PortAventura TR: 27-30 October 2013

[AstroDan]

PortAventura: 27-30 October 2013

It had been 4 years since I visited PortAventura, and with Shambhala having opened in 2012 to rave reviews, I felt it was time to give it another chance. My previous visit, whilst enjoyable, was somewhat offputting as I simply did not rate any rides in the park other than Dragon Khan, and found queuelines to be long and boring. However, with many other parks now under my belt, a second chance for what remains Europe's 4th most popular theme park was on the cards. We booked to stay for 3 nights at Hotel PortAventura, for a very cheap £135 per person, which included bed, breakfast and park entry.

It should be noted that PortAventura close some of their hotels during part of the season. This appears to be due to the current dire straits of the Spanish economy, with 50% youth unemployment - much of their target market in Spain simply cannot afford to stay. So, for our visit, Hotel Gold River and Hotel PortAventura were available, although for our group size, only Hotel PortAventura showed - so we booked.

We arrived by shuttle transfer from Barcelona Airport at around 3pm, and headed to check in. The hotel was typical Meditteranean in appearance outside, and fairly bland inside. It was light and airy, but not particularly heavily themed. The corridors however, were awful. They were long, boring, themeless and much of the carpets had white stains on. That said, the room was fresh and there was loads of space. The bathroom was excellent. For the price, it was fine.

We headed into the park around 4pm, and had been advised to do the two main halloween mazes (REC and Salva del Meido) on Sunday, because they didn't open on weekdays. We headed first to meet another, and instead did the Grand Canyon Rapids. I recalled these being great last time, and they remained so. They are very fast and spinny. That said, they weren't very wet at all and the ride was short - but much fun was had. We then headed to REC, which was a €5 upcharge scare maze. Sadly, the queue was 90 minutes. We simply didn't want to wait that long. So we didn't. We instead headed up to Dragon Khan. Khan remains a high quality, intense B&M coaster. Back in 2009, I recall it left me with a bit of a headache, so was concerned it might have got worse - but it was no worse. In fact, this time, I didn't get a headache much at all. The final 1/3 of the ride is really, really quick and the sort of punchy layout that B&M simply don't do any more. A top notch coaster. Operations on DK were very poor however. The ride, on the whole of Monday and Tuesday, was on 1 train - even though the queue was between 30 and 60 minutes all day. Standing in the cattle pen queue for such long periods, with a lot of fastrack ticket holders made for a miserable experience...

Shambhala is next door. This ride was much anticipated. I have been on 3 other B&M Mega Coasters - Silver Star (which is good, if not astounding), Nitro (which is good, if not astounding) and Apollo's Chariot (which was very average). I am pleased to report that Shambhala is better than all three, although I must admit it wasn't quite the mouthwatering feast I had expected, although that could be down to the range of other airtime coasters I have been on (EGF, Bizarro, Skyrush etc.). However, the first drop is excellent (far, far better than any of the other 3 Mega's), as is the speed hill (which, for me, was the best part of the ride). The turnaround is fun as is the splashdown. The airtime, whilst not ejector by any stretch of the imagination, is sustained floater - on the first 2/3 of the ride. Sadly, the end of the ride is rubbish. Quite literally, I have no idea what they were thinking putting a MCBR almost at the end, and then frankly not much more after it. Why they couldn't have ended with 2 or 3 decent airtime hills like Nitro and/or Silver Star, or added a ski slalom bend like Silver Star I have no idea. It really does peter out. However, as I said, it was the best B&M Mega Coaster I had done, and very much enjoyable. However, for me - and I admit this is controversial, I preferred Dragon Khan within the park. That said, Shambhala is an essential coaster for the park, and finally offers another ride that is genuinely high quality. However, operations were again quite poor. It often ran one train, even with a 45 minute queue. Bah! SRQ however, was useful. At points, the entire train was being used for fastrack...

La Salva del Meido was a scare attraction open until 10pm, even though the park closed at 8pm. It had a long 2 hour queue at around 8pm, so we went to eat at the hotel (satisfactory meal) and rejoined at 9:50pm when the queue was 40 minutes. It is located in the Polynesian area, and was AMAZING. It went on for the best part of 15 minutes. There must have been 40 or more actors. Imagine a really intense, long scare zone. It was absolutely great. No conga lines here, just a rip roaring hoot through the Polynesian jungle. Chainsaws, mad axemen, gory scenes of murder and suffering... it was classic halloween action and I loved it. Well recommended - 10/10. It is up there with EP's The Crypt and DEAD Inside as the best Scare attraction of the year. Part of it went through REC, too.

