Matt N

I think the main issue with Blade and Flávio’s going is that it makes an already thinned out lineup for the middle ground family audience even thinner. In my view, it’s not really a flat ride issue, as we have got the Top Spin coming next year which somewhat counteracts Blade’s removal, but instead more of a middle ground whole family ride issue. The Blade was a key stalwart of Alton Towers’ middle ground family lineup, so with that gone, an already squeezed demographic is taking even more of a hit.

It’s looking to me like whatever is happening with the Beach might potentially be 2025’s draw instead. I wouldn’t be wholly surprised if they built some sort of ride there. Where did the park get with that proposal to not need planning applications for structures below 25m? If that got passed by the council, then they could theoretically be doing anything below 25m without us needing to know about it.

Apologies for being nearly a month late, but I have some throughput timings and insights to share from my recent trip to PortAventura World in Spain. The throughput readings I was able to get were as follows: Dragon Khan (Theoretical: Unknown on 3 trains) - 668pph (2 trains, average of 4, 10th September 2024), 806pph (2 trains, average of 3, 11th September 2024), 409pph (1 train, average of 4, 12th September 2024) El Diablo (Theoretical: Unknown on 3 trains) - 1,000pph (2 trains, average of 4, 11th September 2024) Furius Baco (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains) - 580pph (2 trains, average of 3, 10th September 2024), 622pph (2 trains, average of 10, 11th September 2024) Note: The 11th September average was skewed downwards by one particularly slow reading at the end; the picture up to that point was closer to 700pph. Red Force (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 434pph (2 trains, average of 10, 11th September 2024) Note: This average was skewed downwards by one particularly slow reading at the end. Up to that point, the average was closer to 550pph, or a train around every 80s. Shambhala (Theoretical: 1,680pph on 3 trains) - 816pph (2 trains, average of 10, 10th September 2024), 774pph (2 trains, average of 9, 11th September 2024), 425pph (1 train, 12th September 2024, average of 2) Stampida (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains per side) - 1,229pph (2 trains per side, average of 6, 10th September 2024) Tomahawk (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 552pph (2 trains, average of 3, 10th September 2024) Uncharted (Theoretical: 900pph on 3 cars) - 720pph (unknown number of cars, average of 2, 12th September 2024) Overall, I did not think that PortAventura’s operations were nearly as bad as I was expecting. Were they overly fast? No. But I also didn’t feel that they were abysmally slow either. Express Pass also wasn’t oversold, and queues moved decently. Queue times weren’t too bad either; I didn’t queue over an hour for anything all trip, and while the likes of Shambhala and Dragon Khan did get longer queues on occasion, there was always a major ride on a short queue to ride. Stampida, El Diablo, Street Mission and the water rides amongst others never seemed to get a queue longer than 20 minutes all trip. In terms of the actual throughputs themselves; the only time I saw anything run on 1 train was Shambhala and Dragon Khan in the slightly hairy weather on Friday. Under normal circumstances, everything seemed to run at least 2 trains, and while not lightning fast, I didn’t think the dispatches were excessively slow either.

Following my recent (well, nearly a month ago…) trip to PortAventura World in Spain to close out the year, I can now update my top 10 and top 30 yet again, with a rather big new entry at the very top being the icing on the cake… My current top 10, with a coaster count of 134, is now as follows (new in italics) : Shambhala - PortAventura Park: It’s finally happened… after 8 years, a new top dog is in town! I had very high expectations for Shambhala, and it did not disappoint; it’s an absolutely sublime coaster! As with Mako, the sustained airtime is glorious; the first drop is wonderful, and every single hill had brilliant sustained air! But there were a few little things that pushed it the distance above Mako for me. Unlike Mako, Shambhala keeps the thrills going right to the end, with every hill delivering, and as a result, I think it flows a bit better. The enhanced height and speed also really added to the ride compared to Mako and Silver Star for me, and another aspect I loved on Shambhala was the speed hill, which seemed much more notable in my mind than the similar element on Mako. Overall, though, Shambhala was just wonderful, and I loved every single one of the 7 rides I had on it while in Spain. Mako had a good 8 years at the top, but Shambhala is a very deserving successor! Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: It may not be top dog anymore, but Mako has held a special place in my heart ever since I first rode it back in 2016, and my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced my love for it! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10 Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: It may not quite be #1, but my goodness was it close, and VelociCoaster would certainly be a worthy contender for the top spot! There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are quite a few sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a firm favourite of mine! 10/10 Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I did rank this below Mako of the two B&M Hypers I've ridden due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako's strongest moments, in my view, and while smooth in its own right, it isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako. I also felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10 Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! There are also some absolutely top-drawer moments of ejector airtime elsewhere in the layout, and the ride is smooth and rerideable! In terms of why I moved it up when I haven’t reridden it, this is because in retrospect, I think I was overly harsh on Iron Gwazi at the time, fixating on its very tiniest imperfections to try and quantify the slight disappointment of it not quite living up to my wildly high expectations on the very first go. This is going to sound odd, but Iron Gwazi is a coaster where the more I sit back and think about it, the more I actually love it. Thinking back, it grew on me considerably the second and third times I did it once the weight of expectation was off its shoulders, and it is genuinely a top tier ride that is more than deserving of a top 5 placement for me! 10/10 Hyperia - Thorpe Park: What a sublime ride! I was excited for Hyperia, and it did not disappoint! I love a good hyper, and Hyperia is a phenomenal one! For starters, the ride is primarily designed around weightlessness, and it delivers this excellently; you seem to spend half of the ride pinned out of the seat in some capacity! The first three big elements on the ride are an obscenely perfect sequence. The first drop is absolutely unhinged and so, so good, delivering excellent sustained ejector, the non-inverting Immelmann is sublime and offers both brilliant speed rushing up into it and top-drawer sustained ejector coming out of it, and that outerbanked turn into the inversion is wild and pins you right of your seat with top-tier sustained sideways ejector! The zero-g stall is not quite up there with the other elements, but it is still excellent, with sustained hangtime, and the final two elements after the trim were surprisingly excellent, with both the outerbanked turn and the final airtime hill delivering! Overall, then, Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster, in my view, and it definitely lived up to the hype for me. It’s so good to have a coaster this brilliant 2 hours from home, that I can most probably ride at least once annually! 10/10 Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10 Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10 SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa: I had remembered liking this ride back in 2016, but my reride in 2023 was even better than I’d previously remembered! I love a B&M Dive Coaster, and this was a fantastic one! The sustained airtime over both drops was absolutely phenomenal, and the sheer size of them produced a brilliant sensation of speed throughout the ride! You typically think of Dive Coasters for their initial vertical drop, but interestingly, I actually thought that the second vertical drop on SheiKra delivered just as much as the first if not more! Overall, SheiKra was phenomenal, and a really pleasant surprise; I often said that I preferred Oblivion, but I’d now say that I comfortably prefer SheiKra, as I do feel that the added height and length really add something to it! 10/10 Wicker Man - Alton Towers: Wicker Man is a fantastic GCI coaster that I absolutely love! It may not look like much on paper, but I find it to be an enormously fun and rerideable coaster that never fails to put a huge smile on my face! I find it to be a really fast-paced coaster with some really fun twists and turns and some surprising pops of airtime, with some particular favourite elements of mine being the initial s-bend drop, where you gain brilliant speed incredibly quickly, and the big drop out of the high u-turn and following airtime hill, with both elements providing some excellent airtime that really whips you out of the seat! Overall, I find Wicker Man a hugely fun and rerideable wooden coaster with awesome airtime, twists and pacing, and I think it’s a ride that is definitely far more than the sum of its parts, personally! I decided to bump it up a few spots after my most recent visit in 2024, where it was running so well on the 2 rides I had; the airtime was kicking, the ride was blisteringly fast-paced, and it just made me laugh and smile so much! Somewhat similarly to Hagrid’s, Wicker Man just takes the raw fun factor to a whole new level for me! 10/10 Shambhala was the only ride at PortAventura to make my top 10. I had an outside hope that Red Force might make it in there based on some of the more positive comments I’d heard about it, but alas, it was “only” top 20 material for me! Perhaps controversially, I actually ended up marginally preferring Stealth… In terms of the top 30 following PortAventura, this now looks as follows (new in bold) : Shambhala - PortAventura Park (10/10) Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10) Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10) Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10) Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10) SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10) Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10) Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10) Stealth - Thorpe Park (9/10) Red Force - Ferrari Land (9/10) Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10) Nemesis Reborn - Alton Towers (9/10) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10) Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10) Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10) The Swarm - Thorpe Park (8/10) Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10) Rock’n’Rollercoaster - Disney’s Hollywood Studios (8/10) Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10) Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence - PortAventura Park (8/10) Another surprise contender since my last update that only narrowly missed out, sitting in the #32 spot, was Gold Rush at Drayton Manor! That was an unexpectedly excellent family coaster! It has been an excellent year for me, on the whole. It’s been my most cred-tastic year ever, with 23 new credits ridden this year in total (the first time I’ve ever gone over 20 new credits in a year!), and I’ve also had 2 new top 10 additions in Shambhala and Hyperia (not quite as good as last year, where I had 4 new top 10 additions and a resurgent previously ridden coaster that re-entered my top 10 after a particularly strong performance on my revisit, but still pretty good, in my view!). For those interested, I would rank all 23 new coasters I rode this year as follows: Shambhala - PortAventura Park (10/10, #1/134) Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10, #6/134) Red Force - Ferrari Land (9/10, #15/134) Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence - PortAventura Park (8/10, #30/134) Gold Rush - Drayton Manor (8/10, #32/134) Roller Coaster - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (7/10, #39/134) Dragon Khan - PortAventura Park (6/10, #50/134) Minifigure Speedway (Legends) - Legoland Windsor (5/10, #65/134) Minifigure Speedway (Allstars) - Legoland Windsor (5/10, #66/134) El Diablo: Tren de la Mina - PortAventura Park (5/10, #67/134) Tomahawk - PortAventura Park (5/10, #68/134) Furius Baco - PortAventura Park (4/10, #87/134) Stampida (Red) - PortAventura Park (4/10, #88/134) Stampida (Blue) - PortAventura Park (4/10, #89/134) Spook Express - Joyland Children’s Fun Park (4/10, #95/134) Tami Tami - PortAventura Park (4/10, #96/134) Egg-Spress - Pleasurewood Hills (4/10, #101/134) Cannonball Express - Pleasurewood Hills (3/10, #108/134) Wipeout - Pleasurewood Hills (3/10,#112/134) Whirlwind - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (3/10, #114/134) Big Apple - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (3/10, #118/134) Family Star - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (2/10, #127/134) Tyrolean Tubtwist - Joyland Children’s Fun Park (1/10, #134/134) I’m not sensing that next year will be quite as fruitful due to me having to do an MSc dissertation over the summer, but me and my parents are still pondering another new foreign park visit next year, so who knows!

