Fiesta or Siesta? (Port Aventura (Spain))

Member Name: FraserP

Product:	Port Aventura (Spain)
Date:	15/06/01 (1794 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Atmosphere, Fair prices, suites the whole family

Disadvantages: Not for pure thrill seekers, not up to best american standards

What are you looking for in an amusement park?. We are a family of 5, with children aged 3, 10 and 11. We have been to, amongst others, Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure in Florida (arguably the best combination of big thrill rides and studio rides/ stimulations in the world), Disney World Florida, Thorpe Park, Lego Land American Adventure and of course, Alton Towers. We are looking for a mix of atmosphere, thrills, rides for the little one, good food and fair prices.

We spent the best part of 4 full days at the park at the end of May/ beginning of June 2001

Location.
Salou is 60 miles south of Barcelona, which is on the north east cost of Spain. A two hour flight from London. The park is just outside the town ( 10 minutes walk) and has a small rail link with a couple of on-site hotels in the process of being built.

Cost.
The entry fee is 4,800 pts for a day of adults and 3,600 pts for children, at the time of writing being about £18 and £13.50 respectively. The length of day is adjusted by season but in May/ June it was 10 am to 8 /9 pm week days and up to 12 pm on Saturday or public holidays. A second day is half this price again but must be taken consecutively, and a 3 day non-consecutive pass is about £36 for adults and £28 for children between 5 and 12. Children of under 5 are free! This includes the price of all rides but not some fairground side shows (see below).

Atmosphere.
The Spanish, are in my view one of the most children orientated races and are better than most at enjoying themselves. Possibly this is because their expectations are not as high as some "thrill junkies"; they are out for a good laugh. Often when queuing they would start singing or chanting and generally build the excitement up.

Theming
The park is split into Mediterranean (mainly restaurant area at the entrance), Wild West, China, Mexico and Polynesia. The areas do have a distinct character, mo
st obviously in the shows but also in the settings, which is very apparent in Wild West and China. The wild west is desert, with cactus, wooden shanty town and a 1800's feel, whilst China, for example has bamboo, dragons, water and stones with pagodas and temples as its theming.

Food.
There are lots of reasonable priced outlets, from snack bars with hotdogs (wild west) and Tacos (Mexico), to self service and "proper" restaurants in each area, so you have a good choice. Hidden away in the gardens there is a picnic area, if you want to take your own food. The prices of the snacks are not exhorbitant; for example a small bottle of water is 20 pence in the supermarket, and on the park about 55 pence, but this was chilled. I think they also do a never ending, refillable soft drink deal, where you pay for your own refillable container and can have it topped up as often as you wish. Good idea for a long hot day.

We tended to snack and have decent main meal in the restaurants in the evening. We tried "Raco de Mar" in the Mediterranean, the best restaurant by far, 3 times and sampled Mexico (pretty good) and China (small helpings and indifferent quality). All of the restaurants had good children's meals for about £3.50, being typically roast chicken, spaghetti, chips, a soft drink (large coke was the order of the day!) and a chocolate mousse or ice cream- this was more than enough to fill up our kids, without costing a fortune.

We had a three course meal, with some alcohol and water, and coffee for £35-£40 including the children- say £12- 15 for each adult, which, for good food in a pleasant setting is good and much cheaper than Disney (the cheapest bottle of wine I found in Disney Florida was £30; I paid £3.50 for a better wine in Port Aventura!). Alton Towers (Hotel or park) simply does not compete on food quality, setting or variety, in my view.

Rides: I will briefly reviewing some of the 30
rides; those I call "headliners" I think are worth a wait of 30 minutes or more, others are worth 15 minutes (or less).
.
Headliners (not necessarily pure adrenaline)

Dragon Khan. *****
This is the big one. 110 kph (just under 70 mph), 8 inversions, 3 minutes, smooth steel, red, highly visible and audible. My 11 year old was very nervous of this and had to be persuaded to ride, even though she has ridden several coasters as intimidating, including the Incredible Hulk and Duelling Dragons in the American sister park in Florida. Phew! Quite a blast.

