Changa
Mega Poster
We went for a week-long package holiday to stay in the Hotel El Paso which granted us unlimited 
access to Portaventura Park and one day at Ferrari Land. I haven't been to a new park in around 8 years and we jumped on an incredibly good package deal after a very stressful few years sorting our situations out. I've wanted to visit PA park since learning about Furious Baco back when I was a kid, but I have been slightly put off by recent opinions on here about the recent investments into the park and in the way it is run.
To give background info, our holiday was for Jet2 who were pretty much flawless throughout. Their customer services were great before the holiday, their schedules were pretty much perfect, and we had as much support as we could during the transfers without it being overbearing. I genuinely couldn't recommend them enough for a good value, stress-free holiday. As for the El Paso, it was generally very nice across the board and absolutely perfect for families looking for a parks holiday. The hotel was beautiful, with both our room and the communal facilities all being of exceptional quality, and the staff were very friendly, accommodating, and pretty much all spoke multiple languages (which was useful for us buffoons). Though the amenities and general atmosphere were slightly less suitable for solely adults staying as there was only really one bar and a couple of pool tables in that regards.
Thanks to us massively oversleeping after 40 straight hours of work and travel, we decided to jump on our evening slot at...
Ferrari Land
This would have easily taken the top spot for the best single-investment land a theme park could ever get... but it is NOT a complete theme park in itself and could never really justify being any more than that. However, I get that this helps them recoup their costs much more directly than if it were as part of the main park, it has had a huge impact on the marketability of the site as a holiday destination, and the evening hours were a pretty perfect length to comfortably get everything in. Had
we not been stuck in a broken drop tower and an agonisingly slow queue for flying dreams, we would have easily ridden all of the major attractions with time to enjoy the very nice "park" atmosphere. I cant' speak for the accuracy of each setpiece but the "park" was just nice to stroll through in general. However, the number of upcharge attractions and merch opportunities was pretty egregious when there were so few attractions for the typical price of admission, thereby making it a tough sell had it not been part of our package, as Red Force was the only ride of genuine substance,
#93 - Red Force - 10/10
What an exceptional ride. I managed three rides in the back and middle (curse you, assigned seating!) and was absolutely blown away by just how good this is in comparison to rides like TTD and Stealth. I ranted to an aggravating degree about how much I loved this in the last cred review thread, but I found Red Force to be sensational. The LSM launch doesn't have the punch of the hydraulic launches but makes up for it in the general theatrics and the sheer length of the acceleration period added a genuine fear factor to it. That coupled with an intense pullup and one of the best drops I've ever experienced on a ride, and it is a simple but perfect formula for an adrenaline-fuelled experience.
Thrill tower - Free fall - 8/10
I didn't do the shot tower as we had both tried BPBs Ice blast so we focused on this to try the "launch down" mode... and it was awesome! The force of the drop was incredibly exhilarating, and the extra bounces were simply good fun.
Maranello Grand Prix - 7/10
Was it a bit childish for two grown adults to be crammed into one car while surrounded by other families? Probably. Was it fun? Absolutely.
Critically, it did it's job very nicely for a car ride and offered great views of RF and the rest of the park. For kid racers and their parents, it seems to be pretty much perfect
Flying Dreams - 2/10
Potentially the most hilariously bad attraction I have ever been on. Being stuck in a half-dark, half-projection-mapped room with blaring music and screaming, queue-jumping teens for an hour (which was stated as 30 mins) already put the ride on the back foot. But the following 20 minutes consisted of TWO MORE queues and holding pens after starting the ride, which were interrupted by the most entertainingly self-indulgent drivel I've ever heard, all of which built up to a horrifically dull flying theatre (if this is what all flying theatres are like then it only belongs at Legoland) with further ""Ferrari magic"" driving us delirious, with our particular highlights being the stars in the sky forming a Ferrari symbol at the end, the "perfect Ferrari" being "whichever one you are driving!", and that the Ferrari engine noise is a a symphony of harmonies that no orchestra could ever reproduce. I would recommend this for how funny it was, but only if the queue was under 10 minutes.
Moving on to the main park!