Despite reports to the contrary, I honestly did not find PortAventura's operations, queues or Express Pass nearly as bad as expected, and I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 days there!

It would appear as though some sort of construction work has begun on Amity Beach, with diggers now present, indicating that some sort of major redevelopment or facelift could be coming: https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Thorpe-Park-2025-Beach-Redevelopment-Begins?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2CWtvfuCQDURzVQgibW2baEsyFLXyHir-_pXaA4HebIp8LVd8MwWxGwmE_aem_Um8Q1g2xTQTBRLVmFdmWDA It’s a promising sign if the beach is getting redeveloped in some capacity. I personally feel that it’s currently one of Thorpe Park’s weak spots. I wonder what could be happening?

PortAventura: An Overall Review and Trip Summary Right, then; I’ve now landed back in the UK, done all of my post-trip spreadsheet stuff, and just about recovered from the journey home! Spending 4 hours waiting in Barcelona Airport and arriving back in Bristol Airport at 1am to temperatures of 6 degrees when used to (and dressed for) the beautiful climate of Salou was certainly a rude awakening from that trip bubble, but the journey mostly went well, and now I’m back, I’m in the mood to write a bit of a trip summary and do a slightly more comprehensive review of PortAventura overall through my first timer’s lens. Before going to PortAventura, I was excited, but I’ll profess to having slightly more bated breath than when I went to Europa Park, the last major new European theme park I visited, for the first time. Over the years, I’ve read all kinds of diatribes and horror stories about PortAventura, saying about how dreadful the operations are, how dreadful the Express overuse is, how dreadful the food is, how dreadful the hotels are, how dreadful the queue jumping is… despite PortAventura’s widely accepted status as a major European theme park resort, I’ve heard all kinds of dire reports from it over the years. Hearing these reports which are at best extremely mixed did make me quite hesitant about the sort of experience we might have at PortAventura. But having now visited, did I mirror these reports in being similarly disappointed with PortAventura? I have to say; no, I didn’t. I absolutely loved PortAventura and would definitely rank it as one of my top European theme parks! It had big shoes to fill after the splendour of Europa Park in 2022, but it did not disappoint for me, and I had an immensely pleasurable visit to the park and resort! With some of these reports I had gone in having heard, I would definitely say that the overall product at PortAventura exceeded my expectations. Let me start by discussing the rides and attractions on offer at PortAventura World… Rides and Attractions Firstly, you have your roller coasters. I like to call myself a theme park enthusiast, but in reality, I do have a definite slight bias towards coasters over other varieties of attraction. PortAventura has a good coaster selection, but I will say that if talking about coasters alone, I have been to stronger places coasters-wise than PortAventura, particularly if excluding Red Force from the equation and only counting what’s in the main PortAventura Park. I would probably put Alton Towers and Thorpe Park higher overall for coasters, as well as a pre-Voltron Europa Park. If I’m being very picky, I do maybe think that the main park could do with another modern headline thrill coaster to complement Shambhala. With that being said, the resort is still no slouch in this regard; Shambhala is an absolutely stunning top coaster for the resort for me, Red Force is also absolutely superb, and Uncharted, while somewhat sub-par in terms of on-ride theming, also stood out to me as an excellently fun family thrill coaster that I thoroughly enjoyed. There’s also quite a wide variety of other types of coaster in PortAventura Park that I enjoyed, and there is certainly plenty to satisfy a coaster fan, in my view. At very least, plenty of rerides on Shambhala should do the trick! Some of the main surprises of PortAventura for me, however, came in the form of its non-coaster attractions. Some of the ones I did were really pleasant surprises! For example, Street Mission was an absolutely fantastic dark ride, with awesome fusion between screens and physical sets, lots of excellent theming and an overall incredibly fun and well executed experience! Grand Canyon Rapids, despite being quite an unassuming rapids ride at first glance, was also an excellent example of the genre, with some really good waves, a generally fast pace, great theming and some fun water effects! Templo del Fuego, while not being entirely my sort of thing, was also quite entertaining, with some excellent special effects on show! While not quite on the level of Europa Park in terms of sheer amount of attractions, I think PortAventura does offer some decent non-coasters, a nice variety of things to do, and at least one very decent attraction in most genres. Let me now talk about what I feel is one of the strongest aspects of PortAventura… Theming/Atmosphere I am personally a big fan of parks where thrills and theming exist in unison, and PortAventura most certainly ticks this box! As much as the resort has some great coasters and rides, I think that theming is one of the things it does best. PortAventura Park, visually speaking, is absolutely stunning. The whole place is intricately themed and packed full of details; these themed areas are stunning! Far West is gorgeous, Polynesia is lovely, Mexico is lovely, China is wonderful, Meditarranea is gorgeous… I don’t think there’s one themed area in PortAventura Park that is anything less than gorgeously themed and lavishly packed with detail! Ferrari Land is also very nicely themed, with those Italian streets being lovely! The resort is a feast for the eyes visually, and I think this contributes to it being an incredibly nice park to walk around and just exist in. It has a very nice atmosphere, and I think that it’s just very pleasant to walk around and not stressful to be in. It’s a park where I think you could be quite satisfied by just walking around or sitting taking in the sights and sounds! Another point I’d raise is that I think new additions to the park have been integrated incredibly seamlessly and stayed very in-keeping with the original design. Sometimes, new additions can contrast a bit with what was there before and look a bit jarring, but I think PortAventura does an excellent job of maintaining consistent area visions. For example, Shambhala integrates seamlessly with the rest of China, and Uncharted integrates seamlessly with the rest of Far West. In my opinion, theming is one of the areas where PortAventura shines brightest, and in this sense, I think it is every bit as nice as Europa Park is. Let me now briefly discuss the on-site hotel and my experience there… Hotel We stayed on site at PortAventura in Hotel Gold River, in one of the Superior Callaghan Rooms. I’d heard incredibly mixed reviews of the hotels at PortAventura, but I have to say that personally, I could not fault the hotel at all and would say that it’s as nice as any theme park hotel I’ve stayed in. As with the theme parks, Hotel Gold River is a gorgeously themed complex packed with detail. There is so much to look at and so many details to see! The room was also very nice (arguably nicer than the room we stayed in at Hotel Castillo Alcazar at Europa Park, although that may be helped by us having upgraded to the slightly more expensive Callaghan room), and it was absolutely spotless and cleaned every day. We also thought that the food was absolutely excellent; breakfast was lovely, and the evening buffet was very nice, with a different offering every day! It also had a very nice atmosphere; sitting in the central courtyard section with some drinks was a very nice way to spend an evening! Overall, then, I would definitely stay on site again, and I think it offers excellent value for money! For 3 adults for 3 nights with park tickets (unlimited entry to the main park and 1 entry to Ferrari Land), half board, shared transfers and flights, the entire holiday booking through PortAventura cost around £1,280, and I think that the experience offered is absolutely excellent when considering that price! Let me now discuss that good old chestnut that seems to get on everyone’s mind when discussing PortAventura… Operations/Express Pass When discussing PortAventura, people typically moan about the operations and Express Pass. In terms of ride operations/throughputs; I will not pretend that the operations are fast, or that they rival Europa Park in any way, shape or form… but I was expecting worse. I did not think that PortAventura’s operations were that dreadful at all given common discourse, personally, and based on my personal experience, I think their notoriously rock bottom reputation is not entirely deserved. Shambhala was typically running 2 trains and attaining around 800pph. Dragon Khan was typically running 2 trains and attaining 700-800pph. Stampida was running 2 trains per side and getting a combined 1,200-1,300pph. El Diablo was running 2 trains and getting around 1,000pph. Furius Baco was running 2 trains and getting around 600-700pph when I timed; I’ve seen Rita at Alton Towers do worse than that! The water rides were also sending boats at a decent rate. Single rider queues worked effectively where present, and the batchers were mostly good at filling empty seats. They are not lightning fast operations, and there is certainly room for improvement, but I’ve seen worse. One possible exception to this is Hurakan Condor; they only appeared to be running 2 towers out of 5, and I didn’t ride it because both times I tried to, the queue pretty much didn’t move. In terms of Express; despite common reports, I’ve seen far, far worse allocation to non-main queue riders elsewhere. Express exists, but I did not think that usage or allocation appeared to be excessive on any ride I saw, or out of the ordinary compared to other parks I’ve visited. This was hardly, say, Oakwood, where I saw with my own eyes whole trains of Fastrack being loaded and queues hardly moving. I’d even argue that the number of non-main queue riders was possibly lower than at some of the UK Merlin parks; I’d argue that at times, the Fastrack/RAP combo at the likes of Alton Towers slows down queues more than Express appeared to at PortAventura during my visit. We did not buy Express once during our visit, and we got on fine in terms of rides; in the first day alone, I rode every coaster in PortAventura Park apart from Tami-Tami, including both sides of Stampida, I rerode Shambhala twice more after the first ride, and I also rode Tutuki Splash and Grand Canyon Rapids. I admit that I went in September, and as I’ve only been once, I can hardly declare myself the authority on the subject; I understand these things may differ a lot. With that being said, a public holiday, which was listed as a “very high” influx on the PortAventura website, fell during my visit, and even on that day, I did not think queues were overly excessive and I got on plenty of rides without Express. Based on my experience, I did not feel that Express was essential and I did not feel that the operations were bad enough to warrant their rock bottom reputation. So in summary, I have to say that I absolutely loved PortAventura and would definitely put it up there as one of my favourite European theme parks! The rides are great, the theming is spectacular, the on-site hotel was excellent, and I did not feel that the operations were as bad as their rock bottom reputation would suggest. Let me end by plonking in a few summarising stats from my trip: Coaster count before the trip: 124 Coaster count after the trip: 134 New coasters ridden: 10 Number of coaster rides: 24 Number of overall rides: 29 Favourite coaster ridden: Shambhala (#1/134) Favourite non-coaster ridden: Street Mission Biggest positive surprise: Street Mission So, that ends out my first ever trip to PortAventura World in Spain! Thank you for following this series of trip reports; I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed this trip!