The Temple of Fire. ***1/2
This is more akin to the movie sets in the Universal Florida. There is a reasonably well themed waiting area, with atmosphere added by part hidden charred bodies, broken-up radio messages for help and then you are led into a darkened room for the scene to be set. A couple of actors try to do this for the crowd speaking Spanish, Catalan and English. The English is just enough to understand the plot, which is to break into a forbidden temple and retrieve a valuable relic. The crowd are led into a room for the main show, which is reasonably dramatic, enough to worry children under 10, with as you would expect, much fire and special effects. I would say that the height limit is the wrong measure; it is a matter for parents to decide how "shock-proof their children are. I saw little ones taken on similar shows to this in Florida, and they were terrified, so don't take your tall 4 year olds on this.

Stampede ****1/2
My favourite ride. A duel roller coaster, on wooden tracks; you chose the colour (red or blue) and they race, often side by side, around a simple but effective track, splitting apart mid way and coming together for a close finish. Great fun if you are in a large group and split parting to one train and part in the other, I would imagine. Anyway the Spanish make a real event out of it, raising the tempo of compe
tition by chanting and singing.

Tutuki Splash ***
A boat ride with 2 large drops, guaranteeing a good soaking, especially if you raise your arms like I did the second time around. Best for early rides on hot days.

Kon-Tiki Wave. ***
A standard "banana" swing boat, involving no water! It swings quite high and if you sit at the back (either end) you are guaranteed to leave your stomach 20 feet behind......

Sea Odyssey ***
A fairly good mixed simulator / film ride involving a monster chasing your mini submarine through a sunken wreak. The dialogue is on television monitors and is in English as well as Spanish.

Silver River Flume ***1/2
a log flume ride with several small drops and one long one guaranteeing a soaking for most. Very popular.

Middle Line rides

Examples include:- El Diablo- runaway mine train. It is tame, but has its moments and worthwhile if the queue is not too long. "Tronto de pascal"- sadly out of action while we were there, but a common fair ground ride, based on an elevated platform oscillating around a central drive- it goes quite high and has a similar effect on your stomach to the banana boat ride. "Serpiente Emplumada" (green serpent) a Spinning, tilting octopus type ride, rated very good by my 11 year old, similarly a Mexican hat ride, crazy barrels, various smaller roller coasters, tamer rapid rides etc.

Ride for tots
There are small roller coasters ("Cobra Imperial", Tami-Tami), boat rides, swinging chairs, classic fair ground carrousels, simulated horse rides, mini dodgems, balloon rides; in all about 12 rides specially for younger or more timid riders, some tame enough for our 3 year old on her own, others needing the company of my wife (who says she hates rides, but enjoyed these anyway) or 10 year old. In an odd way this is the highlight of the park in that the whole family can participate. I cannot think of an
other park which has so many imaginative but gentle rides for your children, often with small or no queues, and do not forget, free entry for under 5s!

Our 3 year old had a great time and was treated very well by the staff, who let her stay on for extra rides when there were no queues, which was quite often. It was a real treat to see her have such a good time, as so often she has just had to watch the others.

Shows.
We saw the wild west stunt show, which I rate 4* as the whole family understood the plot and enjoyed it, the Polynesian dancing 4* again because the performers looked genuine and the crowd were involved, and one or two side shows worth 10 minutes diversion while you eat an ice cream, say. There are about 15 shows and it would take a couple of days at least to get around to seeing them all. A great extra, especially if you time it when you need a break.

Queues
Much shorter than Disney and from memory, even Alton Towers. Varies dramatically as the Spanish are serious about eating and the queues disappear from 2-3 pm, for example. One of the days we were there, there was a school holiday and this meant long queues on the thrill rides, but they did not stay very late. The longest queues we experienced were 55 minutes for the Silver River log Flume on a very hot day with many students on the park; later we waited 45 minutes for Dragon Khan.