PortAventura Park
We went to the park for one full day and three afternoons and only really rushed on the last day when getting our final rides in. Going to
the resort in October meant that the waterpark was closed, but also meant that we never waited for more than 30 minutes for anything except for Uncharted. Our trip package also got us meal tokens for a few locations in the park which gets you a three-course lunch of frankly amazing quality compared to the merlin parks (Also, the mexican restaurant canteen area has an excellent show on some days that was worth timing lunch around!).
Going in the order I went on them, we started the park with the obvious:
#95 Furious Baco - 7/10
As a complete sucker for hydraulic launches and having a longstanding curiosity for niche rides in general, I was optimistic that the ride would be worth the apparent roughness. As it turns out, it's great! Firstly, the placement of the ride within the Mediterranean area is absolutely fantastic (A running theme for the whole park), the dive over the lake looks majestic without being too intrusive on the opening views of the park, and it seems so well integrated that it looks like it was designed in with the rest of the park. Winemaking is an awesome theme for a ride and yields a wonderful looking queueline through the vineyard and winery storerooms, and a wonderfully themed gift shop that mostly sold bottles of wine and offered a wine/tapas menu! I only got two rides that were both on the back-right row (both the inside and outside seat) which was a shame. The pre-launch show was easily the best bit of theming on a thrill coaster I have seen, the video was good fun (though one of the screens was a bit slow to start?) the moving cogs/people were fun, and the sounds of the machinery blended amazingly with the sounds of the launch preparing and heighted the drama tremendously.
As for the layout, it was quite bland but still fun! The launch was as excellent as all of the other hydraulic launches, the diving turn into the trench gave great airtime and a fantastic near miss that was ten-times as exciting with the wing seating exposing basically every part of you to the ground. The meandering turns were quite dull but still gave a good sense of speed thanks to the abundance of nearby scenery. Then the finale barrel roll and dive onto the water was both very good fun and aesthetically wonderful. I completely understand people's hatred of the roughness and it is definitely one of the rougher rides that I have ever been on, but I found it perfectly bearable compared to rides like BPBs Big Dipper, Mean Streak, and a certain OTHER pair of rides in the park, and wasn't enough to detract much from the experience. The weirdness of the ride makes it quite difficult to compare to even other accelerator coasters, so my rating is more so based on my overall enjoyment of the experience.
#96 - Dragon Khan - 7/10
This was pretty much exactly as I had thought it would be compared to other B&M loopers, and it's good! There were an abundance of Positive G's, lots of loops, and a surprisingly flowy layout. It was quite rough by B&M standards but generally fine. What I would say is that I found it quite bland, as other than a few trenches adding some nice layering between different sections, it is practically indistinguishable from the other loopers. That's definitely a nitpick, but that combined with the MCBR killing a lot of the momentum dampened the experience. However I loved how aesthetically chaotic the ride looks from the pathways thanks to the aforementioned layering of the elements and the China land setting up lovely views of it.
#97 Shambhala - 9/10
I never really got the hype for this based on the look of it... but yeah this is pretty great, isn't it? This tied as my most ridden ride of the park with 5 rides ranging from the second row to the back row, and it was easily my favourite ride at the park. Its a great looking ride from everywhere in the entire region, and while it is hilarious how much it looks like it has been dropped on top of Dragon Khan, it is really impressible how well the land has been integrated into such an awkward plot of land and the way the main supports and the return track has been threaded between DK without detracting from the ride experience.
The classic clamshell restraints were largely very comfortable (except for the attendants shoving with all their might to try and staple everyone), the staggered seating is absolutely fantastic, and the view of both the park and Mediterranean is delightful when going up the lift (also, the constantly syncing lifts between Shambhala and Dragon Khan always led to lots of fun interactions!). What followed after that is an endless series of majestically perfect airtime hills that felt sensational to fly over. I can't believe how every one could feel so exceptionally good, even the slow one after the MCBR somehow give several seconds of floater airtime? The backrow is easily the highlight as the floater develops into ejector over every hill wile never feeling daunting or uncomforable. It was just so good! My highlights were easily the first hill coming out of the tunnel, and the sequence of the speed hill into the second major hill into the splashdown. I never got the point of the fake splashdown until actively riding it, but it's a great looking showpiece, and adds greatly to the chaos of the riding experience! However, my very minor complaints of the ride are that the MCBR was operationally pointless and removed the opportunity for a more interesting turnaround, and I would ideally hope for a bit more variety for a ride of that length. Everything else was pretty much faultless as a hyper-coaster experience and managed to live up to the unending hype from everyone who's ridden it.
