Sam
TS Member
Sam's review of PortAventura
PortAventura is a park that has been pretty close to the top of my European 'most wanted' list for a long time. Second to Disneyland Paris, it was probably the biggest park in Europe that I'd never step foot in until now, despite having wanted to since I was a child. I remember when I was eleven or twelve, sneaking onto my parent's computer late at night to watch POVs of Dragon Khan which I found strangely exciting, though I wasn't quite sure why, when I was just coming out of the closet as an enthusiast.
Fast-forward a decade and my feelings were a bit more mixed. While the park's high-points still resembled a promising mountain-range, glittering on the Iberian horizon, I was also painfully aware of its uglier features hidden beneath the façade. I held out hope that the rumours would be proven unfounded – the dreadful operations, the closed rides, the un-rideable coasters – merely a bad dream from drinking too much sangria. Alas, while my pubescent fantasies about the Mediterranean wonderland really were to take shape in reality, the dark nightmare also dogged them like silver with a cloudy lining.
As with most parks lucky enough to possess a B&M Hyper, first impressions are good, with the excitement kicking into gear several miles from Salou, the town the park calls home. Aurally, it comes dangerously close to the French 'Salut!' meaning 'Hi!', which was ironic as after several minutes of driving through the coastal town with its identikit tower block hotels and British or Irish themed pubs, I wanted to wish it a firm 'Goodbye!' Wisely, the park is perched on a hill above the town, and a winding road up to the creatively named Hotel PortAventura quickly pushed the dismal Salou from my mind.
Well, is there a better location for a theme park hotel than this?! It's not near the entrance of the park – it effectively is the entrance of the park, with the whitewashed Catalonian-style hotel forming part of the same cluster of buildings that makes up the park's graceful Mediterrània entrance area. The reception area was stylish and pleasant, if a little bland, and much the same can be said for the rooms themselves. Perfectly pleasant and clean but just a little... soulless. Still, they are clearly several refurbishments ahead of the rooms at ATH and Splash Landings – an indisputable bargain given the knock-down prices that PA were giving us the room (inc. park tickets!) for.
Park charm. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Your room key doubles as park entry ticket – a nifty trick – and the understated hotel entrance takes you from room to park in 90 seconds, complete with an obnoxious Intamin thundering ominously overhead. While many parks attempt an absurdly grandiose entrance that leaves you feeling a little lost, PA skillfully goes the other way. The Iberian entrance is subtle and understated, allowing the park to slowly unfold and reveal itself to you like a taste of a fine wine. The entrance is idyllic and quaint with a handful of boats bobbing in the harbour, masterfully realising a collective folk-memory of a Mediterranean fishing village that probably never really existed.
Unfortunately, the sanctity is shattered approximately every three minutes by the wheezing death-rattle juddering past that is Furius Baco, the parks new-for-'07 Intamin Wingrider. That's 2007 by the way, even if the deathtrap does feel like it was built in 1907. To paraphrase The Thick of It's Malcolm Tucker... in my quest to try and make you understand the level of my hatred for this ride, I'm likely to use an awful lot of what we could call 'violent sexual imagery', and I just wanted to check that none of you would be terribly offended by that? No? Good.
There must be words in Spanish to accurate pinpoint how utterly appalling this coaster is because there is no direct translation in English. I think I could accurately describe it through interpretive dance, but I worry that I might be charged with an anti-social behaviour offence. Let's start from the beginning, blow-by-blow. There's no doubting that the station looks impressive from the entrance. A hillside vineyard draws the eye up to a plain-but-pleasant terracotta coloured building that could almost be a church in a provincial Spanish town, if it had a cross on top.
A plinky-plonky soundtrack frames the ride in a whimsical and light-hearted context – those being two qualities entirely absent from the ride experience itself. The hilltop house opens up into a cavernous cattlepen, fortunately not needed on our visit. The station itself is not-unpleasant, and the first thing that comes to mind when you see the loading arrangements is actually positive. Get this – you can cross the train to get to the seats on the other side, therefore avoiding the überfaff of a queue split with a bridge. Take note, B&M.
The pre-show again surprises. Maybe this ride isn't as bad as its reputation? Is it a hidden gem, obscured under a thick coat of enthusiast bile? The show, a small vignette of flying monkeys and a hapless professor entangling himself in mechanical gubbins, is charming. As with the overall theme of a vineyard, someone put a lot of thought and attention into this – it's fresh, it's funny and it's not overdone. Suddenly, a screech of wheels and we're catapulted outside before you can say “so far, so good!”
But hold on a second, what about the launch, the ride's saving grace? Err... no. It may be faster than Rita and Stealth, but those Baco trains are baby elephants compared to Stealth's nippy little hyenas, and they're draggin' a fair bit of weight on them. The acceleration is clearly nowhere near its British counterparts, and overall the launch feels about as intense as Velocity's or Blue Fire's. That's pretty weak for an Intamin Accelerator. But trust me, this is a shining pinnacle of excellence compared to the macabre horror that is about to follow...
Following the launch, the trains drop down a hill that I can only liken to descending into Hell. The thirty seconds that follow can simply be likened to brutal, physical torture. The ride is an unrelenting, merciless battering ram to the human body that vibrates, shakes, jolts and pulverises the rider like new potatoes being turned into mash. There's nothing you can do. You are firmly tied down by the mechanism, and there is not a jot you can do to influence your situation. Just grit your teeth, close your eyes and wait. Think of mother, think of a sunny meadow, think of home.