12th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 3 It was our final day in PortAventura Park today before heading home! We weren’t really able to have a full day today, as we had to be out of the park by 3:30pm to catch our shared transfer back to Barcelona Airport to fly home, but we nonetheless headed back into the park to mop up some more goes on some of the best attractions! I headed into the park early on my own this morning, with my mum and dad joining me later. I headed down to the Hotel Gold River entrance at around 9:50am, and entered the park a bit before the 10:30am opening time: Upon entering the park, I decided to repeat my winning strategy from yesterday and head to China first. Resultantly, I started my day on… Shambhala Shambhala had a very short pre-queue, so I decided to start my day on there. I was in the queue early enough to be batched onto the very first train of the day… but unfortunately, wind (well, “adverse meteorological conditions” as per the tannoy announcement) meant that the ride didn’t open until 20 minutes after park opening. Curiously, they had to take off a train and run the ride on 1 train for it to be able to open in the wind; I’ve never seen this on a coaster before. Whether it’s a case similar to The Big One where the ride supposedly has slow and fast trains for different weather conditions, I don’t know, but to be fair, it was windy enough that I can believe it might have caused a 250ft coaster to experience difficulties with operating. Anyhow, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back car, and it was absolutely sublime; it was possibly in contention for the best Shambhala ride yet! The airtime was strong and phenomenally sustained, the ride was so fast (and felt faster than usual in the windy conditions), and overall, it was every bit as sublime as I’ve come to expect from Shambhala! That ride was a wonderful way to kick off the day: After Shambhala, I then decided to head onto the other coaster in the area… Dragon Khan Dragon Khan was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on there. Like Shambhala, Dragon Khan had been forced to drop down to 1 train to operate in the windy conditions, so capacity was reduced, but the queue still took only 35 minutes nonetheless, which I didn’t think was too bad, personally. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in an outer seat on the very front row, and it was similar to previous rides; it was a bit rough in places, but overall not too bad, and the ride had a decent layout with good forces, good pacing and decent inversions: After I got off Dragon Khan, my mum and dad had entered the park, so I met up with them in the square in China before we headed to an attraction we hadn’t yet done… Templo del Fuego Templo del Fuego was on an advertised 20 minute queue time and we hadn’t yet done it, so we decided to give it a go. I’ve often heard that this attraction doesn’t open very often, and I’ve also heard that it’s very good, so I was intrigued to try it out. The queue ultimately only took around 5 minutes, and we were inside the attraction promptly. So, how was it? Well, this style of actor-led attraction isn’t entirely my sort of thing, but I have to concede that it was rather entertaining! Even though I didn’t understand too much of the speech, as it was in Spanish, the actor did a good job of entertaining the crowds, the premise was quite clear even without knowing too much of the script, and the special effects were spectacular! There were also some surprises that I wasn’t expecting… overall, Templo del Fuego was quite an entertaining detour for a few minutes, and I’m glad I got to do it: After Templo del Fuego, we started to gradually work our way around to Meditarranea, firstly stopping off at… El Diablo El Diablo was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on there. As advertised, the queue took 10 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well similarly to yesterday, it was a fun mine train coaster with some fun helixes and good bits of speed, and it also felt a bit smoother than yesterday: After El Diablo, we decided to head over to Street Mission, which was advertising a 10 minute queue, for another ride after enjoying it yesterday. However, it unfortunately broke down while we were in the queue for it, so after 10 minutes or so with no action, we eventually bailed: We then decided to head down to Meditarranea for lunch, after which my parents took the train from Meditarranea to Far West to leave the park. Being left to my own devices for a little longer, I initially decided to check out Hurakan Condor, as I hadn’t ridden it yet, I’m a fan of a good drop tower, and it was on a 30 minute advertised queue time. However, as with yesterday, it unfortunately was a pretty much static queue; I stuck it out for 10 minutes or so, but I left after it didn’t move. This proved a sound decision, as the advertised queue time had shot up to 1h 30m by the time I left: I then decided to head to China and scope out Shambhala for a reride, but it was unfortunately closed for a weather delay (it was still pretty windy at this point). As Dragon Khan was still on 1 train at this point due to the weather and had an eye-watering 2.5 hour advertised queue time, I decided to veto a reride on that too. However, a favourite from earlier in the trip that I had yet to reride was on an unusually low queue, so I decided to head to… Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence Uncharted was advertising a 40 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on there. This was the first occasion where I’d seen it on an advertised queue time of much below an hour, so as I’d found Uncharted an excellent coaster earlier in the week, I decided to take full advantage of this! The queue time was in fact overstated; the queue only took 30 minutes, and moved fairly decently. You can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, my thoughts were very similar to what they were on the first ride. The coaster hardware itself is excellent, with the launches, fun twists and turns and various tricks making for another excellent example of an Intamin family thrill coaster, but the on-ride theming leaves much to be desired for a ride of this style, with the ride largely taking place in a pitch black warehouse and the screen scenes being really rather poor in terms of theming. I find the on-ride theming (or lack of) on Uncharted baffling, as the queue is gorgeous and Street Mission across the park shows that PortAventura clearly has strong dark ride prowess and can make absolutely superb immersive attractions. Nevertheless, the coaster itself was still excellent and put a smile on my face, and as much as I can nitpick, that is the most important thing after all: After getting off, I pondered another ride on Uncharted, but it was getting closer to 3:30pm and reriding Uncharted at the queue time it was at would have been cutting it a bit too fine to get back to the hotel for 3:30pm. I scoped out other attractions, but a lot of things either had a queue too long to get back in time for 3:30pm, would have taken too much walking from my current location in the park to get back in time or both. As such, I decided to call it a day there, bid PortAventura Park goodbye for the last time and head back to the hotel to meet my parents and get our transfer to the airport: So, that wraps up my final day at PortAventura Park! Today was definitely a weaker day than others on the trip, but PortAventura can’t help the weather. It really was very windy; if we had been in Florida, it felt like a very “there’s a thunderstorm coming imminently” sort of wind, and seeing as I saw Alton Towers practically grind entirely to a halt in similar, if not weaker, wind back in March, I don’t think PortAventura dealt with the circumstances badly at all. We also never went into today under the pretence of it being a full park day; we always knew we had to be out before 3:30pm to catch our transfer, so we were pleased with anything we got, realistically. Given I was only in the park for around 4.5 hours, I’ve done far worse than 5 attractions in that sort of timeframe before! That isn’t just the end of the day, but also the end of the trip. I’ll write a longer summary post when I’m back in the UK, but in short; I’ve had an absolutely fantastic trip! I loved PortAventura World, and it’s definitely right up there as one of the strongest theme park resorts I’ve visited in Europe for me! Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report, as well as the wider series of reports from the rest of the trip! I’ll post a longer review of PortAventura as a whole when I’m back in the UK, but trip reports-wise, I think that’s probably it from me for theme park trips this year. It’s been a terrific year, and PortAventura was an excellent way to end it!