Huracan Condor - 7/10
Considering the ride's height and how absolutely terrifying Apocalypse is when being 100ft shorter, I found this surprisingly tame by comparison? I think the lack of a standup/leaning option on this might have made the difference regarding the ride's fear factor. Having said that, it's still a great drop tower. It's imposing from anywhere in the park, the surrounding theming is exceptional and presents it like the major ride that it is. (Side note: Is it just me or is the square structure at the top slightly lopsided?). Lastly, the drop itself is still absolutely huge, with the sheer length for which you are plummeting always feeling several seconds too long to be trusted and somehow felt scarier the more I rode it (5 times in total, matching Shambhala).
#98 Tomahawk - 6/10
There really isn't much to say about tomahawk other than that it seems to be the perfect step up from the sesame street coaster and made for a genuinely fun ride! It was smoother than Stampida and was very nicely integrated into one giantic wooden monster, and some of the drops were surprisingly steep and forceful. The tiny length and tameness compared to other rides in the park make this my lowest rating, but its excellent for what it is going for.
#99/101 Stampida Red/Blue - 7/10
Surprisingly not as rough as I was expecting? I think endless rides on BPBs rides, coupled with mean streak and Troy has made me very lenient to the roughness of other wooden rides. As while this was still an incredibly rattly, janky ride that desperately needs a retrack, I feel like the infamy of the ride is slightly exaggerated when there are lots of rides that are just as bad or worse. As you can tell from my rating, it was no where near enough to ruin the rides themselves as the layouts were great fun! The drops were intense, the air-time was pronounced, the laterals were genuinely fun, and the racing aspect was a laugh (everyone's attitude of cheering the winner was wholeseome). I hope that they receive a Ghostrider treatment to really bring the layouts out, as the rides are fundamentally really good and don't deserve to be gutted for an RMC treatment! (Even if there is enough structure for a corking pair of hybrids). Though, these being the only rides with one train ops reeaally drew out the queues in comparison with the rest of the park.
#100!!!! Uncharted - 7/10
I found out this would be my 100th coaster as I was in the queue! To be fair, we had the time to contemplate a lot in this queue. The capacity is absolutely dire when compared to everything else in the park, whoever decided this was suitable for such a big park is a lunatic when there were so many other great options for such a space that have at least a better capacity? At least the interior queue was quite nice, with queueline animatronics, videos, and lots of decent cave/mayan theming to try and distract from the stationary queue. I got two rides on this thanks to a single-rider reride, though even that seemed to be longer than most standby queues in the park.
The ride itself was great fun with some decent theatrics and a wide range of elements that somewhat takes advantage of the hardware. The launches were probably the punchiest LSM's I have experienced (presumably due to refined hardware and lighter cars) even though they were very short. The rotating cars led to a couple of cool setpieces, the best being to fix the car in place while a turntable shifts.
However, while it was a fun, smooth coaster and a very solid indoor attraction; it came across more like a prototype for the model than a complete package. The ride system seems to be excellent, and I would be surprised if this isn't used by someone like universal to create a new bar-setting coaster in the near future. While with Uncharted, there are only a couple of show scenes with the rest of the ride meandering in a black box, sometimes taking turns at a slight angle. The only times it is noticeably utilised is turning to face a setpiece at the start, the turntable/multilaunch, and a free-spinning drop at the end. Even the launches are using insane technology to bump up the rides speed by maybe 10mph before hitting a brake anyway. I'm not sure how fair I'm being with this criticism, as it's an ambitious ride to fit into such a small space, but it seems like the overall package is being held back by either space or budget constraints.
Volpaiute - 1/10
This was the most boring ride I think I have ever been on. The gondolas were clearly meant to spin but none of them ever did when I rode it or when I was walking past. Rotating slowly in a long circle while baking in the sun was not the worth the 5 minute wait for it to get started, nor the 2 minute wait for it to be over.
Silver River Flume - 8/10
A great log flume with a decent length, lots of height variation, and is fantastically intertwined with El Diablo and the park train. The whole area looks great in general and adds particularly well to the flume. Other than that, it has everything you would be looking for in a log flume. There really isn't much to say as its just a great ride.