Now, a major criticism. PortAventura opens at 10am. But very, very little in terms of rides and attractions does. In fact, only Furius Baco, the rapids and a carousel appeared to open with the park. Shambhala? 11am. Stampida? 11.30am. El Diablo? Midday! In fact, it wasn't until 1pm that all the attractions were actually open. This is terrible in a park laid out like PA, in a circle. Because you end up having to walk around all over the place to actually ride things. Some rides also close early - such as the rapids (5:30pm!). Such significant staggered openings simply do not happen at most major parks in Europe. I don't mean Phantasialand opening Winjas an hour late, or Alton Towers opening the rapids and flume an hour late - we're talking 80% of the park opening late! And not only that - 7 attractions didn't open AT ALL! One of Europe's great indoor experiences, Templo del Fuego - yet again, closed! I didn't do it in 2009 and I haven't done it now either. What is the point? Many, many carousel rides - closed. Yucatan (music express), shut. It was crazy. Plus, around 1/3 of the shops and restaurants were closed. It just felt like the park couldn't be bothered unless it was really busy. Many shows simply did not run on weekdays. Halloween attractions, closed entirely. It just isn't serious play for what is ostensibly one of Europe's biggest resorts. I have been to dozens of other parks and never seen cuts of this magnitude. Really, really poor. If such major cuts happened in England, we'd be up in arms and the queue for guest services would be out of the door.

El Diablo remains rubbish. It did run 2 trains however, so queues weren't too bad. I just find the ride really poorly themed apart from the queue/station and the layout is terrible. Boring. Boring. Boring.

Huracan Condor I did in 2009, so didn't feel the need to repeat the experience this time around, as I find towers of that scale quite gruelling. However, you still cannot select which ride type you want, and the queue for the ride was often 30+ minutes - one of the longest in the park, even though it was quiet.

Flat rides Volpaiute (a Huss Flipper) and the Breakdance are run so slowly, that there's quite literally no point.

Tomahawk remains awesome for a kids woodie. Some quick drops and turns. In fact, it's better than Stampida, which is the worst CCI that I have been on. It almost stalls at points, it is so slow, plus it's probably the roughest post 1995 wooden coaster I have been on. With Tonnerre de Zeus, Boulder Dash, El Toro, Lightning Racer, Troy, Megafobia, Grand National, Wodan, Joris en de Draak in my life - there is quite literally no room for this rubbish. Operations were also poor, with 1 train on each side, and quite often many rows out of use.

The log flume, Silver River Flume remained good, although the theming on the ride is poor - there is none. We also got evacuated off the ride as it broke down at one stage. That was fun!

Tutuki Splash, or Chewing Gum - the ride, was OK. But the gum is vile. Urgh.

This takes us to Furius Baco. It was dire in 2009. And it's dire now. The layout is boring. The vibration of the seats is horrendous, particularly on the outside seats. Remove it and replace it, I say. With Intamin Blitz coasters around, there is literally no point to this ride. It's the worst Intamin Accelerator I have been on (behind Rita, Desert Race, Stealth, Storm Runner, Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster). Who designed this crap!?

It should be noted that the parks theme areas remain beautiful. Really - some of them are up there with the best parks in the world. It's just a shame that queue lines and on ride theming remains quite poor for the most part, and that the indoor attractions are often closed, so themed immersion isn't always possible. They need a dark ride. Pronto.

We saw an excellent show, Rock Mystery. Loads going on, puts entertainment here to shame. The theatre was enormous! Almost as big as Animagique in Paris!

Food prices in the park are quite expensive (around €10--12 for a fast food meal), similar to Disneyland Paris, but some of the food is quite nice (good Chinese).

Overall. however, PortAventura remains a pleasant park that is good value for a stay, but with a complete lack of regard for guests, operations or good rides. Sadly, with only Dragon Khan and Shambhala genuinely worth going on, and a limited assortment of other rides, I won't be returning anytime soon. Operations are poor, staggered openings are restrictive, most rollercoasters are either painful or totally pointless, there are no dark rides per se, plus half the entertainmnet was off during my visit because they obviously don't care about off peak guests. Even though there were 1 hour queues at points. Yeah, right.

The best park in Spain? Parque Warner. By a bloody mile.