Beautiful area, ruined. Photo by Vik Morgan.
But if Baco was put on trial, grievous bodily harm would not be the most serious charge put against it. Your reward as rider for the copious assault that the ride is dishing out to your body is 30 seconds of pure tedium. Yes, Furius Baco is boring. The oversized figure-of-eight layout somehow achieves absolutely nothing of note – even when taken at 80mph. The huge, lumbering turns and utterly pointless inline-twist almost suggest that the designers knew the coaster would be so agonising that for it to actually attempt to pass through some actual elements would make it quite literally unrideable. If you compare the elements here to the zero-g rolls, corkscrews and even full vertical loops offered by the B&M counterpart, it reveals this ride for what it really is – a laughing stock.
I rode Furius Baco four times. The second time to check it really was as bad as I'd thought it was. The third so I could say that I'd been on it enough times to definitively state that it's crap. And the fourth... well I must be a masochist. I've dwelled enough on this abortion of a ride, so let's move on. Heading anti-clockwise around the park, we enter Polynesia. Polynesia is definitely the most accomplished of the park's six theme areas, in that it's the most immersive. Luscious tropical trees bending over the paths hide the rest of the park away, and with the Spanish sun beating down from a clear blue sky, its a pretty convincing illusion.
Like Mediterrània, the area only plays host to one ride, Archbishop Desmond Tutuki Splash. It's a shoot-the-chutes. The second drop is bigger than the first. What else is there to say? Oh yeah, the tunnels are covered in chewing gum mere centimetres above your head, which makes you want to wretch. A non-event. We sadly now have to leave the mid-Pacific islands behind us and wind our way up the hill to China, complete with bamboo-lined paths and traditional qin music piped in gently.
Although I've heard multiple times that China is the worst area of the park, I really liked it. Then again, I do have a bit of a fondness towards oriental themes. While it may not be as intensely sensual as Phantasialand's counterpart, it makes up for it with size and decent rides. As we climb past pagodas and red gates, the air begins to thin, and we reach a plateau. We're in the territory of the mighty Dragon Khan.
Beginning operations with the park in 1995, there's no doubting what this is: a great big stonking B&M multi-looper. Opening the following years with the same manufacturer, and sharing a father in John Wardley, this coaster is clearly the half-sister to Nemesis. Like its Staffordshire sibling, the ride may lack gimmicks and use the most simple of ride systems, but what it does is simply outstanding.
There isn't too much detail to go into – it's just a really forceful old B&M. A little rough, yes, but who cares? It's not as bad as most Intamins, Gersts and Vekomas, and offers a much better ride. Like Nemesis, it seems to get faster and faster as you traverse the layout, with a full on sprint-to-the-finish after the MCBR. That section deserves special praise for being tight, compact and pulling some tremendous force. While the first half isn't quite up there with the first half of r'Nemesis, it still offers a bucket load more positive-g than newer B&M fare (I'm looking at you, Swarm).
I also want to describe the ride as beautiful, because in old photos it is. However, it is not. Building Shambhala over the top has turned it into an absolute mess. Where once a graceful red coaster stood alone at the pinnacle of the park, all you see now is a jumbled mess of clashing track and supports. Shambhala's lifthill has had the unfortunate effect of leaving Khan looking cramped and squashed, a messy spaghetti-bowl of steel under the shimmering white peaks. The problem would have been slightly alleviated by getting rid of Shammy's chain return and including it in the track spine, as B&M now offer. What is there in reality is an ugly mess, and not aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.
A mess. Photo by Vik Morgan.
But who cares when the coaster that created this clutter is Shambhala? Forgive and forget. Lets gloss over the cattlepen queue and the lack of detail in the theming, because frankly, they make a negligible difference to the ride. Yes, it has been slight overrated. No Mr Hawker, it clearly isn't the sixth best steel coaster in the world. But that's not its fault. It's still a damn good ride. But I'd like to get something off my chest first, so here goes.
The trains. They're a downgrade. These are the new stadium-seated 'tiered' trains that B&M seem to be putting on all their hyper-coasters now, and here's three reasons why they should stop:
1) They do nothing to improve the ride experience. I guess the idea is that you're meant to be 'on the wing', which is all the rage these days. You're not, because there is a floor. The difference in the view compared to the traditional four-across trains is negligible.
2) They're anti-social. If you're sat on one of the outside seats, you're basically a single rider, even if you're with your friends.
3) They reduce front-row seats available from four to two. I've tried out both, and row two is not row one. It makes a big difference.
That gripe out the way, what is the ride experience like? You fly, you swoop, you soar, you plummet. It's everything it should be: an intensely liberating, exhilarating experience. The first drop is significantly more forceful than Silver Star's, and the apex of each hill delivers with a blissful burst of floater airtime. The odd turnaround is interesting, and the low-height 'speed hill' is a triumph of engineering.
Photo by Vik Morgan.
Unfortunately, after the fake splash-down it does seem to run out of steam. The hill out of the splash-down is perhaps a couple of feet too high, and the speed is neutered for the remainder of the run. While still fun, the remaining few hills follow the law of diminishing returns, and I found myself longing for the twisty finale of Silver Star, or the demented bunny-hop spree of Expedition GeForce. Still, it doesn't detract too much from the first two-thirds of the ride, which is without fault. This is a B&M hyper and it delivers exactly what it says on the tin: a smooth, graceful speed coaster with floater airtime by the bucket load. And this does that job better than any other I've come across.
