PortAventura Park — Attraction in Salou

Me and my wife have visited PortAventura park in mid September 2025 for two consecutive days and this is our review. We

ve been adrenalin ride addicts for more than 10 years now and have visited 4 other parks, with more than 15 visits in total. We were very excited of finally visiting PortAventura and were planning a visit for years. It took us about 9h of travel one-way to reach PortAventura, so expectations were high. Is PortAventura a type of park that one would want to revisit? Our answer is sadly a simple NO. We simply cannot recommend visiting this park to anyone, and I cannot say the same for other 4 parks. Let we explain. PRICING – POOR VALUE FOR MONEY: this park had the most expensive tickets so far for us. At more than 100€ for 2 days and only 2 adults we think it just doesnt justify the admission price. On top of that you are not allowed to bring in food and drinks (apart from water), which is not a big deal if the prices wouldnt be almost extortionate. Safe to say we didn

t spend a single € in the park just from the principle. LACK OF INFORMATION: there is a great lack of any information in the actual park. At the whole park (including entrance) we haven`t found any small printed maps, any info about the daily shows etc. Maybe all that is on their webpage, but that is just lazy from them. I think all visitors deserve the right to all the information. The park just had 30-year anniversary and apart from a few small signs there is absolutely no marketing strategy. No hostesses, no promotions...very odd to say the least. For such a round number, one would expect a lot more. LACK OF STAFF: in our opinion there is just not enough staff in the whole park. You have no one to ask if you need anything. And the staff that is on site, is just not interested in helping you. They mind their own business and seem most happy if you just let them be. Very cold vibes, which is not expected in Spain, where people are more open. SLOW START TIMES: every other park started the rides at the designated open time. But in PortAventura they do it differently. You are allowed in the park 15 min before opening time, and then some rides are just not prepared and operational on the opening time. Shambala was closed for another 30 min because of malfunction before the first ride, just unbelievable. POOR MAINTENANCE: so many rides have all sorts of problems with not working throughout the day its just unacceptable. I think all 4 other parks combined, havent had so much as this park alone. Some rides are very old which is not a problem for us, but they should at least be maintained so people can enjoy them. Is it really not reassuring for people, when there are so much problems on machines. For example, ride Stampida had some partially non-functioning trolleys, which made waiting even longer. And then the ride gave us backache and neckache. That ride is so rough it should be closed for sure. Nothing so far comes even close to how bad that ride was. WAITING TIMES: I think this is the worst aspect of PortAventura and a consequence of points 3, 4 and 5. Even when the park is half full at most, waiting times for rides are just appalling. I dont even want to know how long the times are when the park is actually full. On main attractions waiting times were 30–90 min, which is not normal for this few people. Lines just dont go nowhere because of lack of organisation, rides not working, staff not using all trolleys, no digitalization (no screens with free seats etc.)...

We think the park management is the main culprit here as it seems that they just don`t care about costumers as long as you buy the ticket. All the park just feels a bit too much like a money grab to be enjoyable. If you are just passing the area, have some time to kill, you really like adrenalin rides (some of them are great) and it is not a busy day, then it will probably be worth the money. In any other case, I would just advise you to go to a...

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Portaventura has its strengths and weakness.

Strengths - this park is heavy themed, somewhat similar to Disneyland Paris and it's clear this used to be owned by Universal back in the late 90's. The park is huge and contains a number of different themed lands which are linked by a circular path that will lead you through all these areas. The ride selection is very vast, plenty of flat rides suitable for all the family, some more intense flate ride for those wanting a bigger thrill, and a huge drop tower that will leave your stomach at 285ft in the air whilst you drop at 71mph. Portaventura is well known for it's coasters, including Shambala and Dragon Khan, both attract roller coaster enthusiasts leaving them wanting to visit over and over again. The shows here are outstanding, they dont really offer much English, but there simple enough to easily follow without understanding Spanish. There's plenty to choose from and we would recommend all the ones we watched, so I dont think they have any bad shows.

Weakness - getting around the park can be very time consuming, as much as the circular route may help most that are new to the park, but still very confusing and takes time to navigate, theres no quick short cuts which help you move from from side of the park to another, something most UK parks offer. However accessibility for wheelchair users isn't an issue, and during our 2 week visit we saw plent of electric scooters being used, some of which were hired at the park. With the size of the park and considering we averaged 30,000 to 40,000 steps per visit, we'd recommend this over a manual wheelchair. Queue times during peak times can be huge, operations here are known to be very slow, we witnessed coaster trains departures taking over 5 mins in most cases. This unfortunately impacted the queue times which saw the main attractions hitting well over the 60 min mark, but more towards the 2hr mark, with most days hitting 3 hrs. The standby wait times are also hugely impacted by the Express Passes which Portaventura sell. During our 2 week visit, we saw queue times of almost 3 hrs most days, Express queues were also huge, but the sale of Express Passes never sold out. Making an assumption here, but I dont believe they have a capacity for these passes, nor the park thinking about it. Express passes will get priority at the attractions, so be mindful that less than 10% of the standby queue will get on the attraction on each run. Express Passes are very affordable at the park, so if this is within your budget, or your only visiting for a couple of days, then definitely consider the upgrade. It will make your trip more enjoyable and offer you more time to enjoy the park as a whole.

Overall, regardless of the issues or weakness of this park, we had a fab time, enjoyed everything that was on offer and would hugely recommend visiting, however try and go at a quieter time, avoid the Spanish...

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I visited PortAventura today,and I honestly couldn’t be more disappointed. I’m writing this while still fuming, sitting outside the park wondering how I wasted so much time and money on this disaster of a place. If you're considering going—don't. It’s not worth a single second.

Staff Laziness and Indifference: From the moment I walked in, I felt like an inconvenience. The staff couldn’t care less—slow, disinterested, and borderline rude. At one point, I asked a question about directions and got a blank stare and a shrug. I honestly felt like I was bothering them by even being there. No one seemed to want to help; everyone just stood around, chatting, moving as slowly as possible. It was maddening.

Ridiculous Queues: I expected some waiting—what I didn’t expect was standing in lines that barely moved, for over two hours just to get on one ride. And it wasn’t just one case—it was every major attraction. Worse still, I saw multiple people cutting in line, and not one staff member did a thing about it. They just watched. The organization is a joke—zero efficiency, zero effort to improve flow, and absolutely no concern for how long visitors are stuck waiting.

Terrible Food Situation: Trying to get food was a disaster. Some places were inexplicably closed at peak hours, and the ones that were open had long, slow-moving queues. When I finally got something to eat, it was overpriced, cold, and tasted like it had been sitting out for hours. I was starving and still couldn’t finish it. I tried to bring my own snack in due to dietary needs, and was given a hard time at the gate for that—forced to rent a locker just to comply with their ridiculous rules. Unbelievable.

FastPass Rip-Off: I paid a small fortune for their so-called “unlimited” FastPass, only to find it’s barely faster than the regular line. Some rides we were told it only worked once per ride—others still had 30+ minute waits with FastPass. I felt completely scammed. It’s just a cash grab, and doesn’t remotely justify the price. Save your money—it’s a total con. They push you to get extra cash anytime they can

This wasn’t a theme park today—it was a stress test. Between the lazy staff, the outrageous lines, the awful food, and the misleading FastPass system, I just wanted to leave halfway through the day—but by then I’d already spent too much to justify walking out.

I genuinely regret going. If you’re thinking about visiting PortAventura: don’t. It was frustrating, exhausting, and not remotely worth it. Easily one of the worst theme park experiences...

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