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Port Aventura Park and Water Park + Barcelona

Brookes

Giga Poster
I recently spent a week in Spain where I took my first (and second visit) to Port Aventura. This report will comprise four parts:

1. First day at Port Aventura Park
2. Port Aventura Aquatic Park
3. Barcelona
4. Second day at Port Aventura Park

Before we went we ordered 3 day/2 park passes which enabled you to visit the park for three days or have two days in the park and one in the water park. This was priced reasonably at €69 and I would highly recommend it if you’re planning to visit.

So onto the first day; we arrived at the park around 12pm after a half an hour or so drive from the villa. Shambhala could be seen a long time before this however from the road as it is huge! We parked the car and initially got harassed by ticket touts – beware there are a lot outside the park. After dismissing them, we headed to the entrance and scanned our tickets.

Upon entering the park I was very impressed with the theming and I loved where it opens out and there’s the lovely sight of the lake with Shambhala dominating the skyline in the background.

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We headed onwards to see the queue board outside Baco which wasn’t a pleasing sight. All the big rides were around 1hr+ so my cousin and I decided to go on Furius Baco whilst everyone else had a coffee. I liked how they have a queue board outside every major ride though.

We walked up the (what we assumed was a) vineyard and reached the inside queue. Talk about cattle pen. This seemed to be very popular for rides in Port Aventura so we had to get used to them. The wait ended up being about an hour after lots of winding queue which wasn’t themed that well if I’m honest. But then again I didn’t really get the theme – monkeys and wine bottles… :?

We finally reached the station and there seemed to be a bit of chaos. Any fasttrackers turn up and they all get put on immediately yet people in the normal queue start going to the air gates then end up being told to go back. They weren’t filling up empty seats either with some trains being sent around with two empty seats together. There’s also an extended front row queue which you’re not allowed to wait in if you want to go on the front row… :roll:

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After being assigned to the second row, I sat on the outside seat of the left side. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like from other people’s reviews but I knew an 80+mph launch down into a turn would be pretty insane. We went into the pre-show (didn’t really understand what was going on here either) and then eventually the brake fins lowered.

Suddenly there was a fantastic acceleration. You fly over the hill and then you hit the turn. This is where it starts to hurt a little. It’s really intense – almost too intense – as the restraint kind of squashes you in the seat. After seemingly turning right for ages you go left then right again then into the immense inline twist which I really enjoyed. The final turn over the water is a really nice ending to the ride as you hit the brakes with some force.

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In terms of pushing the boundary of innovation and intense theme park attractions, Baco does a really good job. But it’s just a little too rough to be one of those stand-out rides. I did enjoy it, but the shaking detracts from it a bit.

After exiting through the on-ride photo area which was followed by lots of bottles of wine, we had lunch in a little place in Mediterrània. Next we headed upwards and left over the bridge towards the rapids.

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Shambhala can be seen from nearly everywhere in the park

The queue board indicated a 45 minute queue so, after the massive cattle pen for Furius Baco, I was hoping it was wrong. Luckily it was and we waited about 10 minutes before boarding.

Grand Canyon Rapids was a really fun ride – one of the quickest rapids I think I’ve ever been on. There were quite a few splashes despite some that didn’t materialise and the classic water pistols for onlookers. Sadly, due to the current being pretty fast, the ride did feel quite short, but it is one of the better rapids I’ve been on. I like how it is quite hidden and you can hardly see the layout without going on it.

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Using the good old theory “I’m wet now so I might as well go on the next water ride”, we headed for Silver River Flume.

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Shambhala peeking above the trees again

The area, like most of the park, was themed very well and we passed through the entrance to meet a rather long queue – quite reminiscent of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, just with a lot more graffiti. After around 45 minutes we climbed down the stairs and boarded the log boat.

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I sat at the front as we head up the pretty large first lift hill. The ride had three drops in total – the last of which was quite big and seemed to go on for ages! Overall it was a really good flume including good interaction with the mine train. This might make you think the entrance to it may be close by but don’t be fooled it isn’t – it’s in a totally different area!

After the soaking (this was certainly welcome in the Spanish heat!) we saw the entrance to the train at Penitence Station. Around 10 minutes or so passed before a train came along and we boarded. Coincidentally in the queue we saw someone in a Stoke shirt!