11th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 2 and Ferrari Land We had our second day today! Today, we headed back into PortAventura Park for another day of fun, and also headed into Ferrari Land to get on Red Force for the first time! Similarly to yesterday, we entered via the Gold River hotel entrance at a bit before 10am. It looked a little busier here today, and I did have some trepidation about whether it could be busy due to it apparently being a public holiday in Catalonia today, but we decided to initially try the park without Express once again and see how it went: We decided to tackle the park in a slightly different manner today, starting in China to knock off Shambhala and Dragon Khan early. As much as doing Uncharted first yesterday got us on the ride with a short wait compared to anything we saw at other points in the trip, we did note that as per the app, we ended up missing half an hour of Shambhala and Dragon Khan being incredibly quiet, so we thought that we should take advantage of that today… Shambhala Shambhala only had a very short pre-queue, so we decided to ride that first. This proved a good decision, as we only waited around 5 minutes for it; you can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front part of the very back car, and it was sublime once again; you really feel the pull over the first drop and the hills in the back, the airtime is sublime, the speed is sublime, and everything about it is just wonderful! You’ve undoubtably heard me rhapsodise about Shambhala enough by now, so I’ll end my take there: After our ride on Shambhala, me and my mum headed to the other Chinese coaster… Dragon Khan Dragon Khan was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. This queue was if anything overstated, as we only waited 5 minutes for it; I would never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in an outer seat on row 2, and similarly to yesterday, it was not a bad ride at all! It was maybe fractionally rougher than it was yesterday, but still nothing too bad overall, and the layout is excellent on there, with some brilliant inversions and great forces! My mum was not a massive fan, although that perhaps isn’t overly surprising given that she also doesn’t like things like Nemesis and Kraken: After Dragon Khan, I went in the single rider queue for another reride on Shambhala. I waited 40 minutes (exactly the same as the advertised queue time) and got dead centre in the train that time, but it was still sublime, and I noticed that you got stronger force going up into the hills sitting a bit further towards the front! I then met back up with my mum and dad, and we headed into SesamoAventura, an area we only briefly walked through yesterday, and did something a little more unique to our trip… Sesame Street: Street Mission Street Mission was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on there. The queue time board was true to its word, as we waited exactly 20 minutes; it’s always quite satisfying when these things are bang on the nose! So, how was the ride? Well, I went in with somewhat low expectations and was unsure of what to expect other than that it was an interactive dark ride themed to Sesame Street… but this possibly ended up being the biggest positive surprise of the trip so far! Street Mission was an absolutely fantastic dark ride! The 3D technology worked very well and the screens were excellent, but there was also an abundance of physical theming that was blended in seamlessly with the screens, the simulator section at the end was excellent, and overall, it was just such a fun and well executed dark ride! Overall, we all thoroughly enjoyed Street Mission, and I’d go out on a limb and say that it’s my favourite interactive dark ride I’ve done (yes, I would even say that it beats out Men in Black at Universal); it was fantastic, and such a positive surprise! We’ve even talked about possibly doing it again tomorrow: After Street Mission, we further explored SesamoAventura, and as it was on a short queue, me and my mum did another ride to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters… Tami Tami Now as I don’t generally ride kiddie coasters, I was not originally expecting to do Tami Tami, but it was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, and it honestly didn’t look too embarrassing in person (it looked big enough to possibly qualify as a “family coaster” rather than a kiddie coaster), so me and my mum went to give it a go. The 10 minute advertised queue time was if anything overstated, with the queue taking more like 5 minutes, and we were on the ride within only a train or two’s wait. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row, and for a smaller coaster, it actually wasn’t half bad, with some good bits of speed! These coasters are what they are, but some of the turns were surprisingly good fun for a smaller coaster! Overall, then, Tami Tami wasn’t a bad kiddie/family coaster at all, and better than we were expecting; it did feel good to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters: After Tami Tami, we headed over to Mexico to do an attraction me and my dad had already done yesterday… El Diablo El Diablo was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so as my mum hadn’t done it and me and my dad thought that she might like it, we decided to take a ride on there. The queue moved quite quickly, with the ride attaining a decent throughput of around 1,000pph or slightly under, and we were on within 15 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front row, and similarly to yesterday, it was quite a fun mine train coaster with some fun bits of speed, albeit it was perhaps a tad jerkier than it seemed yesterday: After El Diablo, we went for some lunch before my mum and dad left me to my own devices in the park for a bit before we entered Ferrari Land in the evening. As we’d eaten lunch in Meditarranea and it was on a relatively short queue, I decided to take a ride on… Furius Baco Furius Baco was on an advertised main queue time of 30 minutes, but as the single rider queue looked better than it had yesterday, I decided to chance that today. It ultimately took around 25 minutes, which I don’t think is too bad given some of the queue times I had seen for the ride at points. So, how was the ride? Well, I was once again seated in an inner seat in row 4, albeit on the right side rather than the left this time, and my thoughts were very similar to yesterday. The launch is excellent, but I’m not a massive fan of it as it’s pretty rough; however, it was not quite as bad as some of my worst fears and it wasn’t quite rough enough to be in contention for my “worst coaster ever” like I know it is for some. I have only ridden it in the inner seats, however: After my ride on Furius Baco, I decided to hot foot it back towards the back of the park, taking a ride on another coaster with a short queue on my way there… Stampida Stampida was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to have a go on there. I picked the Red side, and the queue time board was true to its word, with me queueing exactly 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6, and similarly to yesterday, I’m afraid I wasn’t the biggest lover of Stampida; the ride was pretty rough, and it also had very uncomfortable lap bar restraints that really dug in and constrained any kind of airtime potential: After my ride on Stampida Red, I made a beeline for Mexico, as Hurakan Condor, which had spent pretty much all of my time at PortAventura on a ridiculous queue, was advertising only a 10 minute wait. When I joined, however, it became abundantly clear that this queue was longer than 10 minutes, and while I initially stuck it out thinking that the queue didn’t look too long, I decided to bail after 15 minutes of practically no movement: After bailing on Hurakan Condor, I decided to head to Shambhala for another single rider queue reride. I waited marginally longer than the advertised queue time this time, waiting 35 minutes compared to an advertised 30 for the main queue, but when I got on, I scored the front car this time. Shambhala on the front was phenomenal, and possibly one of the best rides yet; the unencumbered sense of speed felt slightly stronger up front, and the sensation of getting pushed up into the hills was sublime: After my reride on Shambhala, the single rider queue was unfortunately too long for me to have another reride and get back to meet my parents in time. As such, I instead decided to check out Hurakan Condor again, but the advertised queue time was back up to 1h 20m, so I gave it a miss for today and instead rerode El Diablo on a 10 minute advertised queue time as I was walking by. I was seated in row 3 this time, and it was similar to earlier: After getting off El Diablo, I pondered doing a reride on Dragon Khan on my way back to Meditarranea to meet up with my parents, but it was already approaching 4:30pm, so I thought that the queue looked a tad too long for me to be able to ride it and walk back to meet my parents by our agreed meet up time of 4:45pm. As such, I decided to just steadily walk back to Meditarranea and close off my day at PortAventura Park there: That was not quite the end of the day, however… when I met back up with my parents, we went to head into Ferrari Land for our one visit of this trip. We were at the entrance a little before the opening time of 5pm, so we had to wait for a bit before they opened the gates: When we headed into Ferrari Land, we decided to join the masses and head into the pre-opening queue for… Red Force Red Force had a modest, albeit not small, pre-opening queue by the time we reached it, so as it was the primary draw of the park for us, we decided to join it and wait for the ride to open. We initially felt quite good about our prospects, as we were ahead of much of the pre-queue… but the ride unfortunately failed to open at the park opening time of 5pm. It was inactive for a while due to a technical fault, and 1h 10m of additional waiting passed before they started sending test trains around and a full 1.5 hours of additional waiting passed before the ride actually started operating with people on board at 6:30pm. On a side note, I got to see them manually push the train slowly up the launch track and manually pull it slowly back along it, which I’ve never seen before; that was interesting, if nothing else: Once the ride opened, we ultimately waited around 35 minutes for it, which we didn’t think was too bad given that the back of the queue when the ride opened was pegged at 1h 30m. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 2, and it was an absolutely fantastic coaster; it was incredibly fast with a phenomenal sense of speed, and it had some great airtime at the top of the top hat! I also felt that the overhead lap bars were much more comfortable than the old Intamin OTSRs! However, if I’m being totally honest… I perhaps controversially prefer Stealth, and given that Red Force is the tallest and fastest coaster I’ve ridden by quite some margin, I was maybe expecting a tad more. The launch was a bit rattly towards the end, notably more so than on Stealth, but the main critique I had is that I think this ride style does miss a little something without the hydraulic launch. Red Force is undeniably a very fast coaster and provides an awesome sense of speed, but without the rapid acceleration of the hydraulic launch, I almost felt that the ride didn’t feel quite as fast as it actually was. Nonetheless, Red Force was still an absolutely fantastic coaster that I loved, and I’m very glad I got to ride it (I was honestly slightly doubtful that I would even get to ride in the initial moments of our Ferrari Land visit): After getting off Red Force, the ride had a 1.5 hour advertised queue and my parents had booked an evening dinner reservation in the hotel for later, so any notion of reriding it went out of the window. As such, I instead decided to try… Thrill Towers Thrill Towers was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so being a fan of a good drop tower, I decided to have a ride on there. The queue ultimately only took 20 minutes, as a second tower that was initially closed reopened while I was in the queue; you can never moan about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was allocated the shot tower side, and it was good fun, with a fun launch and some fun floaty airtime, but I think I’ve ridden better examples of the genre elsewhere: After I got off Thrill Towers, I met back up with my parents. I pondered doing something else, but our evening dinner reservation was looming, and Flying Dreams had a queue too long for us to ride it and get back to the hotel in time for dinner, Racing Legends was broken, and Red Force also had a queue too long for us to feasibly reride it, so we decided to call it a day there and head back to our hotel. Interestingly, we walked past the main entrance to PortAventura, which we hadn’t properly encountered previously: So, that just about wraps up our second day at PortAventura Park and our visit to Ferrari Land! I had a great day; PortAventura Park once again delivered, with Shambhala rerides being sublime, surprises like Street Mission being awesome, and the park generally being wonderful, and it was great to get into Ferrari Land and ride Red Force! Crowd levels also weren’t nearly as high as I’d feared despite it being a public holiday in Catalonia; I didn’t feel that the crowd levels and queues were an awful lot different to yesterday, and I was still perfectly fine without any form of Express Pass. In terms of Ferrari Land; I admit that my experience there was probably discoloured by waiting an extra 1.5 hours for Red Force to open and not spending an awful lot of time in there, but my opinions on it are very, very mixed. What’s there is excellent; Red Force is an absolutely superb headline coaster, and there’s also some lovely theming throughout the park. However… there frankly isn’t nearly enough of it. Ferrari Land is a very small park, and with only one real headline attraction, I think it is much too small for a stand-alone theme park; Red Force is basically the sole noteworthy attraction. It would have worked far better as an additional themed area of the main park, in my view. I also take issue with the way in which it is operated in some regards. I think the model of opening it in the evening from 5pm-10pm, while a nice idea on paper, causes issues because it causes practically everyone in the resort to converge on Red Force at once when the main park closes, which makes the queues for it very long and means that it struggles to handle the demand. I also take issue with you only being allowed one visit to Ferrari Land in the package holiday deals; I feel that it would work better if they operated an unlimited 2-park park hopper ticket, similar to what Universal does, as then you could mix and match PortAventura Park and Ferrari Land more freely. Nonetheless, Red Force is excellent, and the park has some nice thematic foundations, so if PortAventura can expand and develop it in the years to come, many of these points will become moot. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, we’ll be heading into PortAventura Park for our final day there before heading home, so keep your eyes peeled for that report!

