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PortAventura: General Discussion

The numbers are the queue lengths in hours and minutes. An hour and a half for a splash battle is laughable!

That's quite a lot of signatures for a petition about a theme park!

:)
 
PortAventura World sounds like a fan website or as though PortAventura is an IP/brand that the park is themed to, so I'm not convinced yet.

Taking it for what it is, it sounds very clunky compared to simply 'PortAventura' or 'PortAventura Resort'. More positively, I think the new branding and website are a big improvement on the previous styles.
 
I've got to say as much as I'm thrilled to see PortAventura advertising the Resort as a whole, sharing more information and generally upping the quality, I'm really not a fan of the new logos and name. I just hope it lasts as long as the previous attempt and reverts back to the original logo and name. The same can be said for the Waterpark.
 
I can understand what they are trying to do by bringing into this new branding, especially as they have a new theme park opening in 2017 (regardless of my view that said new theme park looks to have less than even WDS did in Paris when it opened).

PortAventura do appear to have gone through a lot of name changes over the years, though - they do seem quite obsessed to get the 'resort' branding out there though - although I guess most of the Merlin theme parks have done the same, so it's an industry trend. Saying that - the two most popular parks in Europe - don't play on the resort tag much these days, Disneyland Paris nor Europa-Park.

Ultimately, it doesn't really change much for the guest and the fact remains that due to the geographical planning, a lot of the resort at PortAventura remains badly linked up.
 
Operations is something which seriously needs attention. I know that everyone keeps saying this but for a "world" type resort they should be top of their game, this sadly isn't the case and so much more could be done to address this. Running DK on two trains in October Halloween event without a batcher to speed up loading times is something I really wouldn't expect to see at any other park. After spending a bit of time at PA it can often become quite funny, yet still frustrating, watching how much pressure the minimally staffed teams on the rides are under.
 
When Shambhala in June and August is running with 3 staff members it becomes clear there is a problem, the same goes with Furius Baco and Stampida. It does beg the question though, why such a popular Resort is running on such a low staff count for attractions, its not as if they don't have the money or need for it.

What confuses me even more though, is the fact that the Resort as a whole is not short on staff, whether it be stores, bars, restaurants, hotels, cleaning etc. There are ample amounts of staff. So I dont see why attractions is the one department which is lacking.
 
siralgenon said:
When Shambhala in June and August is running with 3 staff members it becomes clear there is a problem, the same goes with Furius Baco and Stampida. It does beg the question though, why such a popular Resort is running on such a low staff count for attractions, its not as if they don't have the money or need for it.

What confuses me even more though, is the fact that the Resort as a whole is not short on staff, whether it be stores, bars, restaurants, hotels, cleaning etc. There are ample amounts of staff. So I dont see why attractions is the one department which is lacking.
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Because less staff on rides means longer queues therefore more Express pass sales therefore more revenue and better profits. It is pretty obvious that PA work like this when it comes to rides and Express; and other parks know (and laugh about) this also!

However more staff in shops etc means less queues to buy merchandise therefore more likelihood that people will make purchases.

:)
 
The staffing strategy at PA actually makes you feel somewhat blessed to be in our circumstances. Yes, our parks are nowhere near the thematic quality and we'll certainly never have such a beautiful hotel resort cropping up anytime soon, but at least our money grabbing tactics aren't so obvious.

In the parks we have where fast track is deployed, at least the staff make up for it by looking like they're trying to shift both queues equally. I was appalled that out of every major ride open over winter, only Shambhala had the staff looking like they were committed to their job and giving guests a better experience.
 
Rob said:
Because less staff on rides means longer queues therefore more Express pass sales therefore more revenue and better profits. It is pretty obvious that PA work like this when it comes to rides and Express; and other parks know (and laugh about) this also!

However more staff in shops etc means less queues to buy merchandise therefore more likelihood that people will make purchases.

:)
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I don't agree. Yes staffing numbers on rides are very low at PortAventura. Annoyingly they don't seem willing to increase staff numbers when there is more demand for it, ie. longer queues.

However I don't think it's anything as sinister as being a deliberate move to sell more express passes.

The reasons why we see rides run with so few staff boils down to the fact that PA is a very corporate park run by banks and investment groups for the benefit of shareholders. They will have financial targets in relation to spending and rides/operations departments will be given an unrealistically low budget and won't be allowed to overspend. It's as simple as that. Budgets being too low.
This is why we also see rides opening late and rides closing altogether on off peak days, the budget just doesn't reflect the demand and is too low for a park of that size.
 