Grand Canyon Rapids - 6/10
Much better than the UK rapids as they actually have some ride elements (Not discounting the very good reasons why our rapids have been neutered) with this one really hauling through it's layout. The whole area is utilised as the rides setting as a strictly western area, and looks absolutely great throughout. Though, I still found it quite underwhelming as there just wasn't much going on in the ride and its speed meant it was quite a short ride with little time to just enjoy the setting. I think my standards for a rapids has been unfairly raised by Cedar Point's Thunder Canyon.
Tutuki Splash - 9/10
We were particularly (un)lucky with our one ride which is why my rating is quite high. The ride is generally pretty great, with the polynesia setting being absolutely exceptional and the ride itself being very nicely integrated within it, effectively being the showpiece of the land; the queue was very pleasant, though we didn't have that long to wait anyway; and the ride is a fun, pleasant experience with two splashdowns. The main detractor for me was the disgusting gum-filled cave that has not been cleaned in what looked like a while. Other than that, its a solid enough mega flume that would have soaked us fairly well.
[Dramatic re-enactment of roughly what happened on our ride]Street Mission - 8-10
This also had a terrible capacity of only 12 people every 2-3 minutes but was a really great shooting dark ride. The sesame street theme is as charming as ever and creates a great mix of physical sets and genuinely good 3d screens, to the extent that a solely-screen section coupled with ride movement was embarrassingly immersive. The shooting was responsive, there was a wonderful scent of cookies throughout, the story was good fun, and it was just a fun time!
We didn't go on any other other rides in the sesame street area due to, well.. embarrassment. But it looked like one of the nicest kids areas I've ever seen. The rides were quite closely crammed together which added a great kinetic energy to the land, the theming was all very charming, and there seemed to be a great variety to the rides on offer as far as I could tell.
#102 - El Diablo, Tren de la Mina - 4/10
This was much nicer to watch from the plaza and the log flume than to ride. I found this to be a dull, janky bore with very little time spent actually coasting through a layout considering how many lifts there were. I find the handbuild, wrought-iron approach Arrow took to be somewhat charming, but not enough to excuse how awkward the ride was considering that dragon khan is the same age and suffers from so much more wear and tear. However, the tunnels and the helix finale are quite fun to go through and the aesthetic appeal of the ride within the western area is very lovely.
Overall Thoughts!
I adored PA Park. the theming of each area was exceptional, each ride was just so nicely integrated that they contributed to the areas theme and a dynamic atmosphere while standing out on their own as major attractions, thereby giving each one their own extra bit of gravitas when riding them (Huracan Condor, Tutuki Splash and Stampida were particularly noteworthy for these). Each part of it feels like a showcase for what a park for all age categories can blend together. I'm not sure how involved Tussauds were in the original park other than Wardley doing some of the ride layouts, but it seemed to have their best fingerprints everywhere with the way rides were presented. The time period we visited seemed to be pretty much perfect as the queues were low without affecting the park atmosphere too much.
As for the ride selection, it'd say that it has a nearly perfect line up in terms of having a lot of crowd favourites, niche rides, and having each major attraction distinguishing themselves from each other. The one noticeable gap in the coaster lineup would be something between Tomahawk/Tami Tami and Stampida. Uncharted sort-of fills this gap but seems to be aiming for an older age bracket than it's height requirement. Also, one more heavy hitter in the vein of Shambhala or DK would really complete the park in my opinion, someone on here posted and idea for a polynesian flying coaster, that would be stellar!
With how simple the travel arrangements could be to get to the resort, I couldn't recommend the park enough to UK residents, it is on a completely different level to our parks and comes across as what Thorpe Park wishes it could be. I also think that it would be a perfect park for Universal to buy back into, as the infrastructure seems to be future-proofed and able to handle whatever expansion/marketing they would naturally bring to it.
