Day 1 - Portaventura and Ferrari Land

Portaventura Trip Report – Day 1

Travel & Hotel

Huge bucket list park for me: PortAventura.

I’ve been watching vlogs and reading plenty of reports from PortAventura since a young age, but I’ve just never got around to doing it.

They don’t have a huge coaster lineup, and with so many mixed reviews, particularly on operations, it’s never been high up on my list to tick off.

I found a great deal on the hotel and flights that worked perfectly, so I booked a solo trip. 3 days and 2 nights, arrive Weds 17th and return on Friday 19th.

I bagged return flights from Gatwick for £45, and booked Hotel Roulette for £210 (also got £20 cashback so worked out to £190), which also included 3 days entry at PortAventura and 1 entry for Ferrari Land. Absolute bargain. If it was for 2 people it would’ve been an even better deal as the hotel was the same price.

Hotel Roulette is slightly cheaper and allocates you a random hotel - I was allocated El Paso.

I got an early flight and arrived in Barcelona at around 11. I arrived at the hotel around 2pm, checked in, dumped my bag and walked straight round to the park.

Whats that peeking through the trees.

PortAventura

First impressions were great. Lovely area of the park with great theme music playing, lots of nice seating and food outlets overlooking the lake.

Furious Baco was the first attraction I came across being at the entrance, so I headed straight for the single rider queue. I was sat towards the back on the right side (normally being a single rider you get the left side, but as the group I was allocated with sat there I took the empty seat on the right).

The initial launch and pop of airtime at the end of the launch is great. Very unique having the launch on an upwards slant too. But from there, I didn’t enjoy any other part of the layout and it was quite rough. Obviously I needed to ride it more and in different seats to share my thoughts properly. Spoiler: it gets worse.

Having just arrived I was pretty eager to get on some more coasters, so I walked past Tutuki Splash then a very long way towards Shambhala and Dragon Khan, B&M land. I had no idea where I was going, just following paths till I found the B&Ms.

The views of the 2 B&Ms are stunning.

On my approach I noticed Dragon Khan was walk-on, so got straight on. I didn’t know what to expect with this - I love an old B&M but had heard lots about it being rough and showing its age.

It looks absolutely stunning with its recent paint job, and I loved the colours of the train. And that roar. You just can’t beat the sound of these old B&Ms.

And how did it ride? I absolutely loved it. Thought it rode excellently for an old coaster - I really don’t understand the noise about it being rough. It was very forceful, that zero-g roll in particular was ridiculous. The interlocking corkscrews look great. The cobra roll perfectly placed over the brake run looks stunning.

Think I prefer this over Kumba, but hard to say as its now been 10 years since I've been on Kumba. But I don't remember Kumba hitting that hard intensity wise.

Went straight back round for another go as I thought it was rude not to with no queue. I was then itching for the big B&M towering above me.

I walked round to Shambhala and saw the SRQ was chained off, so joined the main queue which was advertised at 25 minutes, but was on in 20 mins.

It wasn’t until I got to the station I realised the SRQ was still in use even though it was chained off - you just had to go over the chain or jump the main queue. That explains why I saw a few people jumping the main queue whilst I was waiting.

Anyway. Once again, I didn't know what to expect. Lots of mixed reviews - some love it, some say it’s very overhyped. With all these new Intamins with aggressive airtime, I didn’t know if I was going to like it.

I loved this thing. Really loved it. Completely exceeded my expectations. Brilliant first drop, and then floater airtime for pretty much the rest of the layout.

The turnaround section is ridiculously forceful, a near grey-out on exit, then straight into a speed hill. My favorite part of the layout.

The train design is perfect, I particularly love the ‘outer’ seats which pretty much feel like winged seats.

The views from the lift hill are great, and I absolutely love the way the 2 lift hills are placed for this and Khan. So unique, and you get some funny interactions when they’re dispatched at similar times. Lots of waves.

The splashdown was off but was randomly turned on midway through Thursday. Good fun on the outer seats and you can touch the water.

Pretty much a flawless coaster for me and I decided pretty early on this is my favourite B&M. Nice to have a B&M back in my top 10 😃

After a couple more rides using the ‘closed’ SRQ, I continued to wander round the park and came across Hurakan Condor.

I love a drop tower, particularly these Intamin ones.

It’s brilliantly themed. I didn’t realize the roof was actually a bit tilted until I saw it in person for the first time. Had to Google if it was meant to be like that 🤣

I entered the queue which was very short, and there was no one waiting in the SRQ so I went for that. I was quite surprised to see all 5 towers operating, after seeing other people report it being on 2–3 in peak summer.

I had 3 quick rides using the SRQ, first one being standard sit down and the other 2 being stand up tilt.

Great drop tower with great views. I didn’t actually realize how huge this thing is until I was there.

Bit of a shame you can’t pick to stand up or sit down, even if you were to go in the main queue.

I do love the atmosphere around drop towers - it’s always the one ride at a theme park which scares people. Lots of people getting to the front of the queue and requesting the sit-down tower is quite amusing to watch 🤣

I continued to explore and stumbled into the Wild West area. Beautifully themed. I jumped straight on Stampida (blue side) and had no idea what to expect.

I do like that you can choose which side in the queue. Groups together were going separately so they can race.

It was not very enjoyable at all unfortunately. Very rough/jolty. Shame as it’s a fantastic layout (John Wardley classic), I particularly like the bit where the 2 trains go towards each other. But yeah, too rough to enjoy any of it really.

Next up I wanted to try Uncharted. It was advertised at 50 mins, and unfortunately has no SRQ as that’s been replaced by an express queue. Shame this wasn’t designed with both, seeing as it’s a new ride.

Even though it had the highest queue on park (which was a running trend) I just went for it as I know it had a terrible capacity and wasn’t likely to change.

