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Costa del Force - Trip Reports

Well on the first day, I left the group for over an hour by myself because I wanted to see a show. After that, I did Baco 9 times in a row and being early evening, it had warmed up nicely. It was proper shifting and it was more forceful than Khan.

I must admit, the first time we rode Baco in the morning, it was overly slow. You could see that as the trains didn't really budge off the final brakes. In the evening, the trains rolled straight off them.
 
With Khan, I had a front row in the evening, which was pretty forceful, and then the next day did it first thing at the back and it was slower but still harsh. Front row at night was something else though. Stupidly forecful, and the difference was huge in terms of speed.

Same with Stampida. Was horrible during the day (can't remember what side), but at night it was twice as fast, and was no way near as rough.

So how many #1 spots did Khan take this weekend :P

****, so jealous atm :(.
 
2wmmhle.jpg


*gurgle*

I've just downloaded all my pics onto my PC. Expect a PTR sometime this evening. :P
 
Nice picture there Peter :)

Khan did not take my number 1 spot but it made my top 10 thats for sure.

As I said before maybe in the summer both coaster might be better.

We did find some of the ride ops on Khan had an attitude problem and wanted us to sit where they wanted us rather than where we wanted to. They also did not like people waiting for front row even though there was a front row queue.
 
It happens off season though even though it should not, the reason they gave to Slayed was "its windy".
 
Port Aventura are always funny about their seating things. It just helps to keep the queues moving I guess.

I LOVED Baco when I went. Purely because it's so stupidly strong forceful and damn right cool. The launch at night on the front row is awesome, and it's smooth there. Back rows, not so cool but damn good airtime off that launch.

Oddly I thought Dragon Khan was a pile of crap. It was boring! I like rides with a difference, ala Baco. Not Loop. Loop. Loop. CORKSCREW. Loop. Etc.

Glad you all had a good time! I spent most of my weekend hungover.. :lol:
 
I'll quickly make my feelings know about the rides and get to a trip report tomorrow.

Baco
The setting, station and theme is top notch. Probably one of the best I've ever seen. The way the queue line rolls up the hill to that glorious, imposing station is sublime. If you get off the ride and look backwards at the brake run, the station's veranda beautifully frames the ride area...it's gorgeous. I wish I took a photo now.

I rode Baco four times, each in different seats as I couldn't decide if I like it or not. The outer seats are terrible - they vibrate like hell (not even good vibrations :wink:) and make the ride incredibly painful. However, the inner seats are much, much better.

The ride is really good on a front row inner seat; you get a good view which works in Bacos favour. Most of the ride is in a trench, hugging close to walls, it's only after the (sort of pointless) barrel roll doe sit suddenly explode way from the trench and over the paths and lake...a sort of "WHERE THE **** DID THAT COMES FROM!" But you need to be in front row to appreciate the quick terrain change "bang".

It's just average or too uncomfortable elsewhere. Remember this is a big ride with even bigger expectations; it's very likely you'll feel disappointed whatever you think of the actual ride experience.

Dragon Khan

I just don't get it. On the way home, Peter was explaining to me that the ride is all about the positive G's...or something like that. Tbh, I don't really care about that - I want to be thrilled. And thrilled I wasn't. B&M sit downs are boring; the just go through the motions. Wee, loop, wee, cobra roll, wee, corkscrew. Perhaps I have a special body or something that doesn't feel the thrill from them.

The ride had no "bite" or personality. It's just a huge coaster with plenty of inversions...I found it so formulaic, there was no buzz to it. Wooo, I'm upside down and now I'm not. Woo, I'm upside down and now I'm not.

Where Kumba betters Khan is the way it interacts with the terrain and roars - Khan just doesn't do that. It goes up the lift hill, through several inversions and then sits on the brake run...all without raising one of my eyebrows.

In it's defence, it is quite disorientating - a factor which I look for in every coaster. It was only after my last go did I actually start to feel familiar with the layout and work out what inversion I was experiencing.

