PortAventura has been on my to-do list for right about forever. I can still remember my envy of the kids down the road who had been to ‘Woody Woodpecker Land’ as they called it. As 2020 rolled around, it finally seemed as though I’d be meeting the main Woodpecker himself. Scoring an incredible ‘hotel roulette’ deal on Black Friday, my partner and I enthusiastically booked our trip for summer 2020. And, well, you don’t need me to tell you how that went! Fast forward four years, and after having PA slide down the to-do list following operational horror story after operational horror story, I’ve finally ticked the place off. However,’ticking it off’ doesn’t begin to do it justice. I have visited PortAventura, and my life has changed.
On our visit, we’d be spending 2.5 days at the resort. Arriving Monday afternoon and departing Wednesday night, having booked the resort’s ‘hotel roulette’ option. This assigned us one of the four 4* hotels on-site the day before and meant we could snap up a ridiculously good price. So, on Sunday we were informed that we’d be staying at the Hotel El Paso. Though not the best of the hotels available, the location made this perfect for our trip. Some of our group were staying in Salou itself, and the hotel was on the main walkway to the town, as well as near the entrance for both parks. Having checked in online, we were able to pick up our room keys in minutes, onto which three days park access – along with one day’s access to Ferrari Land, but that’s for another time – was loaded. So after a quick bag drop and change into some summer gear, we were on our way into PortAventura.
My first thoughts on approaching the theme park were how deceptive its entrance is. As we approached the main gate, I turned to my friend and travel companion Carly to ask… where are the turnstiles? I couldn’t see any! Just a walkway into the park. It turns out there are turnstiles. They’re just around a corner, making the first approach far more welcoming. Tucked around the corner, we’d find them and scan our way into the park to enter a small courtyard. Beautiful Mediterranean buildings surrounded this small square area to make a pretty but underwhelming first land. Of course, the real views were just around the corner. Like many of the greatest parks in the world, PortAventura pulls you into the park, keeping its stunning vista secret until you discover it for yourself.
Across the stunning bay of Mediterrania, the park’s first land that very much functions as its Main Street USA, the very first attraction to greet guests is perhaps the park’s most notorious: Furius Baco. Due to its setting, this is also an attraction that you really don’t want to start your day on. We didn’t end up experiencing the fury of Baco until our final day at the park, a day on which the ride began the day on a staggering 2 hour and 20 minute long wait. Thankfully, come lunchtime, we were able to hop in line and wait just 35 minutes! Not only did we have a brief wait, but we were able to score the most sought-after of rides, a front row! When it comes to Furius Baco, a front row seat not only offers the traditional improved sense of speed and force, but it can just about save your head from the inevitable pain brought on by the rest of the train. Though I cannot speak from experience, having only ridden in the front middle, the most comfortable of all seats, the ride experience elsewhere is legendary! Even in my privileged position, I could still feel the train jostling around me. But in that seat, this ride is something to behold. After passing through a lovely queue area themed to a vineyard – at least it was lovely when we didn’t have to spend long in it – and experiencing a pre-show in which a man is seemingly murdered with wine (?), the Intamin Wing Rider Coaster (the only one of its kind in the world for some reason) blasts out of the station, reaching 83.9mph in 3.5 seconds. Unlike any other hydraulic launch I’ve ever experienced, this launch is followed almost immediately by a drop, which is, quite frankly, an insane sensation. The rest of the layout follows a series of bends before an in-line twist carries you out and over the water for the final turnaround. It’s the sort of ride, like almost any Gerstlauer, that I wish was more enjoyable to ride because the experience otherwise is fantastic.
Elsewhere, Mediterrania is largely focussed on food, drink, and shopping. Though the entire resort falls down slightly on the latter – honestly the merch was a bit of a nightmare – food and drink are strong points indeed.
I honestly would have bought that Shambhala shirt if it hadn’t hidden ‘I survived’ on it!
In fact, the only other experience we’d enjoy in the land would be to sit and have a drink on the ships in the harbour. That’s right, this land themed to a Mediterranean harbour has ships docked in it, and you can just go sit on them! It’s not even an upcharge or dedicated to a particular food outlet. You can just go and enjoy the vibes. Perfection!
Heading into the park, once you pass Furius Baco, you’re greeted with a choice: left or right. Outside of Mediterrania, the park functions largely as a circle beginning with either the Far West or Polynesia. For the purposes of this review, let’s head around the park clockwise, taking the bridge over to the Far West.