So those are my thoughts! As luck would have it, I happen to be going to Walibi Holland this weekend. Hopefully I won't have as much to say about that as this has taken a week to write!
access to Portaventura Park and one day at Ferrari Land. I haven't been to a new park in around 8 years and we jumped on an incredibly good package deal after a very stressful few years sorting our situations out. I've wanted to visit PA park since learning about Furious Baco back when I was a kid, but I have been slightly put off by recent opinions on here about the recent investments into the park and in the way it is run.To give background info, our holiday was for Jet2 who were pretty much flawless throughout. Their customer services were great before the holiday, their schedules were pretty much perfect, and we had as much support as we could during the transfers without it being overbearing. I genuinely couldn't recommend them enough for a good value, stress-free holiday. As for the El Paso, it was generally very nice across the board and absolutely perfect for families looking for a parks holiday. The hotel was beautiful, with both our room and the communal facilities all being of exceptional quality, and the staff were very friendly, accommodating, and pretty much all spoke multiple languages (which was useful for us buffoons). Though the amenities and general atmosphere were slightly less suitable for solely adults staying as there was only really one bar and a couple of pool tables in that regards.
Thanks to us massively oversleeping after 40 straight hours of work and travel, we decided to jump on our evening slot at...
Ferrari Land
This would have easily taken the top spot for the best single-investment land a theme park could ever get... but it is NOT a complete theme park in itself and could never really justify being any more than that. However, I get that this helps them recoup their costs much more directly than if it were as part of the main park, it has had a huge impact on the marketability of the site as a holiday destination, and the evening hours were a pretty perfect length to comfortably get everything in. Had
we not been stuck in a broken drop tower and an agonisingly slow queue for flying dreams, we would have easily ridden all of the major attractions with time to enjoy the very nice "park" atmosphere. I cant' speak for the accuracy of each setpiece but the "park" was just nice to stroll through in general. However, the number of upcharge attractions and merch opportunities was pretty egregious when there were so few attractions for the typical price of admission, thereby making it a tough sell had it not been part of our package, as Red Force was the only ride of genuine substance,#93 - Red Force - 10/10
What an exceptional ride. I managed three rides in the back and middle (curse you, assigned seating!) and was absolutely blown away by just how good this is in comparison to rides like TTD and Stealth. I ranted to an aggravating degree about how much I loved this in the last cred review thread, but I found Red Force to be sensational. The LSM launch doesn't have the punch of the hydraulic launches but makes up for it in the general theatrics and the sheer length of the acceleration period added a genuine fear factor to it. That coupled with an intense pullup and one of the best drops I've ever experienced on a ride, and it is a simple but perfect formula for an adrenaline-fuelled experience.
Thrill tower - Free fall - 8/10
I didn't do the shot tower as we had both tried BPBs Ice blast so we focused on this to try the "launch down" mode... and it was awesome! The force of the drop was incredibly exhilarating, and the extra bounces were simply good fun.
Maranello Grand Prix - 7/10
Was it a bit childish for two grown adults to be crammed into one car while surrounded by other families? Probably. Was it fun? Absolutely.
Critically, it did it's job very nicely for a car ride and offered great views of RF and the rest of the park. For kid racers and their parents, it seems to be pretty much perfect
Flying Dreams - 2/10
Potentially the most hilariously bad attraction I have ever been on. Being stuck in a half-dark, half-projection-mapped room with blaring music and screaming, queue-jumping teens for an hour (which was stated as 30 mins) already put the ride on the back foot. But the following 20 minutes consisted of TWO MORE queues and holding pens after starting the ride, which were interrupted by the most entertainingly self-indulgent drivel I've ever heard, all of which built up to a horrifically dull flying theatre (if this is what all flying theatres are like then it only belongs at Legoland) with further ""Ferrari magic"" driving us delirious, with our particular highlights being the stars in the sky forming a Ferrari symbol at the end, the "perfect Ferrari" being "whichever one you are driving!", and that the Ferrari engine noise is a a symphony of harmonies that no orchestra could ever reproduce. I would recommend this for how funny it was, but only if the queue was under 10 minutes.
Moving on to the main park!
PortAventura Park
We went to the park for one full day and three afternoons and only really rushed on the last day when getting our final rides in. Going to
the resort in October meant that the waterpark was closed, but also meant that we never waited for more than 30 minutes for anything except for Uncharted. Our trip package also got us meal tokens for a few locations in the park which gets you a three-course lunch of frankly amazing quality compared to the merlin parks (Also, the mexican restaurant canteen area has an excellent show on some days that was worth timing lunch around!).