Stampida
Fantastic ride and probably my favourite in the park. Despite the fact it duels in places, that doesn't really add to the experience imo...both sides are coasters, they just share the same station.

Blue is better than red, without a shadow of a doubt. I enjoyed the battering! Blue seems to do more than red as well. Awesome.

Condor
I only did sit down (twice) and didn't find it as intense as Apocalypse. It was good fun but even the sheer height didn't wow me. After the initial drop, it just slows down and loses it. With a shorter tower, the drops feel more intense. For that split second of terror before it drops, it's ace, but I get that on every drop tower anyway.

El Diablo

One of the smoothest and most boring coasters I've ever had the pleasure to ride.

The Park in General

It's good and I'd certainly recommend that every enthusiast visit it at some point. The theme and areas are brilliant.

However, it lacks a lot of filler rides, it's huge and the food is poor and pricey. There seems to be a lot of walking between the big rides with very little in between that grabbed my fancy. It's a credit whore's wet-dream; a park enthusiast's (like myself) morning semi-on.
 
Pah, Baco's the best of the five accelerators I've done by a considerable margin, whatever you guys say.

And Khan's B&Ms best looper, again, whatever you guys say, lol.

And Stampida's one of the worst coasters in the World. It's so sad, with the old trains it was great, but the new ones are awful.

BUT, y'all be right about Hurakan. That sucks.
 
I think you hit Baco on a really really bad day. I mean, I always come off with my skull a bit shaken but that doesn't mean the ride is pointless and dull. Sure the layout is not really imaginative, but what it does, it does really good. Whoever said the inline felt slow, please ride it again. Baco has the fastest inversion in the world, and you can feel that on the outer seats where you are literally thrown out.

Dragon Khan does its job really good. It's certainly disorienting, as Ian has pointed out, but I also wish it was better landscaped. It used to have a gorgeous light package but it's gone :( BTW, if the layout seems a bit formulaic, it's because that formula works really well on B&Ms. Just look at the flow of the coaster and the queues it generates.

Stampida. That's the odd one. It used to run awesome with PTCs. It used to be my #1, but since the new KumbaK trains arrived, it's gone downhill and has become forceless and REALLY slow...

Diablo, couldn't agree more.

Hurakan, I don't get the point. A drop tower will always drop the cars at the same speed. Hurakan can't be THAT different to British Intamin towers.

And I agree, the park is lacking some filler rides. Like a big intense flat (like Slammer, a top scan, top spin), but I think PA is going that way. Every couple of years one of the older flats get the axe. The remaining ones are a waste of energy and space since they are run at poor intensity levels.

Overall, I like your critical vision of the park although I think the park looks and feels A LOT different in high season when coasters, show and the whole thing are in full swing.
 
Erol said Baco was running a lot better at night, but when we did try and ride it it was shut due to the water show :( so we never got to find out.

I did try the front row on the outside seat on the left but I just found it to rough to see the changes in the ground and found the inline to slow to enjoy. Also the turn over the lake was slow as well. But as we said it was first thing in the morning and it was a bit cold.

But if you have to ride a coaster in a certain seat in a certain place to me that makes it sort of poor as you can not get that seat every time, so you could queue for hours and get the average ride like most of us found.

I thought I would like it as I am one of the few that likes Rita.

I would like to try it again in the summer when the weather is warmer as the coaster was probably designed for hotter weather.
 
Ben said:
Pah, Baco's the best of the five accelerators I've done by a considerable margin, whatever you guys say.
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Well, it's in my top five Intamin accelerators... ;)

oriolat2 said:
I think you hit Baco on a really really bad day. I mean, I always come off with my skull a bit shaken but that doesn't mean the ride is pointless and dull. Sure the layout is not really imaginative, but what it does, it does really good. Whoever said the inline felt slow, please ride it again. Baco has the fastest inversion in the world, and you can feel that on the outer seats where you are literally thrown out.
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I'd have enjoyed the ride, if it wasn't for the really violent shaking which really made my head hurt. That's really the issue - the ride isn't quite good enough for the pain it brings. As Marc says - you can't really rate a coaster as good, if immediately half the seats make the ride crap, and half of the remaining seats don't give an exciting ride. If only 10% of the seats give a superb experience, it's difficult to say much.