10th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 1 Today was the day, folks; our first day inside PortAventura Park! I couldn’t wait to get inside, ride attractions like Shambhala for the first time, and just generally see what the park had to offer for the very first time! Now before I start this report, I should declare that perhaps controversially, we decided not to buy any form of Express Pass for our visit to the park today. We figured that if it was terrible today, we could always buy it for tomorrow and/or Thursday. Before spending all that money, we decided that we should at least try the park without Express first before assuming that Express was needed. Anyway, let me start off our day at PortAventura Park. After having breakfast in our hotel, we headed down to the Gold River entrance to the park at around 9:45am, and were ultimately let inside at just after 10am. This was very convenient, and put us in good stead to do our first attraction at the 10:30am opening time: As we entered into the Far West section of PortAventura Park, we decided to initially head to a nearby attraction that apparently had quite poor capacity… Uncharted: El Enigma De Penitence Uncharted was nearby and had a relatively short pre-queue, so we decided to give it a go. I had been informed that the ride had low capacity and often built up a substantial queue, so I thought that it might be a sound idea to get that one done first seeing as our hotel entrance put us very close to it. The ride had a technical fault, so opened 15 minutes later than planned, but our decision to do it first proved an astute one, as we only waited 15 minutes for it once it opened and the advertised queue time was 1h 40m when we got off! Anyhow, how was the ride? Well, I actually went in knowing remarkably little, as I purposely didn’t spoil it for myself, and I have to say that I thought it was great fun! In terms of the coaster itself, I thought it was excellent; it had some fun twists and turns and fun launches, it was fast and dynamic, and I really enjoyed some of the tricksy elements (I’ll try not to spoil what those are)! I must admit, however, that I thought the on-ride theming left much to be desired for a coaster of this style; aside from the very first scene, it was pretty much a pitch black warehouse, and the screen scenes had practically nothing aside from said screens, with maintenance sheds and blank walls visible all around them. It’s a shame, as the queue is gorgeous and the coaster itself is excellent and offers potential for a great dark ride roller coaster. With marginally better on-ride theming, this could have been something quite special. Nevertheless, I still thought that Uncharted was great fun, and an excellent indoor coaster that I really enjoyed: After getting off Uncharted, we headed to a hotly anticipated headliner of mine… Shambhala Shambhala was on an advertised 50 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on it. This queue ended up being marginally understated, taking more like 60 minutes, but I have to say that for all the tales of woe and horror I’ve heard about PortAventura’s supposedly dire operations over the years, operations on Shambhala were not nearly as bad as I was expecting, and the queue didn’t move terribly slowly. While I’d hesitate to call the operations fast, they were not half as bad as expected. The ride was getting just over 800pph and running 2 trains, and Express allocation did not seem excessive, so the queue didn’t move too badly. But enough about the queue; how was the ride? Well seeing as my current #1 is a B&M Hyper and Shambhala is often touted as the best of the type, it was a hotly anticipated ride for me; my most anticipated of the park, and possibly the whole year. I had very high expectations, but I was seated in the back row of the 6th car, and it did not disappoint; Shambhala is absolutely sublime! There’s so much good stuff to talk about with this ride! For starters, the first drop is absolutely phenomenal, with such strong sustained airtime all the way down; it sits proudly alongside Mako and Iron Gwazi as being one of my favourite first drops I’ve ever experienced! There’s also such wonderful sustained airtime, and it’s over every hill; Shambhala delivers right to the end! I think you also really feel the additional speed of Shambhala compared to the other B&M Hypers I’ve ridden, it’s absolutely glass smooth and comfortable… it’s just such a wonderful ride! My mum and dad loved it as well, and it definitely did not disappoint: After our sublime first ride on Shambhala, we initially planned to do Dragon Khan, but instead decided to stroll further around the park, eventually settling on something a little different… Tutuki Splash Tutuki Splash was on a 10 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to take a ride on there. The queue took marginally longer than advertised, taking around 15-20 minutes, but it still wasn’t a long queue, so we couldn’t really complain too much. So, how was the ride? Well, I had a mild degree of trepidation seeing as I’m not a massive fan of absolute saturation soaking on water rides, but it was actually good fun and wasn’t too bad wetness-wise; it was more Jurassic Park than Valhalla, which suits me better! The theming was also lovely; the volcano is really cool, and I liked the jungle surroundings! Overall, Tutuki Splash was good fun, and although pretty wet afterwards, we dried out quickly in the Spanish sunshine: After Tutuki Splash, we sat down and had lunch from a cafe in Meditarranea; I had a lovely margherita pizza slice! We then planned to do Furius Baco, as we’d previously seen that it only had a 20 minute queue, but after we had our lunch, it had broken down, so we instead headed back to Far West to do a different coaster (or duo of coasters) that had now opened… Stampida Stampida was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give one of the coasters a ride. We opted for the Blue track for our first ride, and the queue ended up being very accurate, taking around 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was sat in row 8, and the racing element was good fun, with John Wardley’s surprise tunnel touch being particularly fun, and it hasn’t got a bad layout, but I wasn’t a massive fan of Stampida Blue. It was quite rough in numerous sections (albeit I’ve admittedly ridden rougher woodies; something like Grand National, for example, was definitely rougher), and I also thought that the trains were very uncomfortable, with a lap bar that seemed to tighten noticeably and really clasp you in as the ride went on, ensuring that you got precisely zero airtime. It seems like the sort of ride that could be vastly better if they gave it new trains and/or some retracking work, because there are some very decent wooden coaster foundations there. Overall, then, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Stampida Blue, despite it having a decent, long layout and fun racing features: After getting off Stampida Blue, I whipped straight back round to nab the other Stampida credit, Stampida Red, while the queue was short. I was sat in the front row on the Red side, and it wasn’t an awful lot different to the Blue side, albeit it felt perhaps marginally smoother. This could have been caused by me being sat in the front, being sat on my own or both, however. Following Stampida Red, me and my mum nipped to ride the other Far West woodie while the queue was short… Tomahawk Tomahawk was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on there. As with Stampida, the queue was bang on the advertised time, taking 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was perfectly all right for a family woodie, if somewhat unremarkable. There were some fair drops on there and it picked up some speed in sections, and I personally found the ride smooth enough and with comfortable restraints. My mum, however, was somewhat pinned in and found the train uncomfortable. Overall, then, Tomahawk was a perfectly fun, if somewhat unremarkable, family wooden coaster: After riding Tomahawk, we decided to go for another water ride… Grand Canyon Rapids Grand Canyon Rapids was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give it a whirl. If anything, 10 minutes was slightly overestimated, as we were on the ride in only 5 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, it looked like a somewhat unassuming rapids from off ride, but it was proof that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, as it was a very strong rapids! The river was fast, there were some good waves and some good water effects, and it was overall a very surprising rapids, with a certain ferocity that you don’t really get on a UK rapids anymore! While not Bilge Rats level soaked, we walked off surprisingly wet after being struck by a particularly vicious wave! The girls batched into our boat with us came off somewhat drier… proof if it was needed of the complete lottery rapids rides are! Overall, then, Grand Canyon Rapids was a very surprising rapids that packed many unexpected elements: After Grand Canyon Rapids, my dad and I headed back over towards China, with us stopping at another coaster on the way there… El Diablo: Tren de la Mina El Diablo was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on there. The 10 minute advertised queue time was in fact overstated, as we waltzed straight onto row 15! But how was the ride? Well, I did not go in with very high expectations, as I’ve never heard overly good things about El Diablo, but it was surprisingly good fun and definitely exceeded my expectations! It’s a really long coaster, it’s not overly rough, and while not the most thrilling coaster, it has some really fun helixes and turns where it gains surprising speed! Overall, then, I definitely enjoyed El Diablo more than I expected to, and my dad liked it too; it was definitely a positive surprise: After El Diablo, me and my dad headed into China to tick off a big thrill coaster we hadn’t done yet… Dragon Khan Dragon Khan was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to give it a whirl. This queue was fractionally understated, taking around 15 minutes, but I still didn’t think that was an overly long queue for such a major headliner. So, how was the ride? Well, I’d heard that Dragon Khan was very rough, but I was seated in an inner seat on row 6, and I did not find it as bad as expected based on reviews, despite not having an overly high roughness tolerance. It has a bit of headbanging in places, and is perhaps one of the rougher B&Ms I’ve ridden, but it wasn’t anything overly terrible and the ride was overall not terribly rough. It was no rougher than, say, the retracked Hulk at Universal. The layout is also very decent, with some excellent inversions and good forces; it’s rather reminiscent of Kumba in that regard, even if it hasn’t seemingly aged quite as well. Overall, then, Dragon Khan wasn’t a bad ride at all; while not glass smooth, I didn’t find it massively rough, and the layout is very decent: After Dragon Khan, my mum and dad left the park and left me to my own devices. As such, I decided to go for not one, but two, rerides on Shambhala using the single rider queue. This worked well; on a 30 minute advertised queue, I got onto the ride within 15 minutes the first time, and even with a stoppage of 5-10 minutes while I was in the queue, I still matched the advertised main queue time of 30 minutes the second time. As for the ride itself, I was seated in the back row of the 7th car both times, and if anything, the ride was possibly even better than it was in the morning, and seemingly grew on me even more with each ride! The sustained airtime was once again glorious, the speed was once again glorious, the ride was blissfully smooth and comfortable once again, and overall, the ride was just absolutely sublime and such a joyous experience!: You may notice that earlier in the report, I steered clear of doing any direct comparisons and answering the question of whether Shambhala has bested Mako as my #1 coaster. After my first ride, I was unsure of Shambhala’s placement among my B&M Hypers (the other two I’ve ridden are Mako and Silver Star), but I knew it was in the conversation of top coasters… the second and third rides, however, made me think that it may have sealed the deal to become my favourite B&M Hyper Coaster, and that after 8 years, I may finally have a new #1 coaster! I’m not concluding that firmly just yet, as I still have 2 more days to ride it more and decide, but currently, I am thinking that Shambhala is a new #1 for me! In terms of what is spurring me to provisionally place Shambhala above Mako; there are a couple of things that I feel it does slightly better while maintaining all of Mako’s best qualities. Firstly, I think the additional speed really enhances it. Secondly, I also think that Shambhala flows better and keeps the thrills going right to the end marginally better than Mako does; on Mako, you have the harsh trim and the slightly weaker ending, but on Shambhala, the ride flows beautifully, every hill delivers sublime sustained airtime and it keeps the thrills going right to the end! I also thought that Shambhala’s speed hill was a bit better than Mako’s; on Mako, that hill, while wonderful, isn’t a particularly standout moment, but on Shambhala, it provides an absolutely stunning pop of ejector airtime! Mako is still an absolutely sublime ride, but when it’s the #1 spot you’re talking about, pedantry has to win out, and Shambhala marginally wins on pedantry for me! I pondered a 3rd reride on Shambhala, but the single rider queue looked longer when I got off after my 2nd reride, and I realised that there was still a key thrill coaster I needed to ride to get the clean sweep of major coasters in PortAventura Park. As such, I headed down to Mediterranea to go and ride… Furius Baco While Furius Baco had a single rider queue, it looked rather long, so I decided to chance the 50 minute main queue instead. The 50 minute main queue turned out to be perfectly accurate, taking the advertised 50 minutes; you can never complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, I was morbidly intrigued to ride Furius Baco, as I’ve always heard deeply polarised opinions about it and it has its fair share of both passionate lovers and passionate haters. One common thread, however, is that the ride is generally agreed to be quite rough, and given what some of Baco’s haters say about it, I was morbidly intrigued to see just how rough it actually was. I was seated in a relatively unremarkable seat, being in the row 4 inner seat on the left, and I can’t say I was too much of a fan. The launch was excellent and incredibly punchy, as is always the case with these Intamin hydraulic launches… but it is definitely a pretty rough ride! Interestingly, I wouldn’t say it was overly rough in the traditional sense of head-splitting jolts or jerkiness, which I tend to be more sensitive to than rattling/bouncing… but it is perhaps one of the bounciest coasters I’ve ever ridden, to the extent where the sheer degree of bouncing bordered on head-splitting joltiness on odd occasions, and I definitely came off with a decent headache! In the seat I was sat in, I wouldn’t say it was quite uncomfortably rough enough to be “the worst coaster I’ve ever ridden” or in that very bottom 1/10 tier like some declare it, and I think I have ridden some rougher coasters… but it was still a bit too rough for me, and given how rough it was in the row 4 inner seat, it’s not too hard to imagine it being utterly vile on an outer seat! Overall, then, I’m afraid I wasn’t a huge fan of Furius Baco, despite the ever punchy Intamin hydraulic launch. For me, it’s simply much too rough to be something I overly enjoy or rate highly; even if it perhaps wasn’t the most uncomfortably rough coaster I’ve ever ridden in the row 4 inner seat, it was still too rough to fully enjoy for me, and it’s not too hard for me to imagine how it could be absolutely vile on an outer seat or further back in the train!: By the time I got off Furius Baco, the 6pm park closing time had passed, so I bade PortAventura Park goodnight for the day and headed back to Hotel Gold River to meet back up with my mum and dad: So, that wraps up our first day in PortAventura Park! I had an absolutely excellent day; Shambhala was a particularly huge highlight, but there were many other great bits too, and in general, I just thoroughly enjoyed the day and loved setting foot inside PortAventura Park for the first time and seeing what it had to offer! In terms of my first impressions of PortAventura Park; they are overall very, very positive, and I feel that the park is right up there as one of the strongest in Europe, of the ones I’ve visited (admittedly not too many compared to some)! It’s an utterly gorgeous park to walk around and just exist in, the theming is sublime and intricately detailed throughout, and there are some great rides (Shambhala being the main highlight)! Thus far, I’m absolutely loving the park, and I can’t wait to get back in there tomorrow; I dare say that it’s possibly exceeded my expectations so far! I also feel that I should address those old chestnuts that people always moan about with PortAventura; the operations, the queues and Express Pass. Overall, I did not feel that those things were nearly as bad as I was expecting. Express usage did not appear to be excessive, and while I’d hesitate to call the operations fast, I didn’t think they were overly awful by any stretch of the imagination; I’ve seen far worse. Shambhala was doing over 800pph on 2 trains, Stampida had 2 trains on both sides and was doing a combined 1,200pph, the water rides were sending boats at a decent rate, and in general, the operations did not seem that terrible. The queues also weren’t that bad either. I did not buy Express Pass today, and personally, I don’t think I needed it; on the whole, the queues today were no worse than on a busy day at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park, and I’ve certainly waited in longer and slower-moving queues at some of our UK Merlin parks. I’d also argue that PortAventura actually had an advantage over those in that it seemed easier to find major rides with a short queue; rides like Stampida, Tomahawk, El Diablo and the water rides seemed to have queues of 20 minutes or less all day. I was certainly very content with my ride count of 12 in 7.5 hours without using Express Pass; I managed to get on every major coaster, as well as 2 water rides, and get in rerides on Shambhala! Overall, though, I had a fantastic day at PortAventura Park, and my first impressions are overall very positive! Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, we’ll be heading back into PortAventura Park, as well as also visiting Ferrari Land. I can’t wait to get on Red Force for the first time!