I went in only knowing about Furious Baco, Shambhala, Dragon Khan, Stampida, Tomahawk, Uncharted, Huracan Condor, and that there was some sort of Sesame Street dark ride. What I hadn't expected was how unbelievably nice the park was! The theming in each land was incredibly well done and ranged from either being perfectly pleasant (China), to wonderfully atmospheric (Far west, Mexico, Sesame Street) to being genuinely easy to get immersed in (Polynesia). We both found the general atmosphere of the entire park to be consistently exceptional, which made it so much more fulfilling to just slowly walk between rides and take in our surroundings. We didn't try any of the scare mazes as we were put off by the upcharge, but the general halloween theming around the park was good fun, and the day-of-the-dead-themed walkaround characters were absolutely exceptional both in their general aesthetics and the extent in which they interacted with the crowds (one zombie bride danced with a guy walking through the far west and swooned with shame once they reached the edge of the land, to the great amusement of him and his entire group). Going in the order I went on them, we started the park with the obvious:
#95 Furious Baco - 7/10
As a complete sucker for hydraulic launches and having a longstanding curiosity for niche rides in general, I was optimistic that the ride would be worth the apparent roughness. As it turns out, it's great! Firstly, the placement of the ride within the Mediterranean area is absolutely fantastic (A running theme for the whole park), the dive over the lake looks majestic without being too intrusive on the opening views of the park, and it seems so well integrated that it looks like it was designed in with the rest of the park. Winemaking is an awesome theme for a ride and yields a wonderful looking queueline through the vineyard and winery storerooms, and a wonderfully themed gift shop that mostly sold bottles of wine and offered a wine/tapas menu! I only got two rides that were both on the back-right row (both the inside and outside seat) which was a shame. The pre-launch show was easily the best bit of theming on a thrill coaster I have seen, the video was good fun (though one of the screens was a bit slow to start?) the moving cogs/people were fun, and the sounds of the machinery blended amazingly with the sounds of the launch preparing and heighted the drama tremendously.
As for the layout, it was quite bland but still fun! The launch was as excellent as all of the other hydraulic launches, the diving turn into the trench gave great airtime and a fantastic near miss that was ten-times as exciting with the wing seating exposing basically every part of you to the ground. The meandering turns were quite dull but still gave a good sense of speed thanks to the abundance of nearby scenery. Then the finale barrel roll and dive onto the water was both very good fun and aesthetically wonderful. I completely understand people's hatred of the roughness and it is definitely one of the rougher rides that I have ever been on, but I found it perfectly bearable compared to rides like BPBs Big Dipper, Mean Streak, and a certain OTHER pair of rides in the park, and wasn't enough to detract much from the experience. The weirdness of the ride makes it quite difficult to compare to even other accelerator coasters, so my rating is more so based on my overall enjoyment of the experience.
#96 - Dragon Khan - 7/10
This was pretty much exactly as I had thought it would be compared to other B&M loopers, and it's good! There were an abundance of Positive G's, lots of loops, and a surprisingly flowy layout. It was quite rough by B&M standards but generally fine. What I would say is that I found it quite bland, as other than a few trenches adding some nice layering between different sections, it is practically indistinguishable from the other loopers. That's definitely a nitpick, but that combined with the MCBR killing a lot of the momentum dampened the experience. However I loved how aesthetically chaotic the ride looks from the pathways thanks to the aforementioned layering of the elements and the China land setting up lovely views of it.
I never really got the hype for this based on the look of it... but yeah this is pretty great, isn't it? This tied as my most ridden ride of the park with 5 rides ranging from the second row to the back row, and it was easily my favourite ride at the park. Its a great looking ride from everywhere in the entire region, and while it is hilarious how much it looks like it has been dropped on top of Dragon Khan, it is really impressible how well the land has been integrated into such an awkward plot of land and the way the main supports and the return track has been threaded between DK without detracting from the ride experience.