On this visit, I was the only person in the group to have not visited this park before, and the resounding opinion amongst the group beforehand was that Far West was the weakest area of the park. Now, I’m not sure if that’s something that has been improved by the addition of Uncharted – more on that later – or just my general soft spot for Western-themed areas, but I adored this area of the park. Around the entire park, one thing that stuck out to me was the hand-painted, high-quality signage throughout each land and attraction, and I really feel like nowhere excels more at this than Far West. Many of my favourite theme park lands out there share this theme: Disneyland Paris’ Frontierland and Knotts Berry Farm’s Ghost Town chief amongst them. Whilst Frontierland excels in being cinematic and Ghost Town feels the most real (you can even buy weapons?!) Far West is just charming. It instantly feels like a land that’s had a lot of love, care, and thought put into its design. The land is overflowing with immaculate signage, enormous cacti, and more fun details than I could count.
Not only that, but this land is home to Vultrix! Vultrix is an animatonic vulture located opposite Tomahawk that, every 15 minutes, will perform a pop song! We were treated to both Bon Jovi and Michael Jackson during our time in the area. What an icon!
On entering the land, the first attraction we reached would be Grand Canyon Rapids. Rapid rides can very often be hit or miss, and I’m happy to say these were a big hit! Whilst they didn’t get us very wet – phew – they were certainly rapid as we found ourselves whisked down the beautifully themed river through vast rockwork ravines.
Of course, at the heart of Far West lays the park’s newest attraction, Uncharted: The Enigma of Penitence. Like Furius Baco, I can fervently recommend against making this your first ride of the day. Unlike Furius Baco, I say that from experience. We, in the most rookie of all rookie moves, rope dropped this headline attraction, despite other hotel guests having early access to it. The result? A wait time of 1hr 40 minutes on a very quiet park day. Later in the day, we’d re-ride with a 35-minute wait. But, you know what? It was worth it. There are some queues that I enjoy spending an inordinate amount of time in, and Uncharted was one of those. At least for the most part. Until the final room at least, the queue is incredibly themed, featuring that Tom Holland animatronic, screens, lighting effects, artwork and knick-knacks that altogether make for a very interesting experience – even the statutory signs are themed!
However, it all goes a bit wrong in the final space. Reminiscent of the cave queue for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, the final room is a cave with not a lot else to look at. And the queue really started to drag here. Maybe it was the boring space, a sudden rush of disability access guests, or unannounced downtime, but it felt like we were in here forever.
Aside from the detailing, another impressive feature of the queue was its integration into the PortAventura app. If using the app whilst in the queue, a notification would appear offering to translate the queue’s audio into any of the major European languages for you! In this way, we were able to keep tabs on both the story and our progression through the queue. Seeing that first ‘Room 1/6’ was quite daunting!
Of course, the elephant in the six rooms was that we’d heard from a lot of people that this ride was just… a bit crap. Here we were, waiting over an hour for something that was almost definitely going to be a disappointment. But in one of the biggest surprises of the trip, I thought Uncharted was absolutely fantastic. Yes, the screens look like they’re displaying PS2 graphics. Yes, there could definitely be more in there. And no, I’m still not entirely sure what the story is. But I still had a really, really good time. In fact, our entire group reached the brake run cheering and laughing and desperate for a second ride. I’m not going to go into detail here as it’s far more fun if you aren’t expecting anything to happen, but this is a ridiculously fun roller coaster, and if you appreciate the theming for the camp mess that it is, you might just have as good a time as we did!
Elsewhere in Far West is the park’s traditional log flume attraction which we sadly didn’t get to experience, alongside a collection of flat rides. Out of these we had a fantastic ride on Crazy Barrels, the park’s breakdance which really was crazy, alongside a not-nearly-as-fantastic ride on the bizarre Volpaiute, a Huss Flipper that seemingly does nothing. The carousel here was also quite weak.