9th September 2024: Travel Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the start of my big foreign theme park trip for the year. This year, that trip is my first ever trip to PortAventura World in Spain! This will be my first time ever experiencing the likes of Shambhala and Red Force, amongst other major rides, as well as experiencing a pretty major European theme park resort in the form of PortAventura World for the first time and seeing the delights it has to offer through a fresh set of eyes! It’s also my first time ever going to Spain despite doing a GCSE in Spanish… there are quite a lot of firsts this trip! We set off early this morning, leaving our Gloucestershire home at a little before 7:30am. With us living in the South West of England, we flew from Bristol Airport, our nearest airport. Despite us not living very far from Bristol, it took us over an hour to get there; I can see why my dad jokingly calls Bristol Airport “Bedminster International”, because it’s miles out of Bristol… anyway, when we got there, check in and security were nice and prompt. Bristol Airport has a fancy new check in system where you don’t take anything out of your bag and it just checks the bag… other than me needing to take my shoes off and have them sent back round the carousel due to some sort of anomaly, it overall worked well and we got through quickly!: When we got into the airport, we then headed for our flight. It was an EasyJet flight to Barcelona El Prat Airport, and it was excellent! The plane was very nice, and everything ran to schedule; it took a little under 2 hours, and we even landed a few minutes ahead of schedule! The time went quite quickly on there; we ate lunch, and I played some games on my iPad and also read How Westminster Works… And Why it Doesn’t, an excellent book by Ian Dunt that explains how every part of the English political system is apparently structured to work against meaningful scrutiny and change. It’s a fascinating read… political books might be a fascinating new genre for me to delve into! Anyway, that’s besides the point; the flight was good, and immigration was also relatively quick: After we landed, we headed to find our shared transfer, booked through PortAventura. This was interesting… it was relatively easy to find and set up, but they like to send you walking for this! We landed in Terminal 2C, but the desk to arrange transfers was at the very end of the check in desks in Terminal 2B, which was a decent walk from where we landed, and then we had to walk even further to all the way past the taxis to catch our bus: The bus itself was easy to catch and we got on it with relative ease, but when we were on it, the flaws of coach travel began to emerge; I’m not sure how long the drive from Barcelona El Prat to PortAventura would normally be, but it took us around 2h 45m to reach our hotel from leaving our pick up point, in large part due to us spending at least an hour going on a whistle stop tour of the many different hotels of Salou to drop different people off. As such, we reached PortAventura at around 5:30pm despite leaving the original pick up point at around 2:45pm. On the positive side, however, I must say that from having driven along the road, Spain is probably one of the more picturesque foreign countries I’ve been to; the mountainous landscape and clear blue sea is absolutely gorgeous! I also found it interesting how large parts of the road network seem to be encased in tunnels; it was almost like being back in the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport back at home, except without nearly the same volume of queueing! Anyhow, after our bus ride, we arrived at our accommodation for the trip; Hotel Gold River, one of the on-site hotels at PortAventura. I’ve often heard deeply mixed reviews of PortAventura, which gave me some degree of trepidation… but on first impressions, Hotel Gold River is absolutely stunning! It’s impeccably themed, with so many little details around the place, our Superior Callaghan Room is lovely, the place is pristine, it has a lovely ambience about it, and overall, the whole place is just wonderful! From a theming and ambience standpoint, it’s as nice as any theme park hotel I’ve ever been to, and that includes the ones at Europa Park; from the hotel, I’m getting a real Europa Park vibe, and given how excellent those hotels were and that park was, I think that’s encouraging: (I apologise for the bombardment of photos… Gold River is such a photogenic hotel, and there was so much I wanted to photograph!) After arriving and checking in, we initially went for a little stroll around the hotel complex to explore our surroundings (where many of the above photos were taken) and had a drink in one of the bars. My mum and dad were thrilled at the drink prices; 2 large Estrellas for them and a Diet Coke for me only cost €13.30, which seems very cheap! Later on, we then went for our evening meal at the Grand Hall buffet. This was lovely; the food was really nice, and we all enjoyed it! Although it was nothing too fancy, the food was lovely, and I’m not a huge foodie, so that suits me fine. Another interesting thing that happened during our meal is that at one point, the waiting staff all suddenly erupted into a song and dance show to a song with the primary lyrics “Hola, hola!”, where they were dancing and clapping along to the music! I’ve never seen that in a restaurant before, and I thought it was quite a fun touch… the restaurant also erupted into a chorus of “cumpleaños feliz” a couple of times for people’s birthdays, where the waiting staff were going through the restaurant clapping with cake to tables where people had birthdays, but I’ve seen that in plenty of restaurants. I’m already getting the impression that PortAventura is quite a “showy” park where they like to do a song and dance, and I’m sensing that that “hola, hola” song could be a recurring theme during the break, as we also heard it from one of the shows in the saloon bar… After our lovely meal at the buffet, we then got more drinks from the bar and sat outside in the central plaza area of Gold River. The hotel just has such a lovely ambience about it, and with the pleasant Spanish climate, being sat outside with drinks soaking up the night time ambience of Hotel Gold River was just lovely: After that, we headed back to our room for the night, ready for our first day in PortAventura Park tomorrow. So, that wraps up the first instalment of this series of reports from my first ever visit to PortAventura World in Spain! I have to say that based on my experience at the hotel tonight, it’s looking very promising for the park itself; Hotel Gold River is wonderful, and with its wonderfully detailed theming, nice food and lovely ambience, I could not say enough nice things about it! It’s made me very excited to set foot in PortAventura Park and see all of the delights it has to offer tomorrow; I can’t wait for Shambhala in particular, and I’m just excited to see what’s on offer at a new major European theme park! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I’m sorry that it’s a bit more of a boring one today, but tomorrow’s will be far more interesting, as we’re setting foot into PortAventura Park for the first time!

