Porta Ventura Theme Park, Salou

PortAventura had been on my to do list since before the name change the other year. I already knew about it when it was still known as Universal Mediterranea. This old name gives away who the owners of the park are. The park renamed PortAventura belongs to the Universal Studios people, the ones that bring you the parks in Orlando and Los Angeles as well as over in Japan. PortAventura, on the outskirts of the small Spanish tourist town of Salou, is ...
...park celebrated its 10th anniversary and it's growing stronger each year.

Getting to the park is easy, there are on site hotels plus a huge number of hotels just outside the perimeter fence. If you check on the internet and research your hotel, most will actually give you distance from the hotel to the park entrance, some hotels even have free shuttle busses for their guests that drop off and pick up at certain times of the day. Outside ... more

PortAventura had been on my to do list since before the name change the other year. I already knew about it when it was still known as Universal Mediterranea. This old name gives away who the owners of the park are. The park renamed PortAventura belongs to the Universal Studios people, the ones that bring you the parks in Orlando and Los Angeles as well as over in Japan. PortAventura, on the outskirts of the small Spanish tourist town of Salou, is the European arm of the Universal expansion. Last year the park celebrated its 10th anniversary and it's growing stronger each year.

Getting to the park is easy, there are on site hotels plus a huge number of hotels just outside the perimeter fence. If you check on the internet and research your hotel, most will actually give you distance from the hotel to the park entrance, some hotels even have free shuttle busses for their guests that drop off and pick up at certain times of the day. Outside the main entrance of the park you can catch the trolley busses that trundle along the main streets of Salou. You pay the driver when you get on and then just hop off when you arrived where you want to go to.

There is parking for coaches as well as cars located on either side of the main entrance.

Just remember if you plan on walking from your hotel to the park, it's up a hill, only the first of many. The whole park is built on the side of a hill with the Dragon Khan ride being the highest (with a pretty steep drop to one side). You can actually see the ride on top of the hill when you're flying into the local airport.

Port of Entry into the park is via the area called 'Mediterrània', a small fishing village built around a lake. There are plenty of souvenir shops here as well as one of their more expensive restaurants. You can have a sit down or explore the boats moored on the lake. One side of the park backs onto Hotel PortAventura complex and guests have their own entrance into the park.

A bit further on you will have the train station where passenger trains will leave on their trip through the park. If anything it will only give you time to take the weight of your feet. Unlike at DisneyWorld in Florida this train does not stop at every 'land' to let people on and off. This train only stops once, in the 'Far West', only minutes before it arrives back from where it started. But it allows you to get a glimpse of what the park has to offer.

From here you can also catch a boat that will take you to the foot of 'China', a short trip and although relaxing, there's nothing much to see. You're more likely to catch the boat back on the way out of the park after you've done a day's walking and can barely move.

We visited PortAventura in the off-season and noticed that each land opened about 30 minutes after the last one and all visitors had to go the same direction. First thing in the morning you only have one option, to walk towards 'Polynesia' where you are stuck until the next section opens about 30 minutes later. I doubt they will do that in high season when there are plenty of people that have to be dispersed quickly and the road leading to 'Far West' is opened straight away and not lunchtime.

While I understand the reasoning behind opening each section of the park at a slightly later time, I'm sure there are plenty of people like me who have been before and only want a quick adrenaline rush before doing something else for the rest of the day and having to wait with everyone else behind a rope until the next section is opened is not my idea of fun, in particular if you then have to rush to the big rides (like Dragon Khan in China) together with everyone else and the queues are instantly long and boring - unless you are first in line.

PortAventura is divided into the following lands:

POLYNESIA is a green and quiet oasis with calming waterfalls, lush green trees and many hideaway areas, a place to simply take it easy and watch the world go by.

There's a very limited number of rides, the 'Tutuki Splash' is not dissimilar to Thorpe Park's Tidal Wave or other water rides where you're sitting in a boat that splashes into water soaking not only the rider but also everyone silly enough to be in the clearly marked splash zones. But that's part of the fun.

A bit further on you will find an indoor ride by the name of 'Sea Odyssey', you are lead through an undersea adventure by a speaking dolphin (don't ask). It's cute and interesting the first time but don't expect too much. I don't think we had earphones but I'm convinced I could understand it despite everything else in the park being in Spanish (and my Spanish is very limited). Children will enjoy this underwater submarine adventure more than adults I reckon.

If you are in no hurry to get through the park stop off and take in one of the many shows taking place all over the park. The one in Polynesia is with traditional Polynesian dance. It's fun to watch and the tunes are catchy.

Continuing from here, upwards and onwards you walk into a completely new world, CHINA, with pagodas, Chinese lanterns and the Great Wall. Some of the smaller rides are found here, including the 'teacups' and an adventure play area for children.

The main attraction in 'China' is the 8 loop rollercoaster called 'Dragon Khan'. It stands tall and proud on the highest point of the park. I suggest you don't look down when you are on the ride as you suddenly realise that there's a nasty drop on one side and what appeared level ground is almost like a cliff edge and the only way is down from there.

Walking along the 'Great Wall of China' will get you to MEXICO.

Towards the left is the runaway mine train 'El Diablo', quite enjoyable and a lot longer than expected. If you go during their Halloween celebrations you also get a chance to walk through a haunted house first before they let you onto the train. This ride has always had the longest queues while I was there. I only went on once the 4 times I visited the park. It's a bit hit and miss with the length of the lines.

My favourite ride of the park is here, it's Hurakan Condor.

The ride is basically a free fall/drop ride the likes of Thorpe Park's Detonator or in some way Universal Orlando's Dr Doom's Fearfall (although Dr Doom shoots you up first) On Hurakan Condor there are 5 seating areas fitting 4 people each. They are grouped around the centre pole . The fun thing is that they can operate each section separate so if they want they can send all 5 up and drop them at the same time or what's even more fun is while you are being pulled up 320 feet to the top, you have others already whooshing past on their way down again.

At the top they lock the carriage into position, tilt you forward a little and release. All I can remember is my body getting an almighty jolt, my legs flew up past my head and the ground was coming ever nearer at incredible speed. The next two worries were that they wouldn't be able to stop the thing in time AND worst of all, my legs were catching up with the rest of the body going down and I was convinced the hole in which we were dropping was never going to be big enough and I would hit the outside walls with my heels upon re-entry. It's amazing the thoughts that can run through the brain in just a couple of seconds. I must say, this is definitely one of my all time favourite rides, not only in this park but of all I've ever been on so far.

To round up the more interesting things to do in this part of the park I suggest you take in the 'Templo del Fuego'. If you are familiar with Universal's Islands of Adventure in Florida I would say it's like 'Poseidon's Fury' where you are told a story at the beginning, then things start going wrong and you enter a cave and a battle between good and evil takes place. It's got a lot of fire and heat in this one, it's a bit tame for some but still good fun. The only downside is that the 'guide' only speaks Spanish so you have to imagine what he or she says, unless you speak the language of course. Smaller children might not like the noise, fire and heat so make sure you check if you have children with you.

I don't know what's actually worse, walking uphill for most of the day with aching legs or having to walk all the way down again later. And the last area of the park is the FAR WEST, a cowboy town, looking like the typical Wild West place in your average western movie or television programme.

There is one big wooden roller coaster in this area. Some people are enthusiasts and will only ride 'woodies' but to be honest, they give me a headache because they are so loud and rattle along. And because they are wooden, you don't need to get strapped in too tight as you won't go over, no loops, but you get shaken through to the core. I always leave wooden coasters till the end when I know I can go home and pop a headache pill.

The wooden coaster here is 'Stampida'. It's a race between the red and blue train and at one point you have to pick which train you want to go on. The blue and red ones have slightly different tracks and meet at some points during the ride. As I said, not my kind of ride but I still tried both trains on different days with the same result, thumping headache and mild whiplash. It was definitely not as smooth as I remember from Gwazi at Bush Gardens. Stampida also has a junior version on the side of the big one with a yellow train. Parents can take their offspring on this one to give them their first wooden roller coaster experience. It even crosses paths with the big one and you have three trains racing.

It's too much to mention all rides available in the park. There are plenty of smaller carousels, a river rapids ride (something you find as a staple in every park it seems), log flume. Not all rides are open all the time, some are down for maintenance, others closed due to lack of interest. To do everything you need a couple of days but personally I would pick and chose what I liked best.

Food & Drink:

Food can be a bit of a problem if you are not really keen on waffles, pizza or burgers as that seems to be the staple diet for most of the food outlets in the park. There are some restaurants that offer regional dishes (Chinese, Mexican for example) but the restaurants were not always open - seasonal closures, it's not worth it when there are not many people in the park. Of course, eating in one of the more 'upmarket' establishments also hit you even harder in the purse than a burger in a fast food place.

I was truly put off by the food and apart from the price (park food is always more expensive, after all it's a captive audience) the food itself didn't look too appealing. We had packed fruit from the hotel breakfast buffet as well as some of their muffins and biscuits to help me through the day. The only thing I actually bought in the park was a bottle of Fanta and a few coffees that I only drank because I needed a caffeine rush. I don't know what I had expected by the food side let it down considerably, even a proper McDonald's would have been preferable to the unappetising food they were offering in some of the outlets. The only other time where I sniffed at the food on offer and not bothered was in Bush Gardens in Tampa/Florida. The PortAventura food was even less appetising.

There are plenty of benches and chairs to sit on and relax, toilet facilities are plenty, at least two lots of restrooms per area. Some are very easy to find, next to fast food places or coffee shops, others are a little more hidden in buildings but they are always well signposted. The toilets were all cleaned on a regular basis and appeared of a good standard and most importantly, clean.

I noticed that there are a lot more rides for small children and their parents than so called extreme rides. There are only a handful of really great rides for adults while children's rides and play areas are plenty all over the park. Some rides allow parents onto the ride, others are designed to allow children to sit on their own while the parent slowly walks next to the ride making sure the child is fine. This is most certainly a very child friendly park and even if the parents can't ride the rides, junior certainly can. Other rides cater for both adults and slightly older children but they are not the ones everyone goes for but only goes on because there's no queue at that time (I'm talking about the like of a waltzer)

You will find disabled access all over the park, however, as I mentions ad nauseam in this review, the park is built on a hill and you will struggle if you have to push a wheelchair up some really steep climbs. I have yet to find a lift to take people up to the next level up. As able bodied people, my friends and I found the park very hard on feet and joints and often had to force ourselves to continue walking. Take the layout of the park into consideration if you are not good on your feet, have small children or push a wheelchair or buggy.

To see everything and try out all or most of the rides I would suggest to set aside two days, the first day to find your way around and try as many of the rides as you can fit in and then the second day take it easy, stroll through the park and only ride the rides you want to do again and didn't have time to do the first time. More than two days will get boring, unless you really want to ride the extreme rides all day long for the whole time you are on holiday. I'm definitely going again soon, not necessarily this year but it's already pencilled in for next spring.

All the boring, yet important, park information.

PortAventura is open seasonally from late March till the first week in January. The park also only opens at weekends during the months of November and December will fully open for two weeks over Christmas and the new year.

You will also find that July and August are their high season months and on the door tickets are €2.00 more expensive.

A day pass (on the door) for adults is €35 and junior (age 4-10)/senior (age 60+) are €28 - you have to add the extra €2.00 for high season.

If you only want to go for two consecutive days then you pay €53.50 for adults and the junior/senior price is €43.00 regardless of high or low season.

For the real theme park enthusiasts there are currently special offers where you get 7 days for the price of 3 (€64.00/€51.00) or even 14 consecutive days (€73.00/€58.00)

And one more bit of good news, for the first time this year, holders of a Tussauds Group annual pass (for entry into some of the big UK parks as well as other Tussauds properties in the UK and abroad) get FREE entry into PortAventura. It's definitely worth remembering if you have one of those passes.

There are a number of different tickets available, prices are subject to change so next year you might have to pay more or certain combination tickets or special offers are unavailable.

Opening hours are dependant on time of year. The park opens at 10am in the mornings but closes at 8pm in the official low season (some exceptions, check on the day you visit) and during the summer high season it stays open until midnight.

Have fun, enjoy! 

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