Of course, Uncharted is not the only roller coaster in this area of the park. In fact, there are three others. Stampida (blue & red) and Tomahawk. Stampida was another coaster, like Furius Baco, that I approached with fear. I’d heard terrible, terrible things about the ride experience on this pair of duelling CCI wooden coasters. But once more the coaster gods smiled upon me and blessed me with a front-row ride on the blue side of the coaster, and you know what? It was fun! Sure, it wasn’t glossy smooth, but was certainly no more aggressive than Loup-Garou at Walibi Belgium. In fact, I’d argue it was far better! Whilst I didn’t ride the red side of the coaster, that was simply due to time and I’ll quite happily hop on board next time I’m at the park! Next door sits Tomahawk, Stampida’s younger cousin. Whilst certainly more thrilling than the likes of Blue Flyer at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Tomahawk wasn’t too much to write home about, other than being a smooth, enjoyable ride.
Shortly after Stampida, the Far West fades into the land’s next park: Mexico. Here, the architecture immediately shifts to brightly painted buildings reminiscent of those south of the border. The land is towered over by what is arguably its headline attraction, the 100m tall drop tower, Huracan Condor. Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of drop towers so I didn’t end up experiencing this, and would argue that, for me at least, the true headliner was tucked away slightly further inside the land.
Templo Del Fuego is to fire what Poseidon’s Fury was to water. It’s a stunning theatrical walk-through experience packed with physical effects and how-did-they-do-that moments. Of course, it’s in Spanish – with occasional English words thrown in for some sense of narrative – so the overarching story can be a little hard to follow, but that really didn’t impact my experience. Our guide was incredibly expressive and used body language to let us know the tone of each scene with ease. Through stunning sets – and another beautiful queue line – I was fully immersed in this exciting adventure. I cannot believe that attractions like this still exist in the world, but I’m so bloody glad that they do!
Next door to Templo del Fuego sits that famous Mexican ogre, Shrek’s house. I’ve certainly seen photos of the man himself meeting here in the past and had hoped to meet him during our visit, but can only assume he spent the three days tied up in the back of his house as almost every time we passed this area Woody Woodpecker, alongside Winnie Woodpecker, was outside, wearing stereotypical Mexican clothing and meeting. We did pass a lower-tier Sesame Street character on one occasion, too, and had to meet them despite having no idea who they were! Is it slightly chaotic to have the generic character spot be themed to Shrek and located in Mexico? Sure! But again, I’m just glad it’s here.
The one roller coaster in the area is El Diablo, the park’s Arrow mine train. I find this model very hit or miss, with Thunderation at Silver Dollar City amongst my most hated coasters, but Adventure Express amongst my favourites! El Diablo sits somewhere in the middle, perhaps closer to hit than miss. Whilst not smooth, it never served anything close to a death blow and offered some fun moments and excellent views along its route.
Rounding out Mexico are a series of flat rides and alternative experiences. Despite a YouTube video watched whilst travelling to the park insisting that El Secreto Los Mayas was a hidden gem, once past its well-themed entrance, this attraction offered little beyond a traditional mirror maze, except it seemed a little larger and more confusing than most! Sadly, we didn’t get to experience the stunningly beautiful Serpiente Emplumada after a guest on the cycle before ours was sick, so sick that it was down for a very long time. However, we did experience the almost-as-beautiful Yucatan, a Mack Superbob that offered a lengthy and fast cycle inside a beautifully carved rockwork facade.
Whilst in the area, we stopped for lunch at the vast Cantina restaurant. Here, you can grab a three-course lunch with a drink (including beer) for €21! The food was very good quality with plentiful plant-based options. The vegan chilli was amongst the best I’ve ever had – and served in a fried tortilla bowl! The restaurant itself offered a vast amount of seating in a themed, air-conditioned space that even hosted a show we caught the very beginning of as we were leaving. You really couldn’t ask for more.
Of all the areas in PortAventura, none scream the park’s name louder than China. If you’re not sure what I mean, let me just share a quick photo of the skyline of this land as viewed from Mexico.
If, somehow, you’ve made it to a theme park blog and yet you do not recognise that skyline, well, my congratulations to you because I don’t know how you’ve done it. The tangled mess of white and red B&M track that makes up the China skyline is amongst the most iconic in the world, and it’s what beckons you in towards two of PortAventura’s star attractions: Shambhala and Dragon Khan.
Before I get carried away, there are other things in China. There’s a large theatre which at our time of visit was hosting a bubble show which we did not get to catch. There’s also a tucked-away children’s area, which we only actually ever saw from the railroad and kept saying,’we need to find that area!’ We did, however, stop to eat lunch at the quick-service eatery here, Dagana, which, whilst nothing to shout about, did offer a vegan hot dog for €5.70, which honestly was just what we needed!
Did someone say John Wardley B&M? In Spain? Having held the world record for most inversions for 7 years on opening – eventually to be beaten by Colossus at Thorpe Park – Dragon Khan still holds its own. Like many other coasters here, this was one I was nervous to ride, having heard so many people comment on its rough rides. So it’s safe to say I was not pleased when we were batched into the back-row for our first ride. But… it was… perfect? I had a glorious, forceful ride, flying through inversion after inversion with not even the slightest bit of roughness. I was straight onto my phone, singing Dragon Khan’s praises and getting ready to hop back on for another ride. Sadly, this is where it all went wrong. Our next ride would be on row 4, and I don’t know if it was a different train or just the seat, but oh boy, this was unpleasant. Not unbearable, or particularly jolty, or headbang-y, it just rattled and left me with a headache by about halfway through the layout. I get it. I really get it. I’ll still ride it again, though!
Next door sits a coaster that needs no introduction. The third tallest roller coaster in Europe, and one of my most anticipated rides in the world. It is, of course, Shambhala. The stunning B&M hypercoaster. Across our visit, I would ride Shambhala four times. Twice in the second row (wing), once in the penultimate row (middle) and once in the back-row (wing). Though I adored my rides towards the rear of the train – particularly in the wing seat of the back row which I felt greatly improved the sense of speed throughout the ride – it was the front of the train where Shambhala truly excelled for me. Sure, the pull over the initial drop and subsequent fall was outstanding at the back. But the sense of speed at the front – even just on the wing, I never experienced the front front – was the closest I’ve ever felt to being back on my beloved Fury 325. My face felt every one of the 83.3 miles per hour this ride pulls. Rippling away as we raced across airtime hill after airtime hill. But despite the seemingly endless floater airtime and the beautiful splash-down element, my favourite part of the whole ride was actually the turnaround. Though not as graceful as Fury’s iconic treble clef, this was again the closest I’ve felt to being on that element, and it just felt bloody glorious. I could not get enough of this thing!
But, I’ll let you into a secret. Shambhala wasn’t actually my most anticipated attraction at the resort. That could actually be found in the next land on our tour. The violently vibrant SésamoAventura.
SésamoAventura is a vast, colourful family area dedicated to the beloved Sesame Street characters. This land is absolutely overflowing with charm, featuring the bright colours and iconography of Sesame Street everywhere you look. Even the walls are made out of cookies!
But it’s not just the walls! Whimsy seeps into every single structure within the land, with parasols taking the form of giant colourful mushrooms and not a straight line to be found on sign or lamp posts!
Thankfully, it’s not all style. This land certainly has substance, too! Here, you can find a vast array of family rides, including the Vekoma Junior Coaster Tami-Tami, which offers a fun family layout in the most stunning of settings. The queue is a bridge over a pool, surrounded with birds of paradise!? Excuse me?!
Opposite is another firm favourite: Magic Fish. This is a Zierer Jet Ski attraction, i.e. one of the best family flat models in the world. A model that I firmly believe is an adult’s attraction in disguise. In the right hands, these rides are thrilling! Magic Fish was no exception, and we were able to hop straight on the ride for a cycle that left me yelping and giggling my way around.
However, the headline attraction sits at the very top of the park in its own dedicated plaza. Here, you’ll find Sesame Street: Street Mission. PortAventura’s signature dark ride. This 2019 Sally Dark Rides masterpiece is packed full of animatronics, screens, shooting, and even a simulator section. The smell of chocolate chip cookies permeates the attraction, though I’ve been reliably informed that there should have been other smells too, I was happy enough with this! Despite a few issues with the audio on our visit, I still couldn’t help but be absolutely entranced by this ride. It just continually pulls tricks out of its sleeve! For instance, we were supposed to be shooting at digital cookies on the screens, but the real physical cookies in the room? Oh, they’re targets too!
The most wonderful part of all though was the pre-show. In the ride’s perfectly themed cattle-pen queue area, I received the surprise of my life as I was greeted by a walking Grover animatronic! I mean sure, you can’t see his legs, but he moves up and down and talk as he does so! This movement is synced with screens around the room so that as the animatronic disappears from view physically, he appears virtually elsewhere! It’s modern dark ride magic, and I loved every second. As you can see in these candids snapped by my friends who knew what was coming!
