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Port Aventura (Spain)
by stephckj
*THE AREA*
PortAventura is located in the busy holiday resort of Salou, South Spain - only an hour from Barcelona, in the Cost Daurada.
The theme park consists of 6 different areas which are Polynesia, China, Sesamo Aventura, Mexico, Far West and Meditterania. Each area within the park contains rides and restaurants. The ... 4 main rides located in the park are Hurakan Condor, Stampida, Furius Baco and Dragon Khan.
PortAventura also has a water park located on the resort. Inside the water park is many slides, rides and restaurants.
The resort is also home to 4 four star hotels: The Hotel PortAventura, Hotel Caribe, Hotel El Paso and Hotel Gold River. Each hotel has a specific theme such as Caribbean, Mediterranean, Mexican and Far West.
*MY EXPERIENCE*
I have just returned to the UK from holidaying at the PortAventura resort with my boyfriend (the resort is not just for young children and families). We spent a week at the beautiful Hotel Caribe and the holiday was organised through First Choice. The overall cost was £750 per person, and we also took £400 spending money for the week (which was more than enough for the two of us). The holiday package also gave us unlimited access all week into the theme park and aqua park using our room keys.
When we arrived, hotel staff were friendly, polite and very helpful - exactly what you would expect from hotel staff. Our hotel room (although only standard) was immaculate and very clean. We had a king size bed with satellite tv, a hairdryer and a balcony. We were staying half board, and therefore only had breakfast and an evening meal included in the overall price. The food available was of a huge variety, and was very tasty. The hotels also offer an option to swap your evening meal in the usual restaurant located in the hotel for a £21 voucher each for adults (unsure on the children's price) to spend in any other restaurant located in that particular restaurant or the voucher could be taken to be spent in another hotel located on the PortAventura resort or in the actual theme park itself, where many restaurants were located. Our favorite while we stayed there was the 'La Piazza' restaurant in the Hotel Caribe (where we were staying). We had a 3 course meal plus a drink each all within our vouchers. You could get new vouchers everyday if you chose to venture to another place to eat again that evening (if booked before 6pm).
A great part of the holiday package was that we had a free train ride into the PortAventura theme park from our hotel (due to it being located on the resort). Even though the actual park was about 10 minutes walk from our hotel, the heat sometimes made the walk a little difficult. Knowing that we could just hop onto a train which came past our hotel every day, every 10 minutes, made the trip that little more exciting.
Over the week, we went to the PortAventura theme park for about 2 hours each day. Our holiday rep advised us to break up the theme park over the week as it can get very busy there, especially during peak summer time. We found this worked well as we went on two rides each day instead of cramming it all into one day. The top rides were brilliant! I am quite an adrenaline junkie, and don't tend to be scared by large rides. I have to admit that the large free-fall drop ride Hurakan Condor definitely made my stomach lurch. We went on it twice, and couldn't bring ourselves to do it again. The best ride by far at the park has to be Dragon Khan (the highest roller coaster in the world apparently). It lasts about a minute and takes you over a large drop and through 5 loops. Definitely not one to miss!! The queues although are very long at times (sometimes up to 2 hours queue time), but 100% worth the wait. Another favorite of ours was Furius Baco, which from dead still rockets to 80mph in just 3 seconds. We only managed to get on this ride once as the queues were long every day. You can also pick up a DVD of yourself on this ride at the end, which we did and can't stop laughing and watching it even now we are home. Other rides allow you to pick up photographs and you can customize them onto t-shirts, bags and mugs. The park is open from 10am to 12pm every day during the summer season.
At 11.30pm each night, just inside the theme park, a show was put on which contained machines, fireworks, and amazing holograms of cowboys fighting all of which is on top of water. The atmosphere was amazing!! Definitely not something to be missed.
The theme park has many shows on offer to watch such as a wild west stunt show to a man who can stand inside blown up bubbles. We did not get to see any of these unfortunately because the shows are only available to view at certain times through the day and we were unfortunate to catch them at those shown.
For children, Sesamo Aventura where sesame street comes alive is located in the PortAventura theme park (it only opened this year). Although me and my boyfriend do not have children, we even ventured into there ourselves where there are many rides for small children and families. The sesame street characters also came round our hotel bar and restaurant at certain times each day for the children (although they do interact a lot with adults too). We were lucky enough to see the Cookie Monster and Elmo.
The Aqua park at PortAventura is a fantastic day out and especially in the warm weather (which was in-between 26 and 30 degrees) cools you down nicely. We only spent one full day here as we got badly sun burnt roaming around in our swimwear all day (although wearing LOTS of sun cream). The aqua park offers something for everyone whether you want slides, and chill out or even just to sun bathe. The best part here was definitely the lazy river, where you grab a rubber ring and lie in it whilst drifting down a river through the park.
The aqua park also has lockers available to keep belongings in safely. It charges and also charges a deposit in order to use them.
*WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS TO YOU?*
1000% yes!! It doesn't matter whether you are young, middle-aged, elderly. This park and resort has something to offer for everybody whether you are a group of friends, family or just a couple (like us). This holiday is not one to be missed, and there's no way you can run out of things to do whilst there.
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Disneyland Paris
by Teachermom
This isn't a review - more of a "Top tips survival guide"
1) During summer months make sure that you have remembered to take the sun cream with you. (sounds obvious i know, but we left ours at the hotel and rather studpidly thought we'd buy some more. At £22 for a small bottle of factor 30, my husband was sent back ... to the hotel, complaining bitterly, to go and get ours.)