Making lots more money through lots of Express pass sales will also please those shareholders. There is a read that they have machines selling Express next to all the queue boards.

It's amazing how the throughputs shoot up in the final 30-60 minutes of the day as well. Staff want to get home and no one will be wanting to purchase Express that late in the day.

It is impossible to prove but I suspect it is a factor.

:)
 
For comparrison staffing levels, Canada's Wonderland have no fewer than five staff on the platform of their B&Ms at any one time. The fifth one doesn't even do anything other than bark orders to the riders through a headset mike, and tell people to whoop and cheer!
 
Rob said:
Making lots more money through lots of Express pass sales will also please those shareholders. There is a read that they have machines selling Express next to all the queue boards.

It's amazing how the throughputs shoot up in the final 30-60 minutes of the day as well. Staff want to get home and no one will be wanting to purchase Express that late in the day.

It is impossible to prove but I suspect it is a factor.

:)
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That's just a fact of life. Everyone works quicker at the end of their working day, that's the same in any industry, they want to get home, I'm not saying that's right but it's the same at every workplace.

As for staffing numbers, there are times when PA's low staffing numbers are justified. There would be no point having an army of staff on a coaster platform when the queue is less than five minutes. However what really annoys me about PA is that they don't seem to increase the numbers significantly when it gets significantly busier and more staff are required. It is ridiculous that I've seen the same coasters run on the same staffing levels when queues have been 5 mins and yet they haven't increased the numbers when the queue is 2 hours. At least at UK parks the number of staff on the rides represents the number of guests on park... Usually.
 
PA's staffing sounds awful.

Think excuses need to stop being made and just call it what it is.

Pathetic.

I've never been, (and frankly don't want to - there's so many I'd visit before that!) but I don't think I've read a review of the place from people whose views I trust, generally to actually be very balanced, that has said ANYTHING but this for as long as I can remember.

PA needs to sort its poop out.

As theme park/coaster enthusiasts these issues are obvious, and I mean you no personal offense obviously here Valhalla as it's just a discussion of a park, but I do think you are too lenient with what seem to be such obvious problems.

For goodness sake, it's actually got a petition :tearsofjoy:.

It's clearly ruining people's enjoyment. That should simply be condemned as poor form in this industry IMO. NO bias, they're just crap.
 
Well I could ask the obvious question of why I should give any attention to the views of someone who has never visited the park.

But instead I will ask you how on earth you've come to the conclusion that I'm being too lenient when I was actually criticising the staffing numbers and when it was me who started this whole discussion by saying that PA need to staff their coasters better during busy periods?

That's being lenient to the park is it?
 
Because you are IMO.

This isn't a case of "do you like vanilla ice cream", which is down to taste, there's cold hard evidence to judge this park by even from a distance.

That's why Trip Adviser works.

I would not visit it because of the atrocious reviews it gets, that are detailed, and plentiful, balanced against what a shame it is because it's actually a beautiful park.

The post above I was referring to was mitigating for what's obviously not normal.

To be fair though, on a re-read, I do agree you've made fair points that I didn't take in properly.
 
TheMan said:
Because you are IMO.

This isn't a case of "do you like vanilla ice cream", which is down to taste, there's cold hard evidence to judge this park by even from a distance.

That's why Trip Adviser works.

I would not visit it because of the atrocious reviews it gets, that are detailed, and plentiful, balanced against what a shame it is because it's actually a beautiful park.

The post above I was referring to was mitigating for what's obviously not normal.

To be fair though, on a re-read, I do agree you've made fair points that I didn't take in properly.
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The only thing about PA which I would say is a fact is that it's operations and staffing levels could do with some improvement.

And since you've brought up Trip Advisor, I would point out that this park receives an average of 4 stars on Trip Advisor, in line with numerous other European parks and ahead of many of our UK parks. I know that their operations are annoying, they annoyed me a lot on my last visit but they clearly don't have too big an impact on people's opinions of what remains, despite its obvious faults, a very good theme park resort.

It does amuse me that it was me who first started this whole discussion of how poor PA's operations are now I'm finding myself defending the park. If that's not being balanced then I don't know what is :D
 
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