 

[John]

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally got around to writing this one up, I don’t do a lot of TRs, but as it was my first trip to PA and with it being one of Europe’s most prominent parks I’m making an exception. Long post warning, though I’ve split it into sections that should make it a little more manageable…

Attendees: Me, Sam, Dan, Vik, Dave

THE RESORT

First off, there are a lot of great deals on stays in PA’s hotels. €150pp for 3 nights B&B including park entry is an absolute bargain if you ask me. Clearly the Spanish economy isn’t doing the resort any favours, with 2 hotels entirely closed for the duration of our stay, and the others not full even with the cheap rates. It’s not exactly high season for them, but our trip was in the UK and French school holidays, so there were a lot of foreign guests staying there to bolster the numbers.

We arrived late afternoon on the Sunday and checked in at Hotel PA. The hotel is very well presented externally, and the room are of a high standard (though somewhat generic). At any other park it would be a themed hotel, but as it’s in typical Mediterranean style I don’t think it really counts as a themed hotel! Inside it’s a bit of a maze, with miles of boring (and dirty) corridors. Reception isn’t signed along the corridors – you have to use descending room numbers to locate the stairs or lift to ground level first. The level of amenities is OK, but there’s not a lot in the way of evening entertainments, and the only bar closed very early.

Dave was staying in Hotel Gold River and on our 2nd night we all went for a meal there. The hotel is unlike any theme park hotel I’ve ever stayed it – it’s split into a number of blocks themed as a western town (it’s linked to the western area of the park). After the meal we went to compare notes on the rooms (I wasn’t a fan of the style, but they were fitted to a fairly good standard). We then discovered just how bad the resort connections were when we tried to walk back to our hotel. There’s no direct route and high fences force you to walk a long way in the wrong direction. We later worked out that we’d walked over 2 miles, despite the hotels being a few minute walk apart had we been allowed to cut through the theme park.


THE PARK

We spent quite a bit of time on Sunday just wandering around the park and taking in the atmosphere. My first impressions were overwhelmingly positive: the park is simply stunning to look at, a definite candidate for Europe’s most visually spectacular park. The huge scale allows for large themed areas that don’t clash or bleed into one another, and the Polynesian area in particular stood out as one of the best themed areas I have ever been in – it’s very easy to forget you’re actually in a theme park. Medetarraria also stands out – a beautiful lakeside village forming the entrance to the park, and devoid of rides entirely until Baco was built. The layout of the park reminded me of Busch Gardens Williamsburg, with a short entrance area leading to a large circular layout with no centrepiece at the middle (unlike Disney’s hub & spoke layout). Theming on rides is less impressive however, and most of the queue lines are rather unpleasant affairs consisting of a room full of switchbacks that make queue jumping far too easy.

The park was well decorated for Halloween, particularly the entrance and western areas as these were where most of the Halloween attractions were located.

THE RIDES:

Dragon Khan

This ride was something of a milestone for me, as it means I’ve finally ridden at least one of each type of B&M coaster. Seems rather strange that the last one on my list should be the generic sit-down but there you go. Khan was everything I’ve come to expect from a B&M multilooper – fast and intense, albeit with a fairly predictable layout. I found the best experience was on the front row, as towards the back the ride was somewhat rougher than normal for B&M, but not so much as to be a major issue. The zero-g and final corkscrews were the strongest elements for me, especially at night when the ride was running flat out – bonus points for how little speed the MCBR took out of the train. Great ride – I’d probably put it towards the low end of my top 20.

Shambhala

I’ve heard nothing but positive reviews for this ride, and having been on 3 other B&M hypers already I pretty much knew what to expect. This ride offers extended floater airtime on pretty much every hill, and the long trains mean that the front and back row experiences are quite different experiences. The highlight for me was the speed hill after the turnaround, offering both high speed and significant airtime. I don’t think the ride is really that different to other B&M hypers I’ve done. It’s certainly the best of the bunch, but I wouldn’t say it was leagues ahead, the ride feels like it’s lacking something – the final section after the midcourse breaks could probably have been better utilised. Still, a very good ride and just outside my top 20.

Stampida

I’ve always been a fan of CCI – Tonerre de Zeus, Boulder Dash and Megafobia are all in my top 10 wooden coasters, so racing CCIs with the creative genius of John Wardley had to be a great thing, right? Unfortunately the ride doesn’t seem to have had anywhere near enough maintenance in recent years. The trains visibly bounce their way round the track which results in a pretty uncomfortable experience. I eventually I found a way of avoiding the discomfort by taking all my weight on my legs rather than sitting normally, but the vibration still muted any interesting features the ride may have had.

In addition to the roughness the ride also has severe pacing problems, slowing to a crawl at the point where the trains pass, and again after the on-ride photo. This is a strong contrast to the other CCIs I’ve done, which are generally well paced throughout and offer far more airtime. I’d be very interested to know how the ride experience differed on the original trains, as it can hardly have been much worse.