Finale: Fiestaventura
At the weekends there is a spectacular firework, light and character show set on the main lake, which according to the "blurb" has won an award for the best live showing the world. Perhaps this is a highly selective choice of review, but we think it does compare well with some of the Disney shows we saw in the millennium spectacular year last year, well worth waiting until 12 pm if you can muster the stamina. We took a siesta (snooze in our hotel) from 3pm till 7pm, came back to the park f or a few rides and booked a late dinner at 10.
30 pm in time to finish just before the show.... what could be a better end to the day?

Gripes
We have a few, just in case you think this is too good to be true.

The Spanish are simply not such good administrators as the Americans, and this was felt in too lenient queue control- some queue jumping took place when friends or family would call others to join them, but this was not as bad as it sounds, as the queues were often so short it did not matter anyway. They did not have enough staff on some rides, slowing down the loading and unloading, unimportant bits of the scenery or fences were broken and not repaired fast enough, we once had to complain that there was no soap or toilet paper in the toilets of the best restaurant on the park, much to the embarrassment of the manager, I also complained that my two younger children both hurt themselves on the same simple playground slide because there was no sand left in the landing area; both scraped their limbs. A simple but very irritating fault, which I had to report twice to get even an apology. In America they would have been besides themselves with worry...... The first aid was excellent, however, and the grazes were carefully cleaned, and dressed.

Maintenance was slack in keeping the gardens and lights all in tip top order. There were a few too many weeds, the odd missing light bulb....

We tried to take advantage of a special 15 day price offer, only £2 more than we paid for 3 days (!!) But the staff, although able to speak quite good English (much better than my Spanish) had no way of dealing with this request, and the microphone kept breaking down which we were explaining this- quite a farce!

There were a large number of ‘pay and play' old-fashioned fair ground stalls dotted about in the park, which I think are a nuisance as younger kids don't understand that you (perhaps I am just a bit mean..) resent having to pay again for them to play some
feeble gallery- toss the hoop type game, but they are at least not too prominent, and the locals do still seem to like them....

Tips.
Get there early if you want plenty of rides on the popular rides.

Take an early lunch at say 1 pm so you are not competing for tables and also have an hour or so of very short queues while the Spanish eat.

Take your own water bottles an some light snacks from a local supermarket as it is a long hot day and although they do not rip you off on the price of mineral water like at Disney, it all helps keep the price down.

The locals start saving places for the finale on Weekends about 2 hour before it starts- there is no real need unless you must have the very best view. Combine this with the Spanish tendency to eat late and the rides will be very quiet (virtually no queue) during this time.

Make a point of using the restaurants- we found them to be as good or better then the off park ones.

The photos are frankly very cheap (725 pts) £2.75 at current exchange rates for a good sized photo is a steal. The only trouble was sometimes we only got one out of 2 or 3 of us in the frame on some rides. For similar photos in Florida we were asked $12, about 3 times the price. T-Shirts are better value to- about £10.

Check the height limits and expected wait time on the board leading to the more popular rides.

Use the Express pass which operates on the more popular (scary / fast) rides on the busiest days. We could book two different rides if we wanted to this way as you use the entry ticket to do it and I could borrow the cards from my wife and middle daughter, who does not like the faster rides. The Express Pass gives you an alloted time, typically an hour or so later, when you can return within a 15 minute window, and walk straight to the front of the queue.

If you are over 1.4 metres, then every ride is available.

It is magical in the evening; the l
ights change the whole look of parts of the park that seemed familiar in the day light. Don't tire yourself out so that you miss this time.

Conclusion.
Over all, it would be cherlish to say that there are not enough thrill rides, or that the standards of running of the park are below par (by the best American standards), even though this is true in part. I could also say that Salou is a fairly tacky town expanded on the back of the Park.

The fact is that this is a great theme park, well worth at least 2 days for a young family, offering much better value than others I have tried.

If you are looking for the same things as we are, I think you will agree that this is an excellent park. It is not as well "themed" as Disney, as thrilling as Islands of Adventure, or as cheap as say American Adventure in Derbyshire, but overall it is a great balance. It has a few thrills, lots of intermediate rides and a wealth of rides for the tiny ones, set in a warm climate (sorry Alton Towers) with good food and with fun-loving, friendly nationals running it.

Summary: