It's 6:30am. I'm flying home from Barcelona. I have laryngitis, my throat feels like a porcupine. The man sat next to me has just started playing a game on his phone at full volume with no headphones. I put in my earplugs for the fourteenth time this weekend and sigh.
It's time to talk about PortAventura Halloween. Question is, can I recount the last few days without exploding in a ball of stress?
It began at hotel check in. What began, you ask? The constant annoyance, frustration and irritation. We showed our booking details and the staff member directed us to the wrong hotel car park. Wow...we're so close...to the hotel we didn't book. But there was nowhere else to park apparently.
Details for my booking at Hotel Caribe clearly stated "pre paid online" but the man at reception refused and decided to charge me twice. Resulting in a long, frustrating discussion where I had to pull up my bank statements from months ago to show I had already paid for the reservation. This was eating into valuable park time. But eventually it got sorted.
By the time we stepped into PortAventura, I was already in a bad mood. Then we saw the queue times and exchanged looks of horror. The only ride that didn't have a massive queue was Sesame Street Mission - boasting a tolerable 30 mins. Sorry Shambhala, I guess we've got a Cookie Monster to catch first.
The noisy indoor cattle pen for Sesame Street simply did not move. For every step forward, 4 people would push in front of you. I've never seen so much queue jumping in a park ever. Then ride broke down. Finally we got to the front of the queue. Then just stood still for ages as the staff let an endless stream of fast track people on. Are the going to take from the normal queue anytime soon? Nope. 4 people have just walked up fast track. Then some more. Then some more. It was immensely frustrating and the ride is nothing special.
By the time we boarded the ride I was too annoyed to even care about the Cookie Monster.
You know what will make us feel better? A B+M Hyper! We joined the single rider queue as the main queue was 2 hours long (which we all know would actually be 3 hours once you account for all the people cutting in)
Wow, this single rider line is slow. Wow, there's so many empty seats on the trains. Every single train that pulled into the station had at least one empty seat. It was painful to watch the operations. Staff only began filling the airgates once the train was back in the station. You could see loads of spaces for single riders, but the staff just weren't paying attention to take from the single rider queue.
As we waited and waited in the station, it got worse. Staff were failing to fill ENTIRE ROWS on the trains in time, so a ride with a 2 hour standby queue was going round with empty rows.
Finally, I got on row 3 via single rider but sadly Shambhala was running very badly that day. Such little airtime, very sluggish. I hate to say it, because I love B+M hypers, but I was actually bored as the train crawled over those massive hills. One of the worst hyper rides I've ever had. It pains me how inconsistent Shambhala is.
PortAventura was open til midnight that day for Halloween. Out friends who were also in the park frantically called us when we got off Shambhala. "The Horror mazes shut really early, we need to do them all right now." Where was this important info communicated? On tiny little A boards outside the mazes themselves (which we hadn't walked passed yet as we had no idea where they were)
We had all pre-booked our €30 Halloween Passports online. Had our friends not seen that small sign outside a maze, we probably wouldn't have been able to do them in time. When a park shuts at midnight for Halloween, you kind of assume the haunts will be open beyond 6pm, no?
Joined the queue for the Mayan-themed maze: Apocalypsis Maya (which takes place in Temple Du Feugo) The queue didn't look to bad, then we realised: this is just the queue to get into the queue. Yep. That's right. You queue to get into the main queue for the maze. Most of the maze was outdoors, so obviously it made total sense to NOT have the maze open at night when it would actually look cool in the dark.
How was the maze? It was mostly just people banging metal sticks on metal bins and screaming in your ear with bad make up. I put my ear plugs in because it was so earritating. There were a few cool jump scares but overall it was a weak attraction. Also, the maze featured a person at the end with a chainsaw? I didn't realise they had chainsaws in Mayan times!
Rush rush rush over to next maze: La Muerta Viva. Queue to join queue. Queue. People push in front. Get inside maze to be greeted by actors banging metal sticks on metal kegs and screaming in your ear. Earplugs back in again! I got zero jump scares in this one and the decor inside looked tacky. Of course, there was an actor with a chainsaw at the end. Day of the Dead is famously known for it's chainsaws after all.