Tomahawk

Now this is more like it! I’d heard fairly positive things about this junior woodie, and it certainly delivered. On my first ride I was in the 2nd row, and was completely caught off guard by the crazy lateral forces on the first corner. The long, high -speed turn alongside Stampaina was the stand out moment for me, offering sustained laterals at a pretty decent speed. More parks need small wooden coasters like this, preferably with trains that can seat more than 1 adult per row though – we’d have ridden far more often but most of the time it was on 1 train with a fairly long queue.

Huracan Condor

I’ve always been a huge fan of Intamin tower rides, and this one is no exception. Frustratingly I never got to experience the (far superior) stand up sides but I did manage to ride with a very loose restraint on my second go, which made for an even more terrifying ride. It seems very strange that they offer 2 different experiences yet don’t give you any choice as to which one you actually get. I can see why single riders don’t get a choice, but to only have one queue for what is effectively 2 rides seems as silly as if Nemesis and Air shared a queue.

Furius Baco

Before my visit to PA I really had no idea whether or not I’d like Baco, as opinions on the ride are split between amazing and appalling. My first two rides of the trip happened to be in the same seat (back row, far left) – the first of these rides was the 2nd train of the day, the second in mid-afternoon. The difference was staggering. Early on the infamous vibration was present, but nothing too unpleasant, later on my experience echoed that of the RollerCoasterPhilosopher:

Furius Baco is rough. To the degree that after the first curve you stop even trying to curse it out and simply want to curl up into the fetal position the way a Russian soldier curls up in the snow to accept their fate after 1000 days of bloody siege
[…]
By the time you get to the end of the layout the relentless, unvarying high speed leaves your internal organs feeling like purée. Whatever unique or commendable qualities this layout might have had reduced to nothing more than a 30-second endurance test in which the end can’t come soon enough.

In addition to the roughness, I don’t think the actual layout of the ride is even that remarkable. The launch feels relatively tame in comparison to most of the other accelerators I’ve been on (probably because of the heavy trains) and the rest of the layout is largely forceless, the only thrills coming from pure speed, which isn’t really what I’m looking for in a ride.
They could probably make the ride far less unpleasant by simply using the standard trains on it, which would probably elevate it up my rankings significantly, but I think I’d still rank it last out of the 7 accelerators I’ve done because the layout is so tame.

All in all, Baco is another example of Intamin taking on a concept they didn’t have the engineering expertise to deliver. It’s a shame really, as with the brilliant pre-show and beautiful setting it could have been an amazing ride – it’s just the actual coaster that’s the problem.

Other rides:

El Diablo – not bad for an Arrow mine train, apart from the entirely pointless section between the second and third lift. OK so it’s nothing mind blowing, but it’s a decent family coaster.
Magic Fish – a surprisingly thrilling ride in the Sesamo Aventura area. A larger version of SQUID surfer at Legoland. For anyone unfamiliar, it consists of 9 “fish” on a lake attached to a turntable. Riders stand in a fish and can swing it towards or away from the platform using a steering wheel , and the ride generates quite a bit of force if you swing outwards at full speed.
Serpiente Emplumanda (a.k.a Green Spinny Thing) – A Zamperla Sombrero (I think), the same as the one of the same name at DMP. It features faster spinning than the similar Monster/Polyp rides, but with less airtime. Pretty good overall.
Crazy Barrels (Huss Breakdance) & VolPiaute (Huss Flipper) – these are ostensibly thrill rides, however both are operated on such slow settings as to render them largely pointless.
Grand Canyon Rapids – a very fun rapids ride, much faster than the ones in the UK. Given the climate it’s surprisingly dry, apart from a couple of water jets at the end.
Silver River Flume – large log flume ride with 3 drops. An interesting split-level layout utilising two separate lakes allows for a massive drop at the end, but on our first ride we didn’t get to experience it as a breakdown resulted it us being evacuated just before the final lift.
(Archbishop Desmond) Tutuki Splash – a decent super splash ride, let down by the absolutely vile tunnel lined with chewing gum before the first drop. Adding to the collection seems to have become a tradition, so there’s probably little the park could do about it. The wettest part was getting hit by the splash of the previous boat as we ascended the lift hill. Using my bag as an impromptu shield prevented me getting too wet though.

PARK OPERATIONS

Now we get to the elephant in the room – PortAventura has to be one of the worst operated major parks I’ve ever visited. For the majority of our trip many of the coasters were operating on 1 train despite having queues of between 30 and 60 minutes. Huracan Condor was running only 1 side at one stage despite an advertised 1hr queue. Later in the day it had gone up to 3, but with only 1 of those being the floorless version I wasn’t willing to keep queuing in the hope of getting the side I wanted. Even when the coasters were on 2 trains, throughput was still poor as there simply weren’t enough staff to run the rides properly - Shambhala and Dragon Khan both had 2 staff on the platform, one of which had to batch the trains and contend with fastpass in addition to checking restraints. This resulted in most trains having returned to the station before the next was sent. On Baco the train managed to get into the brake run before they’d even opened the loading gates on at least 2 occasions. Given that all 3 rides have 3 trains, this seems very poor. Whilst on 1 train, both Khan and Shambhala were loading whole trains with fastpass guests, making the main queue a misery. Shambhala’s SRQ came in handy, but we largely avoided Khan whenever the queue looked even vaguely long as it looked unbelievably depressing.

Queue times were further increased by the staggered openings which are by far the worst I’ve ever seen in a large park. Hardly anything actually opened at 10am – just Baco, the rapids and a few minor attractions. Khan was 10.30; Shambhala 11; Condor 11.30; the log flume, Stampida, Tomahawk and El Diablo were all closed until 12. This left very little to do in the mornings – Baco would get a 40 minute queue immediately, as would most other coasters shortly after opening. To make matters worse, several attractions were closed entirely during the week – including a few flat rides, Templo del Fuego, several shows and a couple of the larger Halloween mazes. It turns out Templo del Fuego only operates for 10 hours per week, and was closed by the time we got there on Sunday. It was only on leaving the park and saw the “rides closed today” board (which had been updated for Monday) that we realised we’d missed it entirely.

SHOWS/SCAREMAZES

As with rides, the show timetable for midweek is much reduced from their weekend offering, but we did manage to experience some of what was on offer

La Selva del Miedo

Located in the Polynesia area, we spotted this scaremaze as we were leaving on Sunday, and decided to wait until after our meal at the hotel to join the queue (good plan – it was at least half as long as when we first walked past). At first I wasn’t too impressed, but as the last group to enter we decided to drop back and go through as just the 5 of us, which meant we got much more attention from the actors. This thing has to be the longest Halloween attraction I’ve been through, taking a good 10-15 minutes in total and featuring dozens of actors. There’s no plot as such, just an assortment of scenes with actors playing zombies, monsters and murderers & their victims. A fantastic attraction.

Horror in Penitence

A somewhat generic scaremaze. It’s fairly light on actors, using quite a few ghost-train style props instead (parts of it strongly resembled Brean Leisure Park’s Terror Castle). The groups being sent through were too large, and we were with a lot of rowdy French teens who were messing about which spoiled it a little.

Rock Symphony – Mystery

A very impessive music-themed stage show, featuring the usual range of singing, acrobatics and stunts. We ended up in pretty poor seats as it took us ages to find the entrance to the venue. A far better show than anything found in the UK, makes the offerings of Alton Towers seem laughable by comparison.

Comparison of midweek to weekend show schedule:

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall, it was a pretty decent trip and unquestionably great value for money. PA is a really pleasant park to be in, but with the poor operations and the fact that I don’t rate most of their major coasters I can’t see myself visiting again in the near future.

I’ll end with Vik’s Stampida ORP, which I feel accurately conveys the three stages of riding it: confusion, pain and anger:

 

[Sam]

Two excellent reviews, that mirror my feelings about the park almost exactly. The only point of disagreement would be El Diablo - I lean more towards John's argument that it's average but fun than Dan's argument that it's rubbish.

Crazy Barrels (Huss Breakdance) & VolPiaute (Huss Flipper) – these are ostensibly thrill rides, however both are operated on such slow settings as to render them largely pointless.

Halloween attractions, closed entirely. It just isn't serious play for what is ostensibly one of Europe's biggest resorts.

Glad that both of you managed to get ostensibly into your reviews.

With Tonnerre de Zeus, Boulder Dash, El Toro, Lightning Racer, Troy, Megafobia, Grand National, Wodan, Joris en de Draak in my life - there is quite literally no room for this rubbish.

That line actually made me laugh out loud. <3

Thanks for covering the Halloween attractions, the show and Gold River. Both of your reviews mirror my feelings about those three things exactly - La Selva del Miedo truly was superb. In fact, it took the crown of being the best Halloween attraction I'd ever done until 'DEAD Inside' sensationally snatched it a few days later!

I didn't review the above because by the time I'd finished with the park, I'd already hit 4000 words which felt more than a bit too lengthy.