or three towers (8/12 seats) which means you'd be waiting longer.
 
rob666 said:
Bad logic of the year award!
Same number of seats.
Same number of people in the queue.
Same wait time, just two shorter queues, instead if one longer one.
And the fact that everyone gets to select seated or standing.
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How do you work that one out? As it is you're waiting to ride on one of 20 seats. If it was just stand up you'd be waiting to ride one of 8 seats.

If 50% of people wanted to ride sit-down and 50% wanted stand up then it would kind of work out the same, but with the chances of that being pretty minimal, one side would end up being longer.

It's only like having a front row queue for a coaster, because of reduced seating your wait time is extended.
 
Same number of people waiting to ride.
Same number of seats.
Choice made at beginning of queue, oh, the stand up queue is much longer...lets just wait for the seats,as the queue is shorter.
Works fine at Drayton, means greater customer satisfaction overall.
Edit, and 50% of 20 isnt 8!
 
rob666 said:
Same number of people waiting to ride.
Same number of seats.
Choice made at beginning of queue, oh, the stand up queue is much longer...lets just wait for the seats,as the queue is shorter.
Works fine at Drayton, means greater customer satisfaction overall.
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If your answer is 'people will use the other queue if it's shorter' then that defeats the point of separating the queue in the first place.

There's not the same amount of seats because as soon as you join a separate queue then you're only queuing for one or the other.

It doesn't bother me whether it has one or two queues, my point is you'd probably be waiting longer.
 
Having one combined queue for such vastly different experience is about as daft as it would be if Nemesis and Galactica shared a queue and you weren't allowed to chose which one you rode.

I only do condor if the wait is short as the sit down sides don't justify a long wait.
 
Huracan Condor has three sit down sections and two stand up sections, yet one big queue for everything.

This system actually can increase wait times for people who don’t want the more popular sections. On Apocalypse you’ll often see one section with a longer queue than another. Say if more people wanted the sit down section, why should people who want the stand up section have to wait longer with all the people who want the sit down section? This seems unfair as it is, but even more unfair when you consider that at the front of the queue, these people may end up being directed to a section of the ride that they didn’t even want.

I really like PA as a park and frequently stand up for them when they receive unfair criticism from people on this forum. But unfortunately there are many things, like this, where PA just don’t help themselves. It could be so easily changed at very little cost. But for reasons known only to PA they choose not to. This leads to even more annoyance with the park and a greater feeling of ridicule towards their operations.
 
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