I hadn’t actually seen much about this coaster so didn’t know what to expect. The exterior and the indoor queue are both fantastic. Very highly themed.

It’s a decent ride. The ride system is absolutely fantastic, really comfy trains and fun launches, and it’s brilliant how the ride vehicle rotates.

However the theming on ride is dire. It’s just a dark building with a couple of screens. And I really hate that you can see the track in front of you so you know what’s coming.

It’s a fairly short ride too, but the main problem is the theming for me. Big shame as that ride has a lot of potential. Fantastic ride system though so I look forward to seeing what other parks do with them.

And that was it for my first day. It was about half 5 so I still had half an hour till queues closed, but Ferrari Land opened at half 4 and Red Force was calling my name.

Ferrari Land

There was only 1 reason I was bothered about Ferrari Land, Red Force, obviously.

Walking into the park, everything looked very new and clean, as you’d expect from a fairly new park.

Walking towards Red Force, you can’t help but notice the noise it makes. It’s so loud - love it. Sounds like a plane taking off every couple minutes, very fitting with it being Ferrari Land.

I headed straight for the SRQ, walking past huge cattle pens almost backed up to the entrance.

Main queue was advertised at 30 minutes which was nonsense.

Later on in the evening when the queue was 1/3 of the size it was advertised at 1 hour and 20 mins.

Strange as they seemed fairly accurate in Portaventura, most of the time. In Ferrari Land though, they were always wrong.

This park seriously needs more capacity though. Queues like that on an 'off peak' day.

Amazingly, I only waited 15 minutes in the SRQ, and even more amazingly I lucked out and got allocated the front row on my first ride. Thanks to 2 out of a group of 3 being too scared for the front.

Unfortunately you have to wear glasses on the front, similar to Energylandia, but that didn’t take away from the ride too much.

It’s a great coaster, the launch is fantastic, particularly at the end of the launch you can really feel the LSMs kick in. I love that there isn’t a pause either — straight out the station into a launch.

Amazing views on the top hat. No airtime at the top as it goes over very slowly, but you do get some great views. This is the tallest coaster I’ve done and it feels like it when you’re up there.

You then have a brilliant drop, and a nice pop of airtime before going into the brakes.

I went round another 4 times all in SRQ and was allocated row 5 the first 3 times, then lucked out and got another front row ride.

It is a great coaster, but I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by it. The launch is great, but it really doesn’t have that same kick to it as the hydraulic launches. Which does make me sad I never got to do TTD or Ka in their original forms 💔

It’s a little rough too. Unless you’re on the front row, it shakes a lot the further you get down that launch track, and it isn’t comfortable.

I probably prefer Stealth, purely due to the acceleration and it not being rough, but Red Force is still a fantastic coaster and does create a fantastic atmosphere in Ferrari Land. As I mentioned earlier, the noise that thing makes is incredible.

On my 5th ride, whilst I was in the airgate, it had a short breakdown. The train advanced onto the launch track but didn’t launch. But it was dealt with quickly - engineers arrived and reversed it back into the station. They sent the train and it was back in operation, all within 10 mins.

After 5 laps, I headed over to the Thrill Towers which were walk-on.

This park really filters out as time goes on. It gets really busy at PortAventura park close (6pm), but it seems most people go in the park and have 1 lap on Red Force then leave. Except people like me 🤣

1 of the towers is on the ‘shot’ setting and the other is on the drop setting. You don’t get to choose, you just randomly get allocated one. I had 1 go on each.

The shot tower was okay but I’ve definitely done better, the drop one was really good though. Very forceful.

There wasn’t long left till park close at 10pm, so I decided to spend the rest of the evening on Red Force. The main queue was empty so I just used that, and managed 3 rides which were all in row 2. This also included another 10 minute breakdown, just a quick reset from engineers.

This thing is absolutely incredible at night. There was such a good atmosphere too - the only people left in the park were all lapping it, and the staff on offload were encouraging us to run round to get a last ride in. I was on the 2nd-to-last train and everyone was clapping and cheering. Great fun.

I then wandered back over to the hotel, had some fajitas in the restaurant (open till 11) which were nice, and went to sleep ready for a full day in the park tomorrow.

Wrap up & Operations

What a great first day. I just couldn’t believe how nice the park was and instantly fell in love with it - the pathways, landscaping, music, and views all create such a nice atmosphere. The weather was perfect too. Food was reasonably priced for a theme park, though drinks were very expensive. I wizzed round and got a feel for the park in the short time I had there so was looking forward to spending a full day there on Thursday.

And the operations? Honestly, better than I expected. I’d heard horror stories, but on my trip it wasn’t too bad at all. I imagine busy days would be different, but I didn’t see much queue jumping or overuse of express.

• Furious Baco: 2/2 trains

• Shambhala & Dragon Khan: 2/3 on each (a third wouldn’t have helped, they were stacking). They had all 3 available as they were swapped throughout the 3 days.

• Hurakan Condor: 5/5 towers

• Stampida: 1/2 on each side (but didn’t need more)

• Uncharted: 3/3 trains

• Red Force: 2 trains (not sure if it can run 3). Again all 3 were available as they were swapped on Thursday.

The big issue is Red Force. It’s the headline attraction and it draws a huge crowd, but dispatches averaged around 90 seconds — only about 480 pph. That’s terrible, especially once you factor in express and disabled access.

Stealth dispatches faster, even with more seats and seatbelts to check. Red Force needs a better baggage system if they want to seriously increase throughput. They should also advance trains into the station quicker - waiting for the train to clear the top hat each time kills throughput.

I didn't see any breakdowns all day apart from the 2 short breakdowns on Red Force.

Will write up Day 2 & 3 soon with thoughts on the rest of the park and thoughts on re-rides.