Although difficult to wrench yourself away from whoring Shambhala's single rider queue, the park continues with a somewhat-jarring transition to Mexico. This was probably the weakest themed area for me, though by no means bad. The mine train is inexplicably located here, though you'd think it'd be a much better fit in Far West. As if to illustrate the point, El Diablo interacts a great deal with Far West's Silver River Flume, almost as if it knows where it really belongs.
This mine train gets an unfair bashing. Don't get me wrong, it's no Colorado Adventure or Big Thunder, but it's nowhere near as bad as people say. The queue, station and theming are all solid, and the trains aren't half bad. The layout has some genuinely exciting moments, including most of the track after the first lift, and the final 'EuroMir-style' swooping helix drop after the third lift. I went on expecting something on par with Temple of the Shitehawk, but I actually... quite like it. I do realise that for saying that I now have to cut up all my annual passes and exile myself to South America. I'm fearless, and I will be out and proud. I quite like El Diablo, and I don't care who knows it.
Continuing our counter-clockwise journey, we come to another thrill seeking heavy-hitter; the absolutely colossal Hurakan Condor. Queueing up, I felt a giddy anticipation that I was about to experience the super-sized version of one of my favourite rides (Apocalypse at Drayton) with some spectacular theming to boot. Although it's storyless as far as I can tell, it doesn't stop the base of the tower being jaw-dropping – a gargantuan Mayan ruin, piercing the sky with its jagged ramparts.
So what did I make of the actual tower? I strapped myself in, and without a moment's hesitation we were ascending. My legs dangled freely beneath me, and I felt more vulnerable and terrified than I had in a long-time. But it's not a bad feeling – as a jaded enthusiast, its so rare to feel acute fear that I lap it up at any opportunity given. I neared the top, and the surrounding view was spectacular. At least, I think it was. All I could concentrate on was the tiny saddle keeping me from the 283ft drop I could see below my shoelaces. Suddenly, the catch releases and the floorless stand-up arrangement only enhances the exhilarating, brain-blasting plunge to terra-firma...
...is the review I wanted to write. The park do not let you choose which side of the tower you get, and both times I rode I ended up on one of the three sit-down sides. Sit-down tower rides are much of a likeness, especially at this height. They're perfectly decent, but do little for me. A thought consumed me while I was ascending... what is the point of having different ride experiences available if you don't let guests choose what they want? It undermines the entire purpose of having different types of seating arrangements on the tower. Unfortunately as we were soon to discover, this was only the tip of the iceberg of PortAventura's pisspoor operations. Marvelling at just how deep that iceberg went would unfortunately become the main hobby for the remaining two days on park.
In the far corner of the park sits Templo Del Fuego, which I thought was a spectacular special-effects bonan----oh, I'm not going to do the same trick again. It was closed, deliberately, for the entire week, as were around seven other smaller rides. Unless the entrance price is also reduced, slashing the ride line-up like this is absolutely not on. It's a nasty, money-grabbing approach to the guest experience, and a park the size of PortAventura should be far above these sort of shenanigans.
Mexico gradually transmutes into the Far West, via another long path and some pretty forgettable flat rides. I have to say that Far West, particularly the mining town of Penitence, was by far my favourite area of the park. It may lack the breathtaking landscaping and foliage of China and Polynesia, but it made up for that with an almost obsessive level of detail.
The broken rail-road bridges with abandoned mine cars hanging off them. The town bank, post office and railway station. The city limits which see Penitence gradually fading into the surrounding countryside. All rendered with the tell-tale signs of a craftsman at work. To be in this massive area is simply a joy, with every texture, building and feature of the town providing a rich feast for the eye. You can feel the hand of Universal and Busch everywhere in this part of the park.
Such lavish praise cannot be extended to the area's headline attraction, fortunately exiled in a far suburb of the town. Stampida is a duelling woodie built two years after the park opened, ostensibly by CCI but you wouldn't know it when you reach the brake run. PortAventura is situated right in the area of Spain that saw the heaviest fighting in the Spanish civil war of 1936, between an alliance of anarchists and communists against the fascist forces of General Franco.
It's particularly clever of them to work this historical event into the concept of Stampida. An utterly pointless battle that only served to ruin the lives of the Catalonians, the war saw untold amounts of misery and many bodies broken as each side wore each other down to a pathetic husk, as their miserable conflict fizzled out to nothingness. This is also a pretty apt description of Stampida: a ride seemingly designed and maintained as if the people in charge of it have a passionate hatred of humankind.
Halloween themed Penitence. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Like the evil Intamin on the opposite side of the park, this is truly a dreadful ride. Both, for me, are the absolute worst coasters I've ever been on built from their respective materials. Like Baco, Stampida is almost unrideably rough. Anything interesting the ride is doing I did not notice during my first run, as it is drowned out by wave after wave of pain and internal injury. The wheels don't seem to run along the track – they bounce, skid and scrape.
If you can somehow look through the dense fog of pain (it took me at least three rides) you notice that actually, there could be a half-decent woodie buried very deeply under all this incompetence. The first half is quite pacey, with pops of airtime that have the potential to be enjoyable if you weren't bracing every square-inch of your body for the jolt when your bum reconnects with the seat.