The launch was very good at the back and front, as was the drop out of the station. Without the pain, I'd have then really enjoyed the rest of the ride. I just got masses of hangtime on the inversion, even on the right hand side outside.

oriolat2 said:
Dragon Khan does its job really good. It's certainly disorienting, as Ian has pointed out, but I also wish it was better landscaped. It used to have a gorgeous light package but it's gone :( BTW, if the layout seems a bit formulaic, it's because that formula works really well on B&Ms. Just look at the flow of the coaster and the queues it generates.
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Yes - to all of it :)

oriolat2 said:
Stampida. That's the odd one. It used to run awesome with PTCs. It used to be my #1, but since the new KumbaK trains arrived, it's gone downhill and has become forceless and REALLY slow...
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My issue was the immense pain when it hits the double ups. It feels like the train is trying to remove most of your internal organs (such a good job your spine gets in the way :roll: ;) ). However, you can feel that the coaster has speed, and under the agony, there's a great ride trying to get out. It's fun pain though, the kind you can laugh it as you limp away from the ride :)

oriolat2 said:
Hurakan, I don't get the point. A drop tower will always drop the cars at the same speed. Hurakan can't be THAT different to British Intamin towers.
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British elitism, I thought it was much, much better than Apocalypse due to the additional height :)

oriolat2 said:
And I agree, the park is lacking some filler rides. Like a big intense flat (like Slammer, a top scan, top spin), but I think PA is going that way. Every couple of years one of the older flats get the axe. The remaining ones are a waste of energy and space since they are run at poor intensity levels.
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The filler rides were there, they were just rubbish ones. Really bland spin rides on low settings. However, people were saying "would you bring the family - is there enough for them to do?". The answer is, actually yes, as they'd like those crap little rides. It's that trying to cover all your bases thing.

oriolat2 said:
Overall, I like your critical vision of the park although I think the park looks and feels A LOT different in high season when coasters, show and the whole thing are in full swing.
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Missing the two water rides and Temple, I think we had a big chunk of fun taken from the visit. Likewise, being quiet, it wasn't quite as vibrant as it could have. However, it's a tough one as traveling so far, you don't want to be fighting through people and queues.

High season, it would be good to go as part of a three or four day holiday at the hotels, and make a proper holiday of it. I think you'd get a lot from the park doing that. However, if I was spending three or four days at a park in Europe with the family - Disney would always be my first choice :lol:

So it's a tough call. It's a superb local park. I would adore to have it within a hundred miles of me. I'd even have a PA pass rather than a Tussauds pass :)

For a two day trip though, it's just another park. It's good, but you don't have the time to really see it in full flow. Without seeing it in full flow - it's difficult to justify making the effort :lol:

Oh, and we were deliberately harsh on Baco, just having fun, jibing Erol. Don't take it to heart :)
 
I hit a milestone over the weekend - Stampida Blue was my 50th woodie.
 
Ian said:
I hit a milestone over the weekend - Stampida Blue was my 50th woodie.
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El Diablo or Tomahawk was my hundredth (unique layout non-powered)! :lol:

Obviously it was very important to me :P
 
All this is great guys! I love reading the discussion of the rides & park (in general) over the "we had loads of fun" that usually dominates the Live reports. But then I understand why the usual Live reports can't contain this kind of info, as you have all 'been there & done that' so often in your local parks. And come to think of it, I never really mention this kind of stuff in my PTRs either (*considers doing so, but do my reports really need to be any longer?* :P ). Thanks bunches!
 
Stampida (Blue) was my coat's 130th coaster - that's not bad going for a cow which has been dead the best part of 16 years! :lol:

Glad you're enjoying the detail Jerry :)
 
El Diablo was my 230th coaster.

Ian at least your 50th woodie was better than your 250th coaster, the Apple coaster in Scotland :)
 
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