Rush over to next maze. Queue to join queue. People push in front. Now, this maze was called Horrock in Texas and it was themed to hard rock / metal musicians. I am a metal musician. Imagine going in a horror maze themed to what you actually do. I found the whole thing absolutely hilarious, especially the part "in the studio" where the sound engineer leaps out at you. The maze was still pretty rubbish but at least this one made me laugh.
Dashed over to another maze: Rec Experience. Oh. It's closed. It closed earlier than the others but there was no way of knowing this without walking passed the attraction and seeing the small A-board sign.
Oh well, I'm hungry, it's 6pm, let's eat. Wait, we can't. They've closed all the restaurants. So unless you want candyfloss or ice cream for dinner, you have zero options for a proper meal right now. We were very very frustrated by this point. With restaurants stated to re-open at 7:30pm, we tried to watch the Vampire show. Joined the queue for the show. People push in front. Eventually get to front of queue. "You need a reservation" What?! Turns out, there was a tiny A board with a tiny QR code that was obscured BY THE QUEUE so we couldn't make a reservation for the show.
We started laughing at what could go wrong next. We were having such a bad time that we decided to make it even worse by riding Stampeda. This ride will destroy your spine. Absolutely horrendous stuff. Totally not worth it.
Can we eat now? Yes! Restaurants have re-opened. I've never been impressed by PAs food before, but the pumpkin soup and ribs we had in the Western area were tasty.
Okay, it's now 8pm. We've been in the park all day. We've ridden THREE rides and been in three mazes. We had booked to do the special Halloween attraction that takes place inside the entire water park - La Isla Maldita. "Never done before!" "First in Europe!" "Over 100 actors!" boasted the poster. Sounds cool right?
We headed to the water park entrance. Oh. That's not the entrance they are using for this. Silly us! Using the entrance for the Water Park, for the attraction that takes place in the water park would have made way too much sense.
Headed back in the main park, found the massive queue. Wait, that was just a queue to join the queue. People kept pushing in front, over and over again. Finally we got in the water park, only to join another queue. How much longer can this be?! We couldn't see the end of the queue. After an hour, Alex said "I'm going to check how long this queue is" - a minute later he reappeared shaking his head. "Take a look for yourself"
I hopped over the barrier and turned the corner. My heart sank. It was cattle pen after cattle pen after cattle pen. The line was at least twice the size of the line we had already waited in and that had taken an hour so far. Our options were: leave queue, sack off the attraction, having wasted over an hour waiting and wasting the €12 it cost. Or pay €10 each for fast track. We shelled out for fast track. I was already feeling bitter about the experience by this point.
It was the best Halloween attraction at PortAventura, but that isn't exactly high praise. The attraction is a lengthy mixture between scare zone and maze, with some inventive bits like utilising the wave pool and having actors in the water on jet skis. I'd say La Isla Maldita was 30% cool ideas, 70% same old tropes. Chainsaws? Check. People banging metal bins? Check. (Earplugs back in) Asylum room? Check. Hospital room? Check. Zombie room? Check. It felt like the attraction had no story and was just a bunch of typical maze things thrown together. There was one room full of mannequins that did freak me out though.
But once again, I felt the attraction was ruined before it even began for me, by the bitterness I was feeling having queued for an hour only to resort to buying fastrack ONTOP of the €12 upcharge for the attraction itself.
We rushed back into PortAventura desperate for some night rides and joined the queue for Hurukan Condor. Another horrible cattle pen, lots of people smoking weed in the queue, very very noisy. I shoved my earplugs back in and a few more people cut in front of us in the queue, of course.
Thankfully, we got the sit down side of this massive drop tower. Looking out over the park at night was cool, especially with Shambhala going round. The drop goes on forever. A very good ride, my favourite of the trip.
Finished up with a nightride on Shambhala, the single rider queue was less painful this time - because guests were taking it into their own hands, jumping in when they saw a space and not waiting to be let through by the staff.
We watched the Halloween night parade which had a fantastic catchy soundtrack. Everyone sat down to watch it which was nice. The parade itself was pretty bare bones, featuring Shrek and a few Sesame Street characters on carts decorated with spiders. Don't know about you, but Shrek isn't exactly who pops into my mind when I think of Halloween.
Next up was the Halloween Lake Show. This featured fireworks, floats and people with water jet packs. It was pretty cool but there was an issue with the audio so we just got drum tracks playing, rather than the full soundtrack.