The three stages of riding Stampida. Regret, pain & anger. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Unfortunately, the ride's highlight also kills it stone-dead. To have the two sides, joined side-by-side up to now, split off and then reappear going opposite directions is a clever move by Wardley. The flipside of this is that it does mean that the ride absolutely dies on its arse. Any speed or momentum is seemingly sapped from the trains in a matter of seconds, and they limp back to the station like a wounded dog, dragging its leg behind it. Stampida is an embarrassment to this park, and I imagine that a lot of that is down to the various hack-jobs inflicted on it after CCI and Wardley packed their bags, especially the new KumbaK trains. But this park isn't a complete woodie no-go zone, as we move onto Stampida's 'support' coaster.
It's always very difficult to judge children's coasters. Do you rank a great kid's coaster over a mediocre thrill coaster? This was the perennial problem I found myself struggling with while giddily lining up to re-ride Tomahawk. I've now come to a solution: I think “If I had children, would I be proud for this to be their first rollercoaster?” With Tomahawk, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The ride is a Zipper Dipper for the 21st century, with edge and kick and personality and pazzazz.
Tomahawk is everything a great children's coaster should be: a wild, fun, out-of-control whirl. Most importantly, it's not too tame – maybe the worst sin a children's ride can commit. Children like to be scared, and can handle more intensity than most parks give them credit for. This one has some great drops, decent laterals and the itsy-little PTCs zip round the track like a lightning bolt. Not only is this better than the 'headline' ride it's unlucky enough to be intertwined with, it's one of the best children's coasters I've ever done anywhere.
The trio of water rides is completed in Far West, first by the Silver River Flume, a Mack creation with a considerable last drop. While the layout was pretty good (maybe a bit too much Flume-esque floating about in the air), the theming left a lot to be desired, essentially having none once you left the station. Still, the last drop was great, and this gave me the honour of having my first ever evacuation from a Mack ride! (after waiting in a log jam at the bottom of the third lift for a good half hour).
P45 for Roland. Photo by Vik Morgan.
The unholy trinity definitely improves with the slightly-unimaginatively named Grand Canyon Rapids, an Intamin that opened with the park. While it doesn't offer much in the actual rapids department, this is fast. I mean really fast. By the end you're worried that the boat is going to lurch forward and tip you all out, nevermind the fact that the craft is impersonating an unevenly weighted Maurer spinner. While lacking the imagination of rapids like Mystery River, and the craziness of RiverQuest, this is still a great ride.
And well, that's it. Which neatly brings me onto my first bone of contention with the park: lack of rides. Given that they've been open for nearly twenty years now, the actual low quantity of rides is quite shocking. Great swathes of the park are completely uninhabited by anything resembling a ride. What is there, especially the three big steel coasters, are often swamped and can't cope with the 3.5m visitors the park gets these days.
This is a minor quibble compared to my main beef with the park: the atrocious operations. God knows how this lot got an Armada together. I'd go as far as saying that it's the worst operations I've ever seen in my life, relative to the size of the park. We saw Khan running one train with a one-hour wait. We saw one side out of five on Condor operating, with an hour queue. We never saw Stampida on more than one train per side, despite it getting upwards of a forty minute queue. Even if they choose to up the capacity, you can be sure that the slow staff and copious overselling of Fastrack will keep the main queue throughputs in the basement.
At one point, we saw Shambhala alternating between a Fastrack train, and a main queue train, giving the snaking main queue a grand throughput of around 300pph. Oh, I almost forgot, the staggered opening! The only rides of any note that opened with the park at 10 were Baco and the rapids. That's your lot for the first hour, and if you don't let getting wet or coma-inducing assaults, then you're stuck. Imagine if Towers announced that only the rapids and Oblivion would open with the park – the queue for guest services would be three miles long. This sort of behaviour is spitting in the face of the guest, and is not on, in any way, shape or form.
PortAventura is the definition of a mixed bag, and seems to have an aversion to the middle-ground. Everything is either incredible (Khan, Shambhala, area theming) or appalling (Stampida, Baco, operations) and nowhere in between. It is a park with a stunning surface, but as soon as you begin to dig deeper, you find that it's quite hollow. While some other European parks, especially the older ones founded in the early-to-mid 20th century, have become skilled at creating emotionally deep environments that are rich in their complex textures, PortAventura seems to revel in simply being spectacular on the surface. It dazzles first-time guests with its beauty, hoping it'll distract them from the water pouring through the holes in the ceiling.
But when that surface consists of Khan and Shambhala, how bad can it be? At the end of the day, the lack of depth doesn't detract from the reality that many elements of the park, and a handful of the headline rides, are quite breathtaking experiences. Whether that makes up for the bad operations and un-rideable coasters, I'm not sure. The cold truth is that policies like the staggered openings, the one-train operations and the closed rides mid-week firmly puts this park in the second-tier of European parks.
Photo by Vik Morgan.
Until they address these substantial issues, and seriously speed up on capital investment in the park, they will never be able to catch up with Europe's top-tier parks, the likes of Disney and Efteling, and even Alton Towers. They seem to be heading in the right direction with the latter – there has been new ride openings every year from 2011 through to 2014. But consulting with Dan who went in 2009, there seemed to have been no progress made on the operations whatsoever.
I want to like PortAventura, but it does make it bloody hard work. I can see myself returning in a few years, when they've added a couple of new rides, and really enjoying myself. With a beer in hand, in the baking Spanish sun, it is difficult to top. But I can't help thinking what the park could have been, if so many decisions from the early-90s through to present had been different. Don't get me wrong, I adore Tomahawk, but when a children's woodie is the third best coaster in a park of eight... something's not quite right.