2) Take your own bottles of coke and water. (We got a case of coke and water from our local cash and carry and took it over with us.) Then to keep it cool fill the sink with cold water and leave the bottles floating in it.
3) If #2 isn't an option - take a WIDE neck sports bottle with you (it will be easier to fill it from the plentiful water fountains if it has a wider neck)
4) Take fruit and healthy snacks with you. (Disneyland is full of greasy fried food and snacks - which is fine once in a while - but unless you want to look like an extra from Dumbo, then not great for a whole week. We took boxes or raisins, dried apple slices, apricots etc...)
5) Prioritise the rides you really want to go on, and use the Fastpass system as soon as you enter the park. The Peter Pan ride especially requires speedy action - leave getting a fast pass until 1pm and the day's allocation is most likely to have gone already!
6) If you have young children - plan to see a show during the day - it will provide an opportunity to sit down whilst keeping your children occupied.
7) Want to meet lots of Princesses? Hang around the entrance to CJ Le petite train du Cirque, at about 4pm on Friday. We happened to be in this area, when a fanfare sounded and Cinderella, Ariel and Eric and Snow White and her Prince appeared through the nearest gate. The look on my 5 year old daughter's face when Snow White grabbed her hand and walked down the street with her was amazing! I don't know whether this happens on a regular basis - but if you're there at the right time - who knows....
8) The parade starts out of the gate to the right of "It's a small World" - it's not too crowded here either, and is conveniently close to toilets (handy when you have a 3 year year old - who "gotta go - now! mommy."
9) If your French isn't fluent - then speak to the cast members in English, if you try French they are likely to talk back in French - tricky if it's been a while since secondary school. My daughters were gob-smacked to hear Snow White whittering away in French - i started to translate for them, when Snow White, in an American accent declared - "oh Gee, your English - you should have said..."
10) If you want Jack Sparrow's autograph - employ a two pronged attack strategy! He is very much in character and will only stay in one spot for a short period of time before doing the "Sparrow arrogant shuffle" and walk off in a different direction. Position two people either side of his hang out, at some point he will make a point of barging through the crowd and heading for a quieter spot, hopefully the spot where your partner is.....(it worked for us)
11) Got a child who is too short for a ride, but wants to go on it? Get the Cast Member at the entrance to measure their height and tell them no. Somehow it was easier for our 3 year old to accept when it came from someone else (kids!)
12) You gotta check out Stitch LIVE - well worth the wait!
13) Snow White and the 7 dwarves is a dark and quite sinister ride. Best avoid this one of your children dislike the dark or are sensitive. It focusses very much on the evil queen.
14) Children like dressing up? Go to Woolworths first and buy Disney dressing up costumes. Take them in your suitcase and then your little ones can dress up, without the need to go over the limit on your credit card!
15) The Hakunna matata chicken restaurant is good value for money. They do a family bucket chicken meal - afterall it is a holiday and a bit of a junk splurge wont kill you.....
16) ENJOY YOURSELF!
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Disney land Paris - Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
by dkm1981
Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast is one of the newest rides at Disneyland Paris. It opened in April 2006 and replaced the old 360⁰ production Le Visionarium and there is in fact a small tribute to its predecessor for the beady eyed amongst you in the form of the narrator of the old show, 9 Eye, who appears at the start of the ride ... behind the Box O Bot. Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast is also one of the most fun and most interactive rides at the park and is located in the centre of Discoveryland.
The ride is entirely inside and you start by boarding an Omnimover space vehicle, which is a two person carriage that is equipped with two laser guns and a joy stick. The vehicles run along a track in a continuous motion, but you can use the joy stick to rotate yourself in complete 360⁰ circles in order to see and interact with everything that is going on around you. The idea is to score as many points as possible by shooting various targets using the laser guns and it is a lot of fun, especially if there is a group of you and you can play against other members of your group in different space vehicles.
There are brightly lit targets around the ride and there are hundreds of them so you don't have to worry about missing out and they are in four different shapes. You get 1000 points for hitting a square or circle target, 5000 points for hitting a diamond shaped target and 10000 points for hitting a triangle target. You also get bonus points for hitting the targets when they are lit up. Everything within the ride is glow in the dark, so it easy to see what you are aiming for and the targets are fairly large, making it suitable for younger visitors to play along too.
The ride is brilliant; there is no other word for it. No matter how good (or bad!) you are, you will have a lot of fun and your competitive streak will definitely come out. The attention to detail is phenomenal as always and you can't help but lose yourself in the game. This isn't necessarily a good thing though because half way around the game a photograph is taken of you (which you can purchase at a typically exorbitant price) and, because you are so engrossed in the game, the result is often a picture of you concentrating so hard that you look like you are constipated - or is that just me?!
Buzz Lighyear Laser Blast is another of the rides in Disneyland Paris that has a Fast Pass ticket option, where you can get a ticket that will allow you to return to the ride at a later time (usually allotted in half hour intervals) and jump the main queue. This is absolutely worth doing as the ride is extremely popular and often subject to large queues.
As is always the case with Disney rides, the queuing system has been well thought out and there are lots of Toy Story related exhibits to look at as you queue, including a giant Buzz Lightyear robot that welcomes you to the ride and chats to you as you wait. There are also diagrams around the waiting area that give you instructions on what to do when you get into the ride, so it's worth paying attention!
Even if you aren't a fan of the Toy Story character, you should definitely pay a visit to his ride as you will undoubtedly have a lot of fun, although I'd highly recommend getting a Fast Pass ticket, to jump the queues.
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