The classic clamshell restraints were largely very comfortable (except for the attendants shoving with all their might to try and staple everyone), the staggered seating is absolutely fantastic, and the view of both the park and Mediterranean is delightful when going up the lift (also, the constantly syncing lifts between Shambhala and Dragon Khan always led to lots of fun interactions!). What followed after that is an endless series of majestically perfect airtime hills that felt sensational to fly over. I can't believe how every one could feel so exceptionally good, even the slow one after the MCBR somehow give several seconds of floater airtime? The backrow is easily the highlight as the floater develops into ejector over every hill wile never feeling daunting or uncomforable. It was just so good! My highlights were easily the first hill coming out of the tunnel, and the sequence of the speed hill into the second major hill into the splashdown. I never got the point of the fake splashdown until actively riding it, but it's a great looking showpiece, and adds greatly to the chaos of the riding experience! However, my very minor complaints of the ride are that the MCBR was operationally pointless and removed the opportunity for a more interesting turnaround, and I would ideally hope for a bit more variety for a ride of that length. Everything else was pretty much faultless as a hyper-coaster experience and managed to live up to the unending hype from everyone who's ridden it.
Huracan Condor - 7/10
Considering the ride's height and how absolutely terrifying Apocalypse is when being 100ft shorter, I found this surprisingly tame by comparison? I think the lack of a standup/leaning option on this might have made the difference regarding the ride's fear factor. Having said that, it's still a great drop tower. It's imposing from anywhere in the park, the surrounding theming is exceptional and presents it like the major ride that it is. (Side note: Is it just me or is the square structure at the top slightly lopsided?). Lastly, the drop itself is still absolutely huge, with the sheer length for which you are plummeting always feeling several seconds too long to be trusted and somehow felt scarier the more I rode it (5 times in total, matching Shambhala).
#98 Tomahawk - 6/10
There really isn't much to say about tomahawk other than that it seems to be the perfect step up from the sesame street coaster and made for a genuinely fun ride! It was smoother than Stampida and was very nicely integrated into one giantic wooden monster, and some of the drops were surprisingly steep and forceful. The tiny length and tameness compared to other rides in the park make this my lowest rating, but its excellent for what it is going for.
#99/101 Stampida Red/Blue - 7/10
Surprisingly not as rough as I was expecting? I think endless rides on BPBs rides, coupled with mean streak and Troy has made me very lenient to the roughness of other wooden rides. As while this was still an incredibly rattly, janky ride that desperately needs a retrack, I feel like the infamy of the ride is slightly exaggerated when there are lots of rides that are just as bad or worse. As you can tell from my rating, it was no where near enough to ruin the rides themselves as the layouts were great fun! The drops were intense, the air-time was pronounced, the laterals were genuinely fun, and the racing aspect was a laugh (everyone's attitude of cheering the winner was wholeseome). I hope that they receive a Ghostrider treatment to really bring the layouts out, as the rides are fundamentally really good and don't deserve to be gutted for an RMC treatment! (Even if there is enough structure for a corking pair of hybrids). Though, these being the only rides with one train ops reeaally drew out the queues in comparison with the rest of the park.
#100!!!! Uncharted - 7/10
I found out this would be my 100th coaster as I was in the queue! To be fair, we had the time to contemplate a lot in this queue. The capacity is absolutely dire when compared to everything else in the park, whoever decided this was suitable for such a big park is a lunatic when there were so many other great options for such a space that have at least a better capacity? At least the interior queue was quite nice, with queueline animatronics, videos, and lots of decent cave/mayan theming to try and distract from the stationary queue. I got two rides on this thanks to a single-rider reride, though even that seemed to be longer than most standby queues in the park.
The ride itself was great fun with some decent theatrics and a wide range of elements that somewhat takes advantage of the hardware. The launches were probably the punchiest LSM's I have experienced (presumably due to refined hardware and lighter cars) even though they were very short. The rotating cars led to a couple of cool setpieces, the best being to fix the car in place while a turntable shifts.
However, while it was a fun, smooth coaster and a very solid indoor attraction; it came across more like a prototype for the model than a complete package. The ride system seems to be excellent, and I would be surprised if this isn't used by someone like universal to create a new bar-setting coaster in the near future. While with Uncharted, there are only a couple of show scenes with the rest of the ride meandering in a black box, sometimes taking turns at a slight angle. The only times it is noticeably utilised is turning to face a setpiece at the start, the turntable/multilaunch, and a free-spinning drop at the end. Even the launches are using insane technology to bump up the rides speed by maybe 10mph before hitting a brake anyway. I'm not sure how fair I'm being with this criticism, as it's an ambitious ride to fit into such a small space, but it seems like the overall package is being held back by either space or budget constraints.