For those interested, I returned to Drayton Manor yesterday for the first time since 2022, and resultantly managed to ride Gold Rush for the first time. I promised a longer review, so let me properly delve into things, having had quite a few more rides since that initial take! I was intrigued to try Gold Rush, but some of the initial reviews seemed quite muted, so I went in with somewhat lowered expectations. But I have to say that it exceeded my expectations by a fair bit; I thought it was an absolutely excellent family coaster, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The investment doesn’t just comprise of the coaster itself, though, with the wider Frontier Falls themed area also being new for this year. I’ll start with that… Theming/Area In terms of the theming for Gold Rush itself, I actually thought it was very nice overall! I think Drayton Manor have done a sterling job with the coaster’s theming and aesthetics, personally! To raise a few specific points of interest: I quite like the queue; it has some nice vantage points, the tunnels with posters and things are quite neat, and I think it’s overall been finished off very nicely! The station is very nice, with a very nice wooden look to it and some really nice details and thematic touches! As I rode more, I noticed a surprising amount of nice thematic touches around the ride area. For example, I noticed quite a nice water feature in the middle, I noticed that a pipe by the station was billowing out smoke, I noticed some neat little signs and written bits around the area… there are a few nice little touches, and things like that really add substance to the theme! The effects sequence in the “dynamite shed” is quite simplistic, but works well. The smoke and the synchronised audio is quite nice, and it’s reasonably effective overall despite its relative simplicity. On a minor side note, the American accent used on the ride is not terribly convincing (I overheard someone in the queue describing them as “the most British-sounding cowboy ever”, which I think is quite apt…), but that’s nothing more than a fun observation… I certainly couldn’t do any better! I think the overall finish of the ride just looks very pleasant and pleasing to the eye. It has some nice landscaping, the wooden look is quite pleasant, and it feels quite well finished off. In terms of the wider Frontier Falls area; I think here is where things falter slightly. There’s undeniably been real effort put into sections of it, but if I’m being picky, it falls slightly short of being a fully cohesive themed area and comes across a tad unfinished. It seems as though the will to do a full themed area was there, but the budget didn’t quite stretch to an entire themed area and they could only do bits of it. On the positive side, some of the new look facades look really nice with some fun details, I’m a fan of the sand effect paving that goes through parts of the area, and I also think that the rethemed Drunken Barrels (now called Blasting Barrels, I believe?) looks really nice and has clearly had real effort put into it. There was clearly intent from Drayton Manor to do a full Western themed area, and what’s there looks very nice, to be fair. In terms of why I feel the area feels slightly unfinished to me; there are some rides that don’t really fit in with the theme, and resultantly, I also think the area boundaries on the end by Accelerator and Flying Dutchman are slightly blurred. The main examples I’m thinking of are: The Haunting has had no changes to blend it in at all, with it still retaining the same English vicarage theme it’s always had. To be fair, however, it’s tucked away enough that it’s relatively inoffensive within the wider visuals of the area, so this is quite a pedantic one. The main weak point for me was Accelerator. I admittedly didn’t get to see the indoor queue, as it wasn’t open and I couldn’t ride it, but externally, it looks as though there’s been little to no attempt at retheming it and it now sticks out like a sore thumb. I hope they’re able to do a bit more to make this fit the area in the years to come. Flying Dutchman also really sticks out, but I’m admittedly unsure if it’s in the area or not. But overall, I think the themed area is nice, and the theming of the coaster is particularly nice and well finished off! I hope they’re able to finish off other sections of the area like Accelerator in time, as finishing off those bits will make it a really nice complete themed area! Now let’s discuss the coaster itself… The Ride To be honest, Gold Rush was a coaster I was more intrigued by than overly excited by. It was undeniably unique and I could see that from the get go, but when some of the slightly muted initial reviews flowed in, I was sceptical about how it would ride. However, I have to say that Gold Rush thoroughly exceeded my expectations; it was really, really good fun and I enjoyed it a lot! It is not the most intense coaster by any means, but I think it’s just good, clean fun, and I often find that a very enjoyable quality in a ride; intensity isn’t everything! In terms of some key points of interest within the coaster itself: I thought it packed surprising vigour at points; the backwards sections in particular were surprisingly forceful! The launches are quite good fun and have a nice punch to them. They’re not going to blow your head off, but for a family coaster, I think they do the job nicely. Some of the twisty bits were very good fun and felt quite dynamic. I think Intamin are excellent at throwing some nice dynamic twists and turns into their family coasters, and that really shines through here! The coaster is very smooth, with not a hint of rattle or roughness whatsoever. The trains are also lovely and comfortable! It’s a deceptively long ride. The track length isn’t very long, but the switch track technology means that you get quite a bit of ride time out of Gold Rush! In terms of the ride’s overall force set, I’d liken it quite considerably to Thirteen sans the drop track. A lot of the sensations feel very Thirteen-esque. I really like Thirteen, so I liked this! I think Thirteen marginally edges Gold Rush out for me if I were to pick a winner, but it’s actually very close for me; there’s certainly a much closer contest between the two rides than I’d expected before riding! The multi-cycle feature is intriguing. It’s certainly novel, and it does make you want to try the ride again later on! Of the two cycles, I’m unsure which I preferred; I thought the backwards section dropping down the lift was quite neat on Cycle 2, but I did think that the launch out of the effects shed was a bit better when done backwards on Cycle 1. I managed to get a lot of rides in various seats, and I think my preference errs towards the back row on Gold Rush, regardless of cycle. In terms of a critique, one very pedantic thing I would say is that the ride is quite lacking in airtime given that the layout looks like it was designed to offer airtime in places. It has quite a few bits where it threatens airtime, but doesn’t quite go the whole hog and actually give you any airtime. I’m not expecting top-tier ejector by any stretch, but that is one thing I think Thirteen does better; on there, you have a surprisingly decent moment of air on the first drop towards the back of the train, and some of the hills in the outdoor section provide some fun floaty airtime regardless of seat. Gold Rush didn’t quite seem to match the fun floaty airtime pops of Thirteen, and to be honest, that is probably the one thing that keeps Thirteen fractionally ahead of Gold Rush for me. If Gold Rush provided those fun floaty pops, then it might have beaten Thirteen for me. This is a very pedantic critique, though, and doesn’t notably detract from the ride! Overall, then, I think Gold Rush is an absolutely cracking little coaster, and a superb addition to Drayton Manor! It’s my favourite coaster at the park by some margin, and for families, I think it’s a simply superb coaster that should please everyone in the family! It is not the most intense of coasters, but for the 1m height restriction, I think it packs some really good thrills and is a great coaster for the younger kids while also pleasing the older members of the family; I certainly came off with a smile on my face every time, anyhow! For the whole family demographic, I think it’s the fun, rerideable family coaster that they needed, and it suits the park’s new direction down to the ground. If we’re doing like-for-like comparisons with similarly scaled coasters, I would say that it is my favourite coaster in the UK with a height restriction of 1m or below, beating out anything on offer at Paultons Park (the commonly cited poster child for a great family park in the UK, with a thoroughly enjoyable selection of family coasters). The coaster itself is also themed really nicely, and what they’ve attempted with the wider themed area is very nice! I just hope that they’re able to get a bit of additional budget to fully complete the area and theme in some of those rides that currently stand out; that would be the icing on the cake! To close off my Gold Rush review, have a few assorted pictures I took: On a side note, I also managed to experience The Wave for the first time following the sit-down conversion, so I’ll briefly cover that too. I’ve long held the view that Shockwave would be greatly improved with sit-down trains, so I was intrigued to try it out. I think The Wave does improve somewhat on Shockwave… but sit-down trains aren’t the game changer I’d perhaps hoped they might be. They are generally comfortable and do make some of the better qualities of the ride layout shine through better; some of the inversions are reasonably decent! However, the ride is still a bit rough in places (although you admittedly feel the roughness a bit less with no OTSRs), that brake run slam at the end is still horribly violent, and it still hasn’t got the most interesting of layouts. I also noticed that the lap bar sometimes tightened a fair amount during the ride, and the new trains are also not terribly efficient for operations. The staff need to pull down the lap bar to a very specific place and ask you not to touch your bar, and then they need to press a different button before they push down your bar again to tighten it properly. It does make the operations rather inefficient. With that being said, I think it’s overall an improvement. The ride is more comfortable than before, and it also fits the park’s new direction a lot better seeing as younger kids can ride it. It fits the bill quite nicely as a “first big inverting coaster”! If you’re interested, I also wrote a trip report about the rest of my day at Drayton Manor:

5th September 2024: Drayton Manor Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the day of my solo trip to Drayton Manor! With my last visit being in 2022, I was returning to the park to check out Gold Rush, the final new-for-2024 UK coaster for me to ride, as well as The Wave following the sit-down conversion, and to take in the various other delights of Drayton Manor! Today started early, with me making the 5 minute drive to my local train station at a bit before 7am to take a 7:24am train to Wilnecote, arriving in Wilnecote at 9:04am. This train was very prompt, and all went well: After I arrived in Wilnecote, I walked the 30 minutes or so from the station to Drayton Manor, getting to the park entrance at just gone 9:30am. Aside from one other small group, I was the first at the park entrance, putting me in good stead for entry into the park at 10:30am: After entering the park, my initial idea was to head to Gold Rush and get the new credit out of the way. However, I waited around the area for a few minutes, and the ride didn’t seem as though it was going to open any time soon, so I eventually changed course and went to the other “new” ride since my last visit… The Wave The Wave was open and on a practically walk-on queue, so I decided to have a go on there. I was interested to try The Wave out, as I’ve long held the possibly controversial opinion that Shockwave would have been greatly improved with sit-down trains. So, how was The Wave? Did it improve on standup Shockwave as I’d long suspected it might? Well, I was seated in row 2, and the answer is yes overall, but I think the ride’s flaws are still quite apparent. On the positive side, the new trains are generally very comfortable, and a considerable improvement on the old standing trains. As I suspected, this has allowed some of the ride’s more decent elements to shine through more; some of the inversions are quite decent. However, it is still a bit rough in places (albeit you feel it slightly less due to the lack of OTSRs), that brake run slam is still horribly abrupt at the end, and the ride also doesn’t have the most interesting of layouts. I also noticed that the lap bar occasionally had a tendency to tighten quite noticeably during the ride. Nonetheless, I do think it’s overall an improvement, particularly seeing as the new trains open it up to a wider audience and allow younger kids to ride. I think it fills the role of a “first big inverting coaster” quite nicely!: After The Wave, I decided to do another ride in Adventure Cove… Maelstrom Maelstrom was on a walk-on queue, so I decided to have a ride on it. I can never complain about a walk-on queue! But how was the ride? Well, I’m perhaps controversially not a huge fan of gyroswings, and Maelstrom isn’t really an exception to that, but I have to say that it is probably my favourite gyroswing of the 3 I’ve ridden. There is some nice speed in there and the odd bit of airtime, but I don’t find the sensations to hit as hard as they do on, say, an S&S Screamin’ Swing, and I’m not a huge lover of the spinning aspect. Overall, I’m not a huge lover of gyroswings, but to be fair, I must admit that Maelstrom is probably the strongest gyroswing I’ve ridden: After Maelstrom, I decided to try another Adventure Cove flat ride, but one that I’d never done before… Wave Swinger As with most things thus far in my Drayton Manor day, Wave Swinger was on a walk-on queue, so I decided to take a ride on there. I was interested to try Wave Swinger, as other than a solitary ride on Twirling Toadstool at Alton Towers as a very young child, I had never actually ridden one of these swing rides before. So, how was the ride? Well, I wasn’t the biggest fan, with my key gripe being that it felt rather spinnier than it looked off-ride, meaning that I found the experience mildly dizzying, to say the least. That’s down to my poor spin tolerance rather than being the ride’s fault, but overall, I wasn’t a huge fan: After Wave Swinger, I noticed that a key draw of my visit was finally open, so I decided to make a beeline for it… Gold Rush Gold Rush had now opened, so I decided to head on over and take a ride on there. Once again, this ride was practically walk-on, and I waltzed straight into the back row. I can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I’d heard quite muted initial reviews of Gold Rush, so I went in with somewhat lowered expectations, but I have to say that it definitely exceeded my expectations. I thought Gold Rush was absolutely fab, and it was a very pleasant surprise! Don’t get me wrong, it is not the world’s most intense or thrilling coaster, but I thought it was just really great fun and very easily rerideable! There are plenty of fun twists and turns, the ride packs surprising vigour in places, it’s smooth and comfortable, it’s long, and overall, I just thought it was an excellent family coaster! The theming is also lovely, and overall, I think it’s an absolutely superb fit for Drayton Manor, and exactly the sort of fun, rerideable family coaster they needed, in my view: After Gold Rush, I headed to the final operating non-kiddie coaster I hadn’t yet ridden… Jormungandr As with everything else, Jormungandr was on a practically walk-on queue (you’re probably sick to death of me saying that by now…), so I decided to give it a go. So, how was Jormungandr? Well, it’s all right for what it is, but I wouldn’t call it an overly strong powered coaster. It has its fun moments of mild speed, but it seems to really struggle up any kind of incline and have considerable stretches where it goes very slowly. Between that and the fact that it’s also somewhat rough whenever it picks up speed, I’d definitely argue that Jormungandr is showing its age a tad now, but for what it is, I think it’s overall OK: After Jormungandr, I headed for another ride on The Wave. This time, I was seated in row 3, and it was similar to before; an improvement on the old Shockwave, with more comfortable new restraints and some decent inversions, but still not without some notable flaws: After my reride on The Wave, I headed for two back-to-back rerides on Gold Rush (one in row 7 and one in row 10). As with before, I found the ride to be a fantastic family coaster that was great fun and definitely proved a positive surprise: After my rerides on Gold Rush, I briefly sat down to eat my lunch, timing the throughput of Gold Rush as I ate (for those interested in such matters, my reading was 511pph). I then headed for a reride on The Wave; I was seated in the front row this time, and while it was probably the best ride I’d had on it so far, my thoughts remained quite similar: After my reride on The Wave, I then headed for a reride on Jormungandr; I was sat in the front row this time, and similarly to earlier, I thought that the ride was OK for what it was, with some fun moments of mild speed, but nothing particularly earth-shattering. Sat up front, however, I did notice some rather disconcerting creaking noises as we re-entered the station…: After Jormungandr, I headed to my first different ride for the day for a couple of rides… Thor Thor looked empty and like it was looking for riders, so I decided to give it a whirl while I was in the Vikings area. While I’m not generally a huge fan of flat rides, I didn’t remember Thor being too bad back in 2022, so I was interested to take a ride on there. So, how was the ride? Well, I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t quite as good as I’d remembered in 2022. While there was some good speed in places, the ride was a little spinnier than I’d previously remembered, and today, I also found the motorbike-style seats rather uncomfortable: After my ride on Thor, I headed for two more back-to-back rides on Gold Rush (one in row 2 and one in the back row), and I really enjoyed them once again. Gold Rush has been such an excellent addition to Drayton Manor and given them the rerideable, fun family coaster they really needed: After the two rerides on Gold Rush, I decided to do something slightly different and head for a dark ride… Sheriff’s Showdown Sheriff’s Showdown was walk on, so I decided to take a ride on there. I thought a dark ride might mark a nice change of pace at this point, and Sheriff’s Showdown was right there in front of me! So, how was it? Well, it was good fun! I’m not very good at interactive dark rides, but I found Sheriff’s Showdown to have quite a nice, self-explanatory shooting system. There are also some nice props and sets in there; I particularly liked how some of the props reacted to being “shot at”, which added a nice touch compared to something like Duel where you shooting targets had no impact on any of the surrounding scenery. Overall, then, Sheriff’s Showdown provided a nice dark ride diversion for a few minutes; in terms of my score, I got 7,800: After my ride on Sheriff’s Showdown, I had a go on the other dark ride directly next to it… The Haunting The Haunting was right next to where I was, so I decided to give it a go. This was the first time today where I had to wait for a few minutes; due to the manner in which The Haunting operates, wherein the experience only runs every 15 minutes, there is often a small wait outside. It didn’t take long, however, and me and one or two other groups with small children were ushered inside the building before we knew it. So, how was The Haunting? Well, I thought it was quite good! The various pre-shows are quite good and atmospheric on there, and while the madhouse portion itself is perhaps weaker in terms of ambience and effects than some others I’ve experienced, it still provides a solid conclusion to the experience nonetheless! I also had a rather eerie experience on here… you may remember that I mentioned that the two other groups joining me in the Haunting were groups with small children. Well, said small children were put off the ride portion of the experience by the spooky pre-shows… so they skipped the ride portion, meaning that I ended up being the only person in the entire Madhouse! I’ve done rides on my own before, but I’ve never done something like a Madhouse on my own and been the only person in the entire experience before… it was incredibly eerie! That certainly added an interesting angle to the experience for me, anyhow: After The Haunting, I then went for two more fun rerides on Gold Rush. I was seated in row 11, and I did both rides without leaving my seat!: After that, I went for another reride on Jormungandr. I was seated in row 13, and similarly to earlier, it was OK, with some fun moments of mild speed: I then went for another reride on The Wave, where I was seated in row 2. Similarly to earlier, it had some decent elements and felt somewhat improved over the standup version: I then went for two more back-to-back rerides on Gold Rush (one in the front row and one in the back row). By this point, the cycle had changed to Cycle 2, so that provided a different experience; I’m not entirely sure which of the two cycles I prefer, to tell you the truth: After my two rides on Gold Rush, I decided to go for something slightly more relaxing… Polperro Express The Polperro Express had only a short wait, so I decided to take a relaxing detour on there. I’d never ridden it before, so I was interested to see what it was like. I have to say that it was a very nice ride; there’s something quite charming about a steam train, and it was nice to just sit back and take in the sights of the park for a few minutes: After my ride on the Polperro Express, I went for two back-to-back rerides on The Wave (one in the front, one in the back). These were enjoyable enough, even if that brake run slam became no less abrupt with successive rerides: I then went to my final different ride for the day… Flying Dutchman Flying Dutchman was walk on, so as I’d never ridden it before, I decided to give it a go. My relatively poor spin tolerance is well documented at this point, so I wondered whether I’d find the ride too spinny, but it wasn’t too bad, with the ride being a relatively sedate experience: After my ride on Flying Dutchman, I decided to have a reride on Jormungandr in row 16: I then closed out the day with 5 back-to-back rerides on Gold Rush (4 in the back row and 1 in row 3). This was a great note to end the day on; Gold Rush is such a fun and rerideable coaster: After my final rides on Gold Rush, the 4:30pm closing time had arrived, and I headed out of the park. To get back home, I actually had to do something slightly different and go from Tamworth station instead of Wilnecote, so my good friend Uber once again came in handy. As with my South East trip in June, Uber proved excellent; I could not say enough good things about it. As for Tamworth station itself; this was a confusing station. The split level platform meant that it took me a good few minutes to get to the right platform… I also changed in Birmingham New Street on the way home, and that is an impressive station following the revamp work! I was a particular fan of the giant animatronic bull; I thought that was very cool! I eventually got picked up in Gloucester at around 7:30pm, thus bringing my day to an end: So, that just about wraps up my day at Drayton Manor! I had an excellent day; I was thrilled to get on both Gold Rush and The Wave, and I was thrilled with the deserted crowd levels, which meant that I ended the day on a ride count of 31 (!). That is a new record ride count for me in one theme park day (albeit only narrowly beating my previous record of 30)! For those who have lost track, my final ride count was as follows: Gold Rush x14 The Wave x6 Jormungandr x4 Maelstrom x1 Wave Swinger x1 Thor x1 Sheriff’s Showdown x1 The Haunting x1 Polperro Express x1 Flying Dutchman x1 I had a brilliant day both riding new things and reriding things I’ve done before, but I have to say that Gold Rush was a definite highlight! Apocalypse was a brilliant ride that left big shoes to fill, but Gold Rush is a more than satisfactory replacement, in my view; it’s a brilliant family coaster that’s fun and rerideable, and it thoroughly exceeded my expectations! It’s such a good addition to the park, and exactly what they needed! On a personal note, I was also happy for another solo trip to go well. I know I’ve been on a solo day trip to Drayton Manor before, but it does always give me a confidence boost when these things go well! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! You haven’t got long to wait until my next one, as I’m off on my first ever visit to PortAventura World in Spain on Monday! I can’t wait to get to another major European theme park, and I can’t wait to experience headline coasters such as Shambhala and Red Force for the first time!

Hi guys. Some on here have been theme park enthusiasts for a very long time, and over a period of multiple years, you’re bound to learn a thing or two. Whether you’ve learned what you most enjoy or whether you’ve learned how to get the best out of a park or ride, years of visiting parks is bound to have taught you things and shaped your perspectives in some way. I know it certainly has for me! With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what have you learned in your years as a theme park enthusiast? What have your years of park visiting experience taught you, and what new perspectives have you gained from years of coaster riding and park visiting? I’ll get the ball rolling with some of the things I’ve learned over my years of theme park visiting… Personally, I can currently think of two, off the top of my head: The first thing I can think of is that you can’t always judge a coaster based on only one ride. In my early years of theme park enthusiasm, I often only rode things once and didn’t get what people said about needing multiple rerides to fully appreciate something. I used to think that if I truly loved a coaster, I knew it from the very first ride. The second I first got off The Swarm in July 2014, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I first got off Mako in August 2016, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I got off Icon in August 2018, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was right up there with Mako (despite it now only being my #11, it felt like one of the times Mako came closest to being dethroned when I first got off in 2018). But in recent years, I’ve grown increasingly sceptical of my previous theory that you can fully get the measure of a revered coaster based on only one ride. The key formative moment that taught me this was when I went to Florida last year and rode both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi, amongst others, for the first time. Both rides were brilliant on the first run… but I wasn’t instantly sold on them being absolutely top tier for me. In both cases, though, the second ride really was the charm; both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi were catapulted into that top tier after I took a reride, and it was the second ride that showed me just how great they both were. To some extent, I also experienced this with Hyperia at Thorpe Park recently; I absolutely loved it the first time, but it took the second ride to make me conclusively think that it was absolutely top tier. Now I will say that this mainly applies to hyped up, revered coasters for me; I still feel I can get the true measure of a kiddie coaster, Reverchon spinning wild mouse or Zamperla Volare from one ride without feeling the need to reride. If I actively don’t rate something, it’s unlikely that a second ride will change that. But in those cases where I love something, but I’m not sure if I think it’s truly top tier, I’ve learned that it sometimes takes a second ride to truly determine the full measure of it. Sometimes, of course, my initial opinion won’t change that much or it might possibly even decrease, but in some other glorious cases, everything falls into place with that reride, and the second ride shows me how truly top tier a coaster is when the first ride didn’t quite. The other thing I’ve learned is that intensity isn’t everything, and it’s fun and rerideability that’s truly important to me. In my very early years of riding big coasters, I used to be mildly dismissive of things that weren’t intense. In my early years of big coaster riding at Alton Towers, for example, my mentality was “1.4m height restriction or bust” once I was tall enough to ride the big 1.4m coasters. But over the years, I’ve grown to realise that there can be a point at which intensity is too much, and that the most enjoyable coaster experiences for me are the ones that are just plain fun and really rerideable. Intensity can definitely contribute to a fun and highly enjoyable ride for me, and being fun, thrilling and rerideable are definitely key components of a coaster that ranks highly for me, but I have definitely learned that the coasters that blow your head off with intensity are often not the ones I enjoy the most, and there are some coasters that aren’t particularly intense that I rate very highly. Hagrid’s at Universal is not an overly intense coaster, but it’s just such utterly joyous fun that I enjoyed it immensely and couldn’t not place it in my top 10! Wicker Man at Alton Towers is not an overly intense coaster, but the fun airtime and pacing makes me laugh so much that it can’t not be in my top 10 and 10/10 tier! Rides like these do not necessarily blow your head off with intensity, but are ridiculously good fun, and it’s rides like these that taught me that I truly care most about that combination of fun, thrills and rerideability rather than out-and-out intensity. Those are just some of the lessons I’ve learned over my years of theme park enthusiasm; if I think of any more, I’ll post them! But I’d be interested to know; what lessons have you learned in your years of coaster riding and theme park visiting? What perspectives have your years of experience unearthed?

Funnily enough, my dad was saying to me when we were at Thorpe on 18th August “Let’s take bets on how long those actors last… I’m saying they’ll be gone by the end of summer”… it would seem he was quite possibly right! However, is it a possibility that they’re just being re-allocated for Oktoberfest and Fright Nights?