Sam Gregory
PortAventura is a park that has been pretty close to the top of my European 'most wanted' list for a long time. Second to Disneyland Paris, it was probably the biggest park in Europe that I'd never step foot in until now, despite having wanted to since I was a child. I remember when I was eleven or twelve, sneaking onto my parent's computer late at night to watch POVs of Dragon Khan which I found strangely exciting, though I wasn't quite sure why, when I was just coming out of the closet as an enthusiast.
Fast-forward a decade and my feelings were a bit more mixed. While the park's high-points still resembled a promising mountain-range, glittering on the Iberian horizon, I was also painfully aware of its uglier features hidden beneath the façade. I held out hope that the rumours would be proven unfounded – the dreadful operations, the closed rides, the un-rideable coasters – merely a bad dream from drinking too much sangria. Alas, while my pubescent fantasies about the Mediterranean wonderland really were to take shape in reality, the dark nightmare also dogged them like silver with a cloudy lining.
As with most parks lucky enough to possess a B&M Hyper, first impressions are good, with the excitement kicking into gear several miles from Salou, the town the park calls home. Aurally, it comes dangerously close to the French 'Salut!' meaning 'Hi!', which was ironic as after several minutes of driving through the coastal town with its identikit tower block hotels and British or Irish themed pubs, I wanted to wish it a firm 'Goodbye!' Wisely, the park is perched on a hill above the town, and a winding road up to the creatively named Hotel PortAventura quickly pushed the dismal Salou from my mind.
Well, is there a better location for a theme park hotel than this?! It's not near the entrance of the park – it effectively is the entrance of the park, with the whitewashed Catalonian-style hotel forming part of the same cluster of buildings that makes up the park's graceful Mediterrània entrance area. The reception area was stylish and pleasant, if a little bland, and much the same can be said for the rooms themselves. Perfectly pleasant and clean but just a little... soulless. Still, they are clearly several refurbishments ahead of the rooms at ATH and Splash Landings – an indisputable bargain given the knock-down prices that PA were giving us the room (inc. park tickets!) for.
Park charm. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Your room key doubles as park entry ticket – a nifty trick – and the understated hotel entrance takes you from room to park in 90 seconds, complete with an obnoxious Intamin thundering ominously overhead. While many parks attempt an absurdly grandiose entrance that leaves you feeling a little lost, PA skillfully goes the other way. The Iberian entrance is subtle and understated, allowing the park to slowly unfold and reveal itself to you like a taste of a fine wine. The entrance is idyllic and quaint with a handful of boats bobbing in the harbour, masterfully realising a collective folk-memory of a Mediterranean fishing village that probably never really existed.
Unfortunately, the sanctity is shattered approximately every three minutes by the wheezing death-rattle juddering past that is Furius Baco, the parks new-for-'07 Intamin Wingrider. That's 2007 by the way, even if the deathtrap does feel like it was built in 1907. To paraphrase The Thick of It's Malcolm Tucker... in my quest to try and make you understand the level of my hatred for this ride, I'm likely to use an awful lot of what we could call 'violent sexual imagery', and I just wanted to check that none of you would be terribly offended by that? No? Good.
There must be words in Spanish to accurate pinpoint how utterly appalling this coaster is because there is no direct translation in English. I think I could accurately describe it through interpretive dance, but I worry that I might be charged with an anti-social behaviour offence. Let's start from the beginning, blow-by-blow. There's no doubting that the station looks impressive from the entrance. A hillside vineyard draws the eye up to a plain-but-pleasant terracotta coloured building that could almost be a church in a provincial Spanish town, if it had a cross on top.
A plinky-plonky soundtrack frames the ride in a whimsical and light-hearted context – those being two qualities entirely absent from the ride experience itself. The hilltop house opens up into a cavernous cattlepen, fortunately not needed on our visit. The station itself is not-unpleasant, and the first thing that comes to mind when you see the loading arrangements is actually positive. Get this – you can cross the train to get to the seats on the other side, therefore avoiding the überfaff of a queue split with a bridge. Take note, B&M.
The pre-show again surprises. Maybe this ride isn't as bad as its reputation? Is it a hidden gem, obscured under a thick coat of enthusiast bile? The show, a small vignette of flying monkeys and a hapless professor entangling himself in mechanical gubbins, is charming. As with the overall theme of a vineyard, someone put a lot of thought and attention into this – it's fresh, it's funny and it's not overdone. Suddenly, a screech of wheels and we're catapulted outside before you can say “so far, so good!”
But hold on a second, what about the launch, the ride's saving grace? Err... no. It may be faster than Rita and Stealth, but those Baco trains are baby elephants compared to Stealth's nippy little hyenas, and they're draggin' a fair bit of weight on them. The acceleration is clearly nowhere near its British counterparts, and overall the launch feels about as intense as Velocity's or Blue Fire's. That's pretty weak for an Intamin Accelerator. But trust me, this is a shining pinnacle of excellence compared to the macabre horror that is about to follow...
Following the launch, the trains drop down a hill that I can only liken to descending into Hell. The thirty seconds that follow can simply be likened to brutal, physical torture. The ride is an unrelenting, merciless battering ram to the human body that vibrates, shakes, jolts and pulverises the rider like new potatoes being turned into mash. There's nothing you can do. You are firmly tied down by the mechanism, and there is not a jot you can do to influence your situation. Just grit your teeth, close your eyes and wait. Think of mother, think of a sunny meadow, think of home.
Beautiful area, ruined. Photo by Vik Morgan.
But if Baco was put on trial, grievous bodily harm would not be the most serious charge put against it. Your reward as rider for the copious assault that the ride is dishing out to your body is 30 seconds of pure tedium. Yes, Furius Baco is boring. The oversized figure-of-eight layout somehow achieves absolutely nothing of note – even when taken at 80mph. The huge, lumbering turns and utterly pointless inline-twist almost suggest that the designers knew the coaster would be so agonising that for it to actually attempt to pass through some actual elements would make it quite literally unrideable. If you compare the elements here to the zero-g rolls, corkscrews and even full vertical loops offered by the B&M counterpart, it reveals this ride for what it really is – a laughing stock.
I rode Furius Baco four times. The second time to check it really was as bad as I'd thought it was. The third so I could say that I'd been on it enough times to definitively state that it's crap. And the fourth... well I must be a masochist. I've dwelled enough on this abortion of a ride, so let's move on. Heading anti-clockwise around the park, we enter Polynesia. Polynesia is definitely the most accomplished of the park's six theme areas, in that it's the most immersive. Luscious tropical trees bending over the paths hide the rest of the park away, and with the Spanish sun beating down from a clear blue sky, its a pretty convincing illusion.
Like Mediterrània, the area only plays host to one ride, Archbishop Desmond Tutuki Splash. It's a shoot-the-chutes. The second drop is bigger than the first. What else is there to say? Oh yeah, the tunnels are covered in chewing gum mere centimetres above your head, which makes you want to wretch. A non-event. We sadly now have to leave the mid-Pacific islands behind us and wind our way up the hill to China, complete with bamboo-lined paths and traditional qin music piped in gently.
Although I've heard multiple times that China is the worst area of the park, I really liked it. Then again, I do have a bit of a fondness towards oriental themes. While it may not be as intensely sensual as Phantasialand's counterpart, it makes up for it with size and decent rides. As we climb past pagodas and red gates, the air begins to thin, and we reach a plateau. We're in the territory of the mighty Dragon Khan.
Beginning operations with the park in 1995, there's no doubting what this is: a great big stonking B&M multi-looper. Opening the following years with the same manufacturer, and sharing a father in John Wardley, this coaster is clearly the half-sister to Nemesis. Like its Staffordshire sibling, the ride may lack gimmicks and use the most simple of ride systems, but what it does is simply outstanding.
There isn't too much detail to go into – it's just a really forceful old B&M. A little rough, yes, but who cares? It's not as bad as most Intamins, Gersts and Vekomas, and offers a much better ride. Like Nemesis, it seems to get faster and faster as you traverse the layout, with a full on sprint-to-the-finish after the MCBR. That section deserves special praise for being tight, compact and pulling some tremendous force. While the first half isn't quite up there with the first half of r'Nemesis, it still offers a bucket load more positive-g than newer B&M fare (I'm looking at you, Swarm).
I also want to describe the ride as beautiful, because in old photos it is. However, it is not. Building Shambhala over the top has turned it into an absolute mess. Where once a graceful red coaster stood alone at the pinnacle of the park, all you see now is a jumbled mess of clashing track and supports. Shambhala's lifthill has had the unfortunate effect of leaving Khan looking cramped and squashed, a messy spaghetti-bowl of steel under the shimmering white peaks. The problem would have been slightly alleviated by getting rid of Shammy's chain return and including it in the track spine, as B&M now offer. What is there in reality is an ugly mess, and not aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.
A mess. Photo by Vik Morgan.
But who cares when the coaster that created this clutter is Shambhala? Forgive and forget. Lets gloss over the cattlepen queue and the lack of detail in the theming, because frankly, they make a negligible difference to the ride. Yes, it has been slight overrated. No Mr Hawker, it clearly isn't the sixth best steel coaster in the world. But that's not its fault. It's still a damn good ride. But I'd like to get something off my chest first, so here goes.
The trains. They're a downgrade. These are the new stadium-seated 'tiered' trains that B&M seem to be putting on all their hyper-coasters now, and here's three reasons why they should stop:
1) They do nothing to improve the ride experience. I guess the idea is that you're meant to be 'on the wing', which is all the rage these days. You're not, because there is a floor. The difference in the view compared to the traditional four-across trains is negligible.
2) They're anti-social. If you're sat on one of the outside seats, you're basically a single rider, even if you're with your friends.
3) They reduce front-row seats available from four to two. I've tried out both, and row two is not row one. It makes a big difference.
That gripe out the way, what is the ride experience like? You fly, you swoop, you soar, you plummet. It's everything it should be: an intensely liberating, exhilarating experience. The first drop is significantly more forceful than Silver Star's, and the apex of each hill delivers with a blissful burst of floater airtime. The odd turnaround is interesting, and the low-height 'speed hill' is a triumph of engineering.
Photo by Vik Morgan.
Unfortunately, after the fake splash-down it does seem to run out of steam. The hill out of the splash-down is perhaps a couple of feet too high, and the speed is neutered for the remainder of the run. While still fun, the remaining few hills follow the law of diminishing returns, and I found myself longing for the twisty finale of Silver Star, or the demented bunny-hop spree of Expedition GeForce. Still, it doesn't detract too much from the first two-thirds of the ride, which is without fault. This is a B&M hyper and it delivers exactly what it says on the tin: a smooth, graceful speed coaster with floater airtime by the bucket load. And this does that job better than any other I've come across.
Although difficult to wrench yourself away from whoring Shambhala's single rider queue, the park continues with a somewhat-jarring transition to Mexico. This was probably the weakest themed area for me, though by no means bad. The mine train is inexplicably located here, though you'd think it'd be a much better fit in Far West. As if to illustrate the point, El Diablo interacts a great deal with Far West's Silver River Flume, almost as if it knows where it really belongs.
This mine train gets an unfair bashing. Don't get me wrong, it's no Colorado Adventure or Big Thunder, but it's nowhere near as bad as people say. The queue, station and theming are all solid, and the trains aren't half bad. The layout has some genuinely exciting moments, including most of the track after the first lift, and the final 'EuroMir-style' swooping helix drop after the third lift. I went on expecting something on par with Temple of the Shitehawk, but I actually... quite like it. I do realise that for saying that I now have to cut up all my annual passes and exile myself to South America. I'm fearless, and I will be out and proud. I quite like El Diablo, and I don't care who knows it.
Continuing our counter-clockwise journey, we come to another thrill seeking heavy-hitter; the absolutely colossal Hurakan Condor. Queueing up, I felt a giddy anticipation that I was about to experience the super-sized version of one of my favourite rides (Apocalypse at Drayton) with some spectacular theming to boot. Although it's storyless as far as I can tell, it doesn't stop the base of the tower being jaw-dropping – a gargantuan Mayan ruin, piercing the sky with its jagged ramparts.
So what did I make of the actual tower? I strapped myself in, and without a moment's hesitation we were ascending. My legs dangled freely beneath me, and I felt more vulnerable and terrified than I had in a long-time. But it's not a bad feeling – as a jaded enthusiast, its so rare to feel acute fear that I lap it up at any opportunity given. I neared the top, and the surrounding view was spectacular. At least, I think it was. All I could concentrate on was the tiny saddle keeping me from the 283ft drop I could see below my shoelaces. Suddenly, the catch releases and the floorless stand-up arrangement only enhances the exhilarating, brain-blasting plunge to terra-firma...
...is the review I wanted to write. The park do not let you choose which side of the tower you get, and both times I rode I ended up on one of the three sit-down sides. Sit-down tower rides are much of a likeness, especially at this height. They're perfectly decent, but do little for me. A thought consumed me while I was ascending... what is the point of having different ride experiences available if you don't let guests choose what they want? It undermines the entire purpose of having different types of seating arrangements on the tower. Unfortunately as we were soon to discover, this was only the tip of the iceberg of PortAventura's pisspoor operations. Marvelling at just how deep that iceberg went would unfortunately become the main hobby for the remaining two days on park.
In the far corner of the park sits Templo Del Fuego, which I thought was a spectacular special-effects bonan----oh, I'm not going to do the same trick again. It was closed, deliberately, for the entire week, as were around seven other smaller rides. Unless the entrance price is also reduced, slashing the ride line-up like this is absolutely not on. It's a nasty, money-grabbing approach to the guest experience, and a park the size of PortAventura should be far above these sort of shenanigans.
Mexico gradually transmutes into the Far West, via another long path and some pretty forgettable flat rides. I have to say that Far West, particularly the mining town of Penitence, was by far my favourite area of the park. It may lack the breathtaking landscaping and foliage of China and Polynesia, but it made up for that with an almost obsessive level of detail.
The broken rail-road bridges with abandoned mine cars hanging off them. The town bank, post office and railway station. The city limits which see Penitence gradually fading into the surrounding countryside. All rendered with the tell-tale signs of a craftsman at work. To be in this massive area is simply a joy, with every texture, building and feature of the town providing a rich feast for the eye. You can feel the hand of Universal and Busch everywhere in this part of the park.
Such lavish praise cannot be extended to the area's headline attraction, fortunately exiled in a far suburb of the town. Stampida is a duelling woodie built two years after the park opened, ostensibly by CCI but you wouldn't know it when you reach the brake run. PortAventura is situated right in the area of Spain that saw the heaviest fighting in the Spanish civil war of 1936, between an alliance of anarchists and communists against the fascist forces of General Franco.
It's particularly clever of them to work this historical event into the concept of Stampida. An utterly pointless battle that only served to ruin the lives of the Catalonians, the war saw untold amounts of misery and many bodies broken as each side wore each other down to a pathetic husk, as their miserable conflict fizzled out to nothingness. This is also a pretty apt description of Stampida: a ride seemingly designed and maintained as if the people in charge of it have a passionate hatred of humankind.
Halloween themed Penitence. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Like the evil Intamin on the opposite side of the park, this is truly a dreadful ride. Both, for me, are the absolute worst coasters I've ever been on built from their respective materials. Like Baco, Stampida is almost unrideably rough. Anything interesting the ride is doing I did not notice during my first run, as it is drowned out by wave after wave of pain and internal injury. The wheels don't seem to run along the track – they bounce, skid and scrape.
If you can somehow look through the dense fog of pain (it took me at least three rides) you notice that actually, there could be a half-decent woodie buried very deeply under all this incompetence. The first half is quite pacey, with pops of airtime that have the potential to be enjoyable if you weren't bracing every square-inch of your body for the jolt when your bum reconnects with the seat.
The three stages of riding Stampida. Regret, pain & anger. Photo by Vik Morgan.
Unfortunately, the ride's highlight also kills it stone-dead. To have the two sides, joined side-by-side up to now, split off and then reappear going opposite directions is a clever move by Wardley. The flipside of this is that it does mean that the ride absolutely dies on its arse. Any speed or momentum is seemingly sapped from the trains in a matter of seconds, and they limp back to the station like a wounded dog, dragging its leg behind it. Stampida is an embarrassment to this park, and I imagine that a lot of that is down to the various hack-jobs inflicted on it after CCI and Wardley packed their bags, especially the new KumbaK trains. But this park isn't a complete woodie no-go zone, as we move onto Stampida's 'support' coaster.
It's always very difficult to judge children's coasters. Do you rank a great kid's coaster over a mediocre thrill coaster? This was the perennial problem I found myself struggling with while giddily lining up to re-ride Tomahawk. I've now come to a solution: I think “If I had children, would I be proud for this to be their first rollercoaster?” With Tomahawk, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The ride is a Zipper Dipper for the 21st century, with edge and kick and personality and pazzazz.
Tomahawk is everything a great children's coaster should be: a wild, fun, out-of-control whirl. Most importantly, it's not too tame – maybe the worst sin a children's ride can commit. Children like to be scared, and can handle more intensity than most parks give them credit for. This one has some great drops, decent laterals and the itsy-little PTCs zip round the track like a lightning bolt. Not only is this better than the 'headline' ride it's unlucky enough to be intertwined with, it's one of the best children's coasters I've ever done anywhere.
The trio of water rides is completed in Far West, first by the Silver River Flume, a Mack creation with a considerable last drop. While the layout was pretty good (maybe a bit too much Flume-esque floating about in the air), the theming left a lot to be desired, essentially having none once you left the station. Still, the last drop was great, and this gave me the honour of having my first ever evacuation from a Mack ride! (after waiting in a log jam at the bottom of the third lift for a good half hour).
P45 for Roland. Photo by Vik Morgan.
The unholy trinity definitely improves with the slightly-unimaginatively named Grand Canyon Rapids, an Intamin that opened with the park. While it doesn't offer much in the actual rapids department, this is fast. I mean really fast. By the end you're worried that the boat is going to lurch forward and tip you all out, nevermind the fact that the craft is impersonating an unevenly weighted Maurer spinner. While lacking the imagination of rapids like Mystery River, and the craziness of RiverQuest, this is still a great ride.
And well, that's it. Which neatly brings me onto my first bone of contention with the park: lack of rides. Given that they've been open for nearly twenty years now, the actual low quantity of rides is quite shocking. Great swathes of the park are completely uninhabited by anything resembling a ride. What is there, especially the three big steel coasters, are often swamped and can't cope with the 3.5m visitors the park gets these days.
This is a minor quibble compared to my main beef with the park: the atrocious operations. God knows how this lot got an Armada together. I'd go as far as saying that it's the worst operations I've ever seen in my life, relative to the size of the park. We saw Khan running one train with a one-hour wait. We saw one side out of five on Condor operating, with an hour queue. We never saw Stampida on more than one train per side, despite it getting upwards of a forty minute queue. Even if they choose to up the capacity, you can be sure that the slow staff and copious overselling of Fastrack will keep the main queue throughputs in the basement.
At one point, we saw Shambhala alternating between a Fastrack train, and a main queue train, giving the snaking main queue a grand throughput of around 300pph. Oh, I almost forgot, the staggered opening! The only rides of any note that opened with the park at 10 were Baco and the rapids. That's your lot for the first hour, and if you don't let getting wet or coma-inducing assaults, then you're stuck. Imagine if Towers announced that only the rapids and Oblivion would open with the park – the queue for guest services would be three miles long. This sort of behaviour is spitting in the face of the guest, and is not on, in any way, shape or form.
PortAventura is the definition of a mixed bag, and seems to have an aversion to the middle-ground. Everything is either incredible (Khan, Shambhala, area theming) or appalling (Stampida, Baco, operations) and nowhere in between. It is a park with a stunning surface, but as soon as you begin to dig deeper, you find that it's quite hollow. While some other European parks, especially the older ones founded in the early-to-mid 20th century, have become skilled at creating emotionally deep environments that are rich in their complex textures, PortAventura seems to revel in simply being spectacular on the surface. It dazzles first-time guests with its beauty, hoping it'll distract them from the water pouring through the holes in the ceiling.
But when that surface consists of Khan and Shambhala, how bad can it be? At the end of the day, the lack of depth doesn't detract from the reality that many elements of the park, and a handful of the headline rides, are quite breathtaking experiences. Whether that makes up for the bad operations and un-rideable coasters, I'm not sure. The cold truth is that policies like the staggered openings, the one-train operations and the closed rides mid-week firmly puts this park in the second-tier of European parks.
Photo by Vik Morgan.
Until they address these substantial issues, and seriously speed up on capital investment in the park, they will never be able to catch up with Europe's top-tier parks, the likes of Disney and Efteling, and even Alton Towers. They seem to be heading in the right direction with the latter – there has been new ride openings every year from 2011 through to 2014. But consulting with Dan who went in 2009, there seemed to have been no progress made on the operations whatsoever.
I want to like PortAventura, but it does make it bloody hard work. I can see myself returning in a few years, when they've added a couple of new rides, and really enjoying myself. With a beer in hand, in the baking Spanish sun, it is difficult to top. But I can't help thinking what the park could have been, if so many decisions from the early-90s through to present had been different. Don't get me wrong, I adore Tomahawk, but when a children's woodie is the third best coaster in a park of eight... something's not quite right.
Sam Gregory
Great park review. Very interesting read. One of the few reports I've read from start to finish! 
