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PortAventura: General Discussion

I've popped on to this topic because I wanted to canvas opinions, and was spurred by fact that the staff are striking. I've only been to PA twice, but it was for two days both times. I consider myself fairly well travelled in terms of coasters - most of Europe (apart from Italy), Florida, Sweden, even Singapore once. Yet I've never felt as unwanted at a park by the staff as at PortAventura. Even before the incident I'll cover in a moment, the staff were rude and surly across the board, whether ride or F&B. Glorious sunshine, great rides and really good atmosphere from the customers and the areas utterly ruined by the people who are supposed to make sure you have a nice day.

Then there was the incident that a staff member at Shambala decided that my friend didn't look 'disabled enough' to be using the disabled entrance (despite having been issues a wristband at the entrance after showing their documentation) and was insistent we had to go all the way round and use the main entrance. The staff member was so rude it triggered a panic attack in my friend who collapsed. Amazingly a manager appeared who did manage to assist, but there were no apologies from anyone and we were glared at by the staff member in question when we were finally able to get on the ride.

Despite the great hard product I can't ever think that I'll make the trip there again, because I just don't want to give them my money. Poor operations is one thing I see called out but is it just me who finds the attitude so awful?
 
That does sound like an absolutely awful experience, and I’m sorry to hear you had it.

I personally, however, can’t say that I had a negative experience with any staff at PortAventura last year. They were all perfectly polite and accommodating, and also spoke excellent English!

In general, I also feel that the operations at PA don’t deserve their rock bottom reputation. Are they Europa Park fast? No. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. But I didn’t think they were that slow either. All coasters were running multiple trains, for the most part (with the only exception being Shambhala and Dragon Khan on a day with particularly windy weather, and this capacity reduction was advertised), and dispatch times weren’t terrible. Single rider queues were well managed, Express usage and allocation did not seem excessive, queue times were mostly reasonable, and overall, I feel that PA’s awful reputation for operations was thoroughly undeserved based on my personal experience.
 
ShadowTD said:
I've popped on to this topic because I wanted to canvas opinions, and was spurred by fact that the staff are striking. I've only been to PA twice, but it was for two days both times. I consider myself fairly well travelled in terms of coasters - most of Europe (apart from Italy), Florida, Sweden, even Singapore once. Yet I've never felt as unwanted at a park by the staff as at PortAventura. Even before the incident I'll cover in a moment, the staff were rude and surly across the board, whether ride or F&B. Glorious sunshine, great rides and really good atmosphere from the customers and the areas utterly ruined by the people who are supposed to make sure you have a nice day.

Then there was the incident that a staff member at Shambala decided that my friend didn't look 'disabled enough' to be using the disabled entrance (despite having been issues a wristband at the entrance after showing their documentation) and was insistent we had to go all the way round and use the main entrance. The staff member was so rude it triggered a panic attack in my friend who collapsed. Amazingly a manager appeared who did manage to assist, but there were no apologies from anyone and we were glared at by the staff member in question when we were finally able to get on the ride.

Despite the great hard product I can't ever think that I'll make the trip there again, because I just don't want to give them my money. Poor operations is one thing I see called out but is it just me who finds the attitude so awful?
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Nobody dies from panic attacks.. The body over reacts to a feeling of entrapment and produces adrenaline, which causes the fight or flight reaction. If someone then can't flee through entrapment or in this case a need to be in that position, waiting to ride, They may hit the floor in a panic.. I saw a lot of guests in the exit queue with black wrist bands disappointed when I walked onto the front row. I think the staff are kind and fantastic! Operations could be a lot better but the business model works unfortunately.
 
Osaka12 said:
Nobody dies from panic attacks.. The body over reacts to a feeling of entrapment and produces adrenaline, which causes the fight or flight reaction. If someone then can't flee through entrapment or in this case a need to be in that position, waiting to ride, They may hit the floor in a panic.. I saw a lot of guests in the exit queue with black wrist bands disappointed when I walked onto the front row. I think the staff are kind and fantastic! Operations could be a lot better but the business model works unfortunately.
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Sorry but having a panic attack in public can be one of the most awful and traumatic experiences anyone can experience, I don't think it's really appropriate to make light of that or suggest that those using exit passes are only doing so to covet the front row.