Volpaiute - 1/10
This was the most boring ride I think I have ever been on. The gondolas were clearly meant to spin but none of them ever did when I rode it or when I was walking past. Rotating slowly in a long circle while baking in the sun was not the worth the 5 minute wait for it to get started, nor the 2 minute wait for it to be over.
Silver River Flume - 8/10
A great log flume with a decent length, lots of height variation, and is fantastically intertwined with El Diablo and the park train. The whole area looks great in general and adds particularly well to the flume. Other than that, it has everything you would be looking for in a log flume. There really isn't much to say as its just a great ride.
Much better than the UK rapids as they actually have some ride elements (Not discounting the very good reasons why our rapids have been neutered) with this one really hauling through it's layout. The whole area is utilised as the rides setting as a strictly western area, and looks absolutely great throughout. Though, I still found it quite underwhelming as there just wasn't much going on in the ride and its speed meant it was quite a short ride with little time to just enjoy the setting. I think my standards for a rapids has been unfairly raised by Cedar Point's Thunder Canyon.
Tutuki Splash - 9/10
However, a great stroke of luck with the dispatches (which seemed to happen once every 20-25 minutes) meant that we were on the main lift when the boat in front went down the main drop. This meant that the enormous wave kicked up by that boat beamed us straight in the face, giving us one brief second to contemplate our fate before getting annihilated. I couldn't recommend this version enough.[Dramatic re-enactment of roughly what happened on our ride]
This also had a terrible capacity of only 12 people every 2-3 minutes but was a really great shooting dark ride. The sesame street theme is as charming as ever and creates a great mix of physical sets and genuinely good 3d screens, to the extent that a solely-screen section coupled with ride movement was embarrassingly immersive. The shooting was responsive, there was a wonderful scent of cookies throughout, the story was good fun, and it was just a fun time!
We didn't go on any other other rides in the sesame street area due to, well.. embarrassment. But it looked like one of the nicest kids areas I've ever seen. The rides were quite closely crammed together which added a great kinetic energy to the land, the theming was all very charming, and there seemed to be a great variety to the rides on offer as far as I could tell.
#102 - El Diablo, Tren de la Mina - 4/10
This was much nicer to watch from the plaza and the log flume than to ride. I found this to be a dull, janky bore with very little time spent actually coasting through a layout considering how many lifts there were. I find the handbuild, wrought-iron approach Arrow took to be somewhat charming, but not enough to excuse how awkward the ride was considering that dragon khan is the same age and suffers from so much more wear and tear. However, the tunnels and the helix finale are quite fun to go through and the aesthetic appeal of the ride within the western area is very lovely.
Overall Thoughts!
I adored PA Park. the theming of each area was exceptional, each ride was just so nicely integrated that they contributed to the areas theme and a dynamic atmosphere while standing out on their own as major attractions, thereby giving each one their own extra bit of gravitas when riding them (Huracan Condor, Tutuki Splash and Stampida were particularly noteworthy for these). Each part of it feels like a showcase for what a park for all age categories can blend together. I'm not sure how involved Tussauds were in the original park other than Wardley doing some of the ride layouts, but it seemed to have their best fingerprints everywhere with the way rides were presented. The time period we visited seemed to be pretty much perfect as the queues were low without affecting the park atmosphere too much.
As for the ride selection, it'd say that it has a nearly perfect line up in terms of having a lot of crowd favourites, niche rides, and having each major attraction distinguishing themselves from each other. The one noticeable gap in the coaster lineup would be something between Tomahawk/Tami Tami and Stampida. Uncharted sort-of fills this gap but seems to be aiming for an older age bracket than it's height requirement. Also, one more heavy hitter in the vein of Shambhala or DK would really complete the park in my opinion, someone on here posted and idea for a polynesian flying coaster, that would be stellar!
With how simple the travel arrangements could be to get to the resort, I couldn't recommend the park enough to UK residents, it is on a completely different level to our parks and comes across as what Thorpe Park wishes it could be. I also think that it would be a perfect park for Universal to buy back into, as the infrastructure seems to be future-proofed and able to handle whatever expansion/marketing they would naturally bring to it.
So those are my thoughts! As luck would have it, I happen to be going to Walibi Holland this weekend. Hopefully I won't have as much to say about that as this has taken a week to write!