Finally, as the ride is, of course, set in New York City, we are treated with some magnificent plays on classic Broadway musical posters! This ride really said Claire Rights!
The final land of PortAventura, and perhaps the one I have the least to say about, is Polynesia. That is by no means because it is the weakest of the lands. In fact, it’s actually one of the most beautiful. We just did not experience any of its attractions! For adults, the land offers two rides: Kontiki, a classic pirate ship, and Tutuki Splash, a volcano-themed shoot-the-chute attraction. One, we simply didn’t have time for, and the other was a conscious decision. Whilst it was warm, it certainly wasn’t soaked-to-the-bone weather, and that’s how people were coming off of Tutuki! The area also hosts a variety of entertainment that we did not manage to squeeze into our visit either! However, one thing we did experience was Bora Bora, another fantastic restaurant option offering a similar set menu to the Cantina. Except here, you could find fresh poké bowls and noodles. Not feeling the set menu, I opted for noodles alone, which, together with a beer, set me back £12. Not bad at all! The noodles were passable, with the soy sauce dressing making them taste relatively flat, but with an excellent plant-based chicken substitute! I think I’d go for a poké bowl next time! The theming inside the restaurant and views over Tutuki Splash, however, were phenomenal.
Whilst we didn’t experience any of this land’s attractions, what was unmissable was its incredible natural beauty. Of all the areas in the park, this is undoubtedly the most impressively landscaped. At times, it’s easy to feel lost in the trees, as though you’re really thousands of miles away in Polynesia. In the more nearby theme park world, it evoked memories of Disney’s Animal Kingdom and of Discovery Cove. It really felt like a blissful paradise, and even this Coca-Cola advertisement was in on it!
I mean really, what a place. And what a way to complete the loop around the park.
Speaking of loops, there is one final attraction that I need to mention that exists outside of any individual theme park land, and that is, of course, the PortAventura Railroad. With stations in Mediterrania, Far West and SésamoAventura, it’s easy to use the railroad as a transportation service around the park, which is great enough in itself but it’s so much more than that! This sits up there with the very best theme park railroads as offering a guided tour around the park, with themed music and a dramatic introduction to each land of the park as the train passes through, this is a gorgeous attraction that took me back to my childhood (and adult) laps on the Disneyland railroad! I cannot recommend it enough!
PortAventura is a remarkable theme park. With its diverse lands, the park is able to combine elements of some of my favourite theme parks in the world into one place. In fact, as we walked around the park, my friends couldn’t resist calling me out for the unintentional name-dropping that was going on. As we discovered each land, I couldn’t help but gasp as areas reminded me of Disney’s Animal Kingdom (the lush landscaping of Polynesia), the rich lived-in feel of Knotts’ Ghost Town (Far West) or even the joy and whimsy of Universal’s Islands of Adventure’s Seuss Landings (seen best in the wonky light fittings of SésamoAventura). Most staggeringly, it offers all of this for an incredibly low price. Whilst I’m sure prices become substantially higher at peak times, our mid-week on-site package came in at just £100 per person based on two sharing. That £100 bought us two nights in a themed, on-site hotel, two (incredible) buffet breakfasts, three days in PortAventura Park and one evening in Ferrari Land (more on that place another time). That is, quite honestly, ridiculous value.
Hearing little about the park except that its rides were janky, and its queues were long, I’d found little cause to visit PortAventura for so long. Now? I’m finding it hard to stay away. Even just writing this has reminded me how much there is still left for me to experience within the park. I didn’t even see the parade!
And what of those operational horror stories? Well, they never really materialised. At least not much. In our whole time at the park, I was queue-jumped three times. Of those occasions, once was by a kid who’d clearly been to the toilet, so I’m not even annoyed by that one. Honestly, this is less frequent than I experience queue-jumpers at UK parks, so that was a non-issue! Fastpass is very much prioritised, but thankfully, on our quiet park days it wasn’t being utilised enough to cause much issue for us. We did witness some incredibly slow operations, but every time, it seemed as though perhaps something had happened as things would be going fine and then suddenly plummet. All in all, we didn’t experience anything at PortAventura that I’ve not seen elsewhere, and certainly not enough to put me off revisiting… at least off peak.
So, when’s the next quiet period?
Speak again soon,
Claire
x
P.S. Did I mention the themed lights? Because look at these lights!
coasterclaire.co.uk 