By the time we left PortAventura, it was nearly 1am. We had spent 12 hours on park and ridden 5 rides, and that was using single rider queues.
The next day we went to Ferrari Land. Red Force was advertised as 1hour 50 wait. The queue ended up taking 3 hours. THREE HOURS. Honesty I wouldn't have bothered if we had known it would take that long.
Got to the ride station:
"How many?"
"Five"
Ride attendant puts Alex and I in the one free row at the back.
"There's five of us and we would like to ride together"
"No you two go here because it's very busy"
"Can we wait for the next train and ride together?"
"No, there's 2 of you"
"No, we're a group of five"
" You didn't tell me this"
"Yes we did"
"Well you have to split up and go here in the back"
"Can we wait for the next train instead?"
"No"
*some people push in front of us*
In the end Alex and Greig take the back seat on the first train.
The people who pushed in front go straight to front row with no questions asked.
I take my seat in the middle row. The lights to laugh go green. Ride haults immediately. Guy who's sat on front row has pulled put his phone to film. Argument begins where staff tell him he cannot do that.
Eventually we launch. Very rattly. Good drop. Not worth three hours and all the faff in the ride station though.
Managed to get a few more rides on Shambhala and Hurukan Condor on the Sunday. Shambhala was running better but it was still pretty gentle in terms of airtime. When it comes to the European B+M Hypers, Silver Star is still my favourite by a long way. It's just much more consistent.
On our way out of the park we got a night ride on Furious Baco. One of the weakest Intamin Hydraulic launches, I guess that's due to the lumbering heavy wing trains. The layout is rubbish, but diving in the trenches in the dark was cool.
Prior to this visit, I had been to PortAventura twice during their Christmas event and had a lovely time. It's much quieter in December, so the painful operations are less...painful. Of all the major parks in Europe, I wouldn't have chosen to go to PA for Halloween but I happened to be in Barcelona playing a show so it was easy to squeeze the visit in. It wasn't worth the frustration and stress to be honest. PortAventura Halloween was the most irritating park experience I've ever had. Would not recommend.
It's time to talk about PortAventura Halloween. Question is, can I recount the last few days without exploding in a ball of stress?
It began at hotel check in. What began, you ask? The constant annoyance, frustration and irritation. We showed our booking details and the staff member directed us to the wrong hotel car park. Wow...we're so close...to the hotel we didn't book. But there was nowhere else to park apparently.
Details for my booking at Hotel Caribe clearly stated "pre paid online" but the man at reception refused and decided to charge me twice. Resulting in a long, frustrating discussion where I had to pull up my bank statements from months ago to show I had already paid for the reservation. This was eating into valuable park time. But eventually it got sorted.
By the time we stepped into PortAventura, I was already in a bad mood. Then we saw the queue times and exchanged looks of horror. The only ride that didn't have a massive queue was Sesame Street Mission - boasting a tolerable 30 mins. Sorry Shambhala, I guess we've got a Cookie Monster to catch first.
The noisy indoor cattle pen for Sesame Street simply did not move. For every step forward, 4 people would push in front of you. I've never seen so much queue jumping in a park ever. Then ride broke down. Finally we got to the front of the queue. Then just stood still for ages as the staff let an endless stream of fast track people on. Are the going to take from the normal queue anytime soon? Nope. 4 people have just walked up fast track. Then some more. Then some more. It was immensely frustrating and the ride is nothing special.
By the time we boarded the ride I was too annoyed to even care about the Cookie Monster.
You know what will make us feel better? A B+M Hyper! We joined the single rider queue as the main queue was 2 hours long (which we all know would actually be 3 hours once you account for all the people cutting in)
Wow, this single rider line is slow. Wow, there's so many empty seats on the trains. Every single train that pulled into the station had at least one empty seat. It was painful to watch the operations. Staff only began filling the airgates once the train was back in the station. You could see loads of spaces for single riders, but the staff just weren't paying attention to take from the single rider queue.
As we waited and waited in the station, it got worse. Staff were failing to fill ENTIRE ROWS on the trains in time, so a ride with a 2 hour standby queue was going round with empty rows.