It sounds like an unfortunate incident and I'm sorry that it happened, there are sadly inconsistent attitudes towards disabilities across mainland Europe particularly hidden ones.

We know the park has a poor reputation for operations, but that's a wholly separate issue, no one should be made to feel discriminated against on a fun day out.
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Sorry but having a panic attack in public can be one of the most awful and traumatic experiences anyone can experience, I don't think it's really appropriate to make light of that or suggest that those using exit passes are only doing so to covet the front row.

It sounds like an unfortunate incident and I'm sorry that it happened, there are sadly inconsistent attitudes towards disabilities across mainland Europe particularly hidden ones.

We know the park has a poor reputation for operations, but that's a wholly separate issue, no one should be made to feel discriminated against on a fun day out.
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I'm not making light of panic. I myself received therapy for panic disorder a couple of years ago. So I'm pretty well placed to understand what this person was feeling.

I think also people are too quick to assume everyone is honest and honourable. During my last trip I met 2 families who were very open about boasting about their "fast passes". And I'm also not lying when I said there were people actively eyeing up the front from the exit. If corse RAP is important but absolutely abused.
 
At PA right now (first ever visit) after our first day on park. The park was at 99% capacity today out of the advertised 51,400 maximum guests, and safe to say it was heaving. Express was a necessary evil unfortunately to get the rides in. Unsure as to what will happen tomorrow with the strike, and very little useful info has been given to hotel guests. My partner loved El Diablo - it was a fun little mine train in fairness. Shambhala was incredible on the front row, but from my two rides on it today, I still think Hyperion has the edge. Stampida Red side rode like a shopping trolley but was an elite Wardley layout which I honestly really enjoyed. Titan track definetly helped and I think it was the correct decision despite it now technically being a hybrid coaster.
 
Update: reduced ride offering on Saturday with Shambhala, Dragon Khan and Baco being the only major coasters open. Had 3 walk on rides on Shambhala and two front rows on Baco with less than a 5 minute wait. Believe ticket sales were suspended hence the significantly lighter crowd levels. Ironically, the best day we had on park was the strike day! I may get some frowns for saying this but… Baco was my favourite. So intense on the front row, right hand wing. Train 2 was noticeably rougher than train 3. Can see why some strongly dislike it but it’s one of my favourite Intamin Accelerators (after the late Kingda Ka of course…)
 
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I'm in the park right now for the first time and it's pretty busy. Most rides are open. Angkor and the temple ride are closed so they seem to have been replaced on the fast pass with tami-tami and for some reason grand canyon X2 ( which is pretty meaningless for the unlimited pass).

Saw a kid fall from the grand canyon raft in the station into the water, dad immediately jumped in after him. Instant emergency stop and they were both fine. Not sure how often that happens.
 
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AdamWebb said:
At PA right now (first ever visit) after our first day on park. The park was at 99% capacity today out of the advertised 51,400 maximum guests, and safe to say it was heaving. Express was a necessary evil unfortunately to get the rides in. Unsure as to what will happen tomorrow with the strike, and very little useful info has been given to hotel guests. My partner loved El Diablo - it was a fun little mine train in fairness. Shambhala was incredible on the front row, but from my two rides on it today, I still think Hyperion has the edge. Stampida Red side rode like a shopping trolley but was an elite Wardley layout which I honestly really enjoyed. Titan track definetly helped and I think it was the correct decision despite it now technically being a hybrid coaster.
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How soon can you realistically do 10 rides with the Express pass? Some queues for the lane looked awful when we were there. Shambhala and Bacon the main culprits. Ie 3-4 hrs doable?
 
We literally queued over an hour for Stampida with express passes. The extent to which PA oversell fast pass is frankly laughable! Never seen anything like it. I compare it to Phantasialand, where the park manager himself hand-provided our Taron one-shots and informed us of the strict limits they set per day to preserve the guest experience.

We opted for the express 10 and barely managed to do all the attractions by park close at 8pm. We followed the generally accepted advice of avoiding Baco at the start and end of the day and hit it around 1pm. Was a walk on with express and managed a few single rider walk-ons (without express) on the strike day. Unchartered was also not included in the express 10 and was a €22 one shot which made me chuckle. Shambhala was running 3 trains most of the time but was almost always a 3 train stack. Baggage holds on station platforms appeared to be a major culprit for the sluggish operations across the resort.
 
This is interesting... Maybe we lucked out but I bought fast pass for wednesday the 9th of April... We quite literally lapped shambhala. It was on a 1hour 20 wait and there was no queue at the express lane except for some corporate folk who rode once and we didn't see them again. We got 10 rides with our choice of seat on shambhala and walked on khan, stampida, baco etc.

Also walked down to baco first thing the day before and joined the main queue for a 15min wait for our ride. Was a back row so not sure it was worth it! My partner's ear was bleeding when we got off! 😅
 
And this is why queuejump passes should be extremely limited or stopped.
The majority wait eighty minutes, but the well off get to lap a ride ten times while the rest wait in the sun for a single ride.
Great for the lucky individual, not very good at all for the poor punter in the main queue.

Edit...sorry, just re-read this...nothing at all against the original poster, just a general thing.
To be honest, my head was still in the front seat booking topic!
I must stop snarking of a morning.
 
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i went to PortAventura when it opened in the 90s but I must say after reading this thread it’s probably the park I’m least interested in visiting.

Countless horror stories of queue jumping, long queues, poor operations and painful rides!
 
I have only been to a few major parks, but the operations are perhaps some of the worst I've seen. Any coaster that could stack, does stack. I had a 2 hour queue for red force which while running two trains, only made around 500pph.

Probably the best operated ones were the flume and raft ride where they don't have to do luggage or check restraints.

Unrelated, but when did furius baco change the pre-launch show? Wikipedia describes a much more elaborate/longer video (and animatronics?) than I saw, which was barely working as it is.
 
rob666 said:
And this is why queuejump passes should be extremely limited or stopped.
The majority wait eighty minutes, but the well off get to lap a ride ten times while the rest wait in the sun for a single ride.
Great for the lucky individual, not very good at all for the poor punter in the main queue.
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Based on my experiences at Spanish parks the majority just queue jump without at least paying for the privilege. The Port Aventura one is very broken though as you can get it at a reduced rate if staying on-site and can lap away.

We had to use it last visit as they were dismissive about our need for their RAP equivalent. Night and day from Tibidabo.

The cattlepens are at least under cover.
 
When people talk about PortAventura, I sometimes feel like I must have visited a completely different park last September.

While the operations there were not the fastest, I admit, they were far from the slowest I’ve seen as well. Queue times were not that bad, even on the day that was a public holiday in Catalonia with higher forecasted crowd levels, single rider queues were well dealt with, Express did not seem to be overallocated, and I didn’t notice any notable degree of queue jumping either. I’ve probably seen more queue jumping at Thorpe or Towers than I saw during my time at PortAventura!
 
I have to agree, I've made an annual trip for 3 years now and I've not witnessed much queue jumping. I think it's the most reasonably priced park in Europe for a trip! (Maybe energylandia is close) But for a sunny, themed, thrill, entertaining, cheap escape, port Aventura gets my vote. Yes a fast pass is required for geeks imo. But I didn't leave feeling short changed. Also that vista in china of the 2 b&m beasts is just wonderful... I do prefer American parks due to the scale and quality of their resorts and service. Then I visit UK parks and wish they would up their game so I didn't have to travel on a plane and I'd spend my money here instead.
 
AdamWebb said:
We literally queued over an hour for Stampida with express passes. The extent to which PA oversell fast pass is frankly laughable! Never seen anything like it. I compare it to Phantasialand, where the park manager himself hand-provided our Taron one-shots and informed us of the strict limits they set per day to preserve the guest experience.

We opted for the express 10 and barely managed to do all the attractions by park close at 8pm. We followed the generally accepted advice of avoiding Baco at the start and end of the day and hit it around 1pm. Was a walk on with express and managed a few single rider walk-ons (without express) on the strike day. Unchartered was also not included in the express 10 and was a €22 one shot which made me chuckle. Shambhala was running 3 trains most of the time but was almost always a 3 train stack. Baggage holds on station platforms appeared to be a major culprit for the sluggish operations across the resort.
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Yeah, SRQ for my on Shambhala was 50 mins a few weeks back😭
 
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