Finally, I got on row 3 via single rider but sadly Shambhala was running very badly that day. Such little airtime, very sluggish. I hate to say it, because I love B+M hypers, but I was actually bored as the train crawled over those massive hills. One of the worst hyper rides I've ever had. It pains me how inconsistent Shambhala is.
PortAventura was open til midnight that day for Halloween. Out friends who were also in the park frantically called us when we got off Shambhala. "The Horror mazes shut really early, we need to do them all right now." Where was this important info communicated? On tiny little A boards outside the mazes themselves (which we hadn't walked passed yet as we had no idea where they were)
We had all pre-booked our €30 Halloween Passports online. Had our friends not seen that small sign outside a maze, we probably wouldn't have been able to do them in time. When a park shuts at midnight for Halloween, you kind of assume the haunts will be open beyond 6pm, no?
Joined the queue for the Mayan-themed maze: Apocalypsis Maya (which takes place in Temple Du Feugo) The queue didn't look to bad, then we realised: this is just the queue to get into the queue. Yep. That's right. You queue to get into the main queue for the maze. Most of the maze was outdoors, so obviously it made total sense to NOT have the maze open at night when it would actually look cool in the dark.
How was the maze? It was mostly just people banging metal sticks on metal bins and screaming in your ear with bad make up. I put my ear plugs in because it was so earritating. There were a few cool jump scares but overall it was a weak attraction. Also, the maze featured a person at the end with a chainsaw? I didn't realise they had chainsaws in Mayan times!
Rush rush rush over to next maze: La Muerta Viva. Queue to join queue. Queue. People push in front. Get inside maze to be greeted by actors banging metal sticks on metal kegs and screaming in your ear. Earplugs back in again! I got zero jump scares in this one and the decor inside looked tacky. Of course, there was an actor with a chainsaw at the end. Day of the Dead is famously known for it's chainsaws after all.
Rush over to next maze. Queue to join queue. People push in front. Now, this maze was called Horrock in Texas and it was themed to hard rock / metal musicians. I am a metal musician. Imagine going in a horror maze themed to what you actually do. I found the whole thing absolutely hilarious, especially the part "in the studio" where the sound engineer leaps out at you. The maze was still pretty rubbish but at least this one made me laugh.
Dashed over to another maze: Rec Experience. Oh. It's closed. It closed earlier than the others but there was no way of knowing this without walking passed the attraction and seeing the small A-board sign.
Oh well, I'm hungry, it's 6pm, let's eat. Wait, we can't. They've closed all the restaurants. So unless you want candyfloss or ice cream for dinner, you have zero options for a proper meal right now. We were very very frustrated by this point. With restaurants stated to re-open at 7:30pm, we tried to watch the Vampire show. Joined the queue for the show. People push in front. Eventually get to front of queue. "You need a reservation" What?! Turns out, there was a tiny A board with a tiny QR code that was obscured BY THE QUEUE so we couldn't make a reservation for the show.
We started laughing at what could go wrong next. We were having such a bad time that we decided to make it even worse by riding Stampeda. This ride will destroy your spine. Absolutely horrendous stuff. Totally not worth it.
Can we eat now? Yes! Restaurants have re-opened. I've never been impressed by PAs food before, but the pumpkin soup and ribs we had in the Western area were tasty.
Okay, it's now 8pm. We've been in the park all day. We've ridden THREE rides and been in three mazes. We had booked to do the special Halloween attraction that takes place inside the entire water park - La Isla Maldita. "Never done before!" "First in Europe!" "Over 100 actors!" boasted the poster. Sounds cool right?
We headed to the water park entrance. Oh. That's not the entrance they are using for this. Silly us! Using the entrance for the Water Park, for the attraction that takes place in the water park would have made way too much sense.
Headed back in the main park, found the massive queue. Wait, that was just a queue to join the queue. People kept pushing in front, over and over again. Finally we got in the water park, only to join another queue. How much longer can this be?! We couldn't see the end of the queue. After an hour, Alex said "I'm going to check how long this queue is" - a minute later he reappeared shaking his head. "Take a look for yourself"
I hopped over the barrier and turned the corner. My heart sank. It was cattle pen after cattle pen after cattle pen. The line was at least twice the size of the line we had already waited in and that had taken an hour so far. Our options were: leave queue, sack off the attraction, having wasted over an hour waiting and wasting the €12 it cost. Or pay €10 each for fast track. We shelled out for fast track. I was already feeling bitter about the experience by this point.
It was the best Halloween attraction at PortAventura, but that isn't exactly high praise. The attraction is a lengthy mixture between scare zone and maze, with some inventive bits like utilising the wave pool and having actors in the water on jet skis. I'd say La Isla Maldita was 30% cool ideas, 70% same old tropes. Chainsaws? Check. People banging metal bins? Check. (Earplugs back in) Asylum room? Check. Hospital room? Check. Zombie room? Check. It felt like the attraction had no story and was just a bunch of typical maze things thrown together. There was one room full of mannequins that did freak me out though.
But once again, I felt the attraction was ruined before it even began for me, by the bitterness I was feeling having queued for an hour only to resort to buying fastrack ONTOP of the €12 upcharge for the attraction itself.
We rushed back into PortAventura desperate for some night rides and joined the queue for Hurukan Condor. Another horrible cattle pen, lots of people smoking weed in the queue, very very noisy. I shoved my earplugs back in and a few more people cut in front of us in the queue, of course.
Thankfully, we got the sit down side of this massive drop tower. Looking out over the park at night was cool, especially with Shambhala going round. The drop goes on forever. A very good ride, my favourite of the trip.
Finished up with a nightride on Shambhala, the single rider queue was less painful this time - because guests were taking it into their own hands, jumping in when they saw a space and not waiting to be let through by the staff.
We watched the Halloween night parade which had a fantastic catchy soundtrack. Everyone sat down to watch it which was nice. The parade itself was pretty bare bones, featuring Shrek and a few Sesame Street characters on carts decorated with spiders. Don't know about you, but Shrek isn't exactly who pops into my mind when I think of Halloween.
Next up was the Halloween Lake Show. This featured fireworks, floats and people with water jet packs. It was pretty cool but there was an issue with the audio so we just got drum tracks playing, rather than the full soundtrack.
By the time we left PortAventura, it was nearly 1am. We had spent 12 hours on park and ridden 5 rides, and that was using single rider queues.
The next day we went to Ferrari Land. Red Force was advertised as 1hour 50 wait. The queue ended up taking 3 hours. THREE HOURS. Honesty I wouldn't have bothered if we had known it would take that long.
Got to the ride station:
"How many?"
"Five"
Ride attendant puts Alex and I in the one free row at the back.
"There's five of us and we would like to ride together"
"No you two go here because it's very busy"
"Can we wait for the next train and ride together?"
"No, there's 2 of you"
"No, we're a group of five"
" You didn't tell me this"
"Yes we did"
"Well you have to split up and go here in the back"
"Can we wait for the next train instead?"
"No"
*some people push in front of us*
In the end Alex and Greig take the back seat on the first train.
The people who pushed in front go straight to front row with no questions asked.
I take my seat in the middle row. The lights to laugh go green. Ride haults immediately. Guy who's sat on front row has pulled put his phone to film. Argument begins where staff tell him he cannot do that.
Eventually we launch. Very rattly. Good drop. Not worth three hours and all the faff in the ride station though.
Managed to get a few more rides on Shambhala and Hurukan Condor on the Sunday. Shambhala was running better but it was still pretty gentle in terms of airtime. When it comes to the European B+M Hypers, Silver Star is still my favourite by a long way. It's just much more consistent.
On our way out of the park we got a night ride on Furious Baco. One of the weakest Intamin Hydraulic launches, I guess that's due to the lumbering heavy wing trains. The layout is rubbish, but diving in the trenches in the dark was cool.
Prior to this visit, I had been to PortAventura twice during their Christmas event and had a lovely time. It's much quieter in December, so the painful operations are less...painful. Of all the major parks in Europe, I wouldn't have chosen to go to PA for Halloween but I happened to be in Barcelona playing a show so it was easy to squeeze the visit in. It wasn't worth the frustration and stress to be honest. PortAventura Halloween was the most irritating park experience I've ever had. Would not recommend.
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) Because it said Pasaje Del Terror on the vouchers, was separately ticketed, and followed a similar design... But it turns out the Spanish generally call their mazes 'Pasaje Del Terror,' so I could have been very, very, wrong.