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The train gave great views of the park – or at least as far as we were allowed to stay on for. We headed out of the Far West and got up close and personal to China for the first time giving great views of Dragon Kahn and Shambhala, but when we reached the station in Mediterrània everyone in the train got kicked off. I suppose it helps with making sure there is free space for people in the queue but I couldn’t believe they have a train that goes all the way around the park yet you’re not allowed to stay on for the entire journey.

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Anyway we saw the boat had just come in at Port de la Drassana so we hopped on. The boat went to China (again you have to get off) so, after getting some more beautiful views of the park, we headed for Dragon Kahn.

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The walk up to the China really was fantastic. The sight of Kahn and Shambhala together really does look awesome and I love the traditional Chinese theme. The queue for Dragon Kahn was about 45 minutes so we entered to see another quite full cattle pen.

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We ended up on row 2 and, as we headed up the lift hill, I was really excited for the ride I’d been looking forward to for a hell of a long time. Yet I can’t believe how small it felt with the lift hill of Shambhala above you. All the B&M multi loopers I’ve previously ridden have felt massive and I can’t help but feel that Khan has indeed been dwarfed.

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Down the first drop we go and there’s a lot of force at the bottom before the loop. The zero-g was another highlight in terms of being intense, but I came off the ride thinking it wasn’t really that good. It throws you about a lot and I immediately thought it wasn’t as good as other looping coasters I’ve been on. I really wish I’d have ridden it before Shambhala was built because I think I would have liked it more. It is a good coaster yes, but not one that stands out for me. Our ride on it was probably hindered by several girls behind who insisted on screaming the whole way around.

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Though we didn't ride Condor, it looks great on the skyline

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El Diablo through the trees

It was pretty hot now – probably the hottest it had been all day, so we headed to Tutuki Splash. As we walked down I was really impressed with Polynesia. It was a really nice area. We entered a queue of about 15 minutes to see… not a cattle pen! Ok, they managed to squeeze one in near the end, but it was best queue I’d seen so far.

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I thought Tutuki Splash was a great water ride. The small drop acts as a teaser for the larger double drop and it goes around the turn at the top quickly which throws you over the final drop. Overall, it was a well themed and really fun ride.

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We were all hungry by now so headed back down to Mediterrània to get food. There was a place close to where we had lunch earlier doing hot dogs and things. We went in and there was the cool screen ordering system as I think Martyn described in his Madrid trip report. You order on the screen then move on to pick it up. It worked perfectly for us as there was hardly any queue and people knew/figured out how to use it.

We sat near the water as the fountains started by Baco. It really was a fantastic setting as you see so many times in Port Aventura.

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Next up was to be El Diablo – Tren de la Mina. However, I had totally underestimated how far away the entrance was; it’s right at the back of the park! It really doesn’t look as far away on the map. After walking the long way around past Hurakan Condor, we found El Diablo in its own little area. This gave nice views of the ride again and the area was excellently themed.

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As soon as we entered the queue, which looked to be around 15 minutes, an empty train went around the track and everyone was informed the ride had broken down (well we asked someone what the ride op had just said seeing as it was in Spanish, but you could tell by everyone’s reaction regardless). We decided to stick it out after loads of people left and it was back up and running in minutes.

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After watching an on-ride video of El Diablo, I didn’t think it would be that good with lift hill after lift hill and a seemingly uninspiring layout. However, I actually really enjoyed it! The jerky lift hills aren’t too promising but the hop under and over the flume and the last drop are awesome. It was also nice to ride my first Arrow mine train.

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By now it must have been about 9 o’clock, so we thought it was about time to go and ride the thing we’d been most looking forward to: Shambhala. Upon entering the queue, we were greeted with another massive cattle pen filled with quite a few people making us question the queue board time of 30 minutes. Whilst in the queue it had a little break down but we stayed in and after about an hour or so we reached the front of the queue.

With the break down it had actually become dark by the time we came to ride. The station was similar to Baco’s meaning when we were standing waiting to go to an air gate, they let all the fasttrackers on which filled the whole train meaning we were left with… front row! Before we rode I was saying how I didn’t think it would go as far as my top 4 or so, as the last hyper I went on (Silver Star) didn’t blow me away. Heck, I didn’t even think it’d be better than Dragon Kahn from my past experience. However, I knew a night ride on the front row would be something special.

Upon reaching the top of the lift hill there was a spectacular view as the chain slowed. Within seconds we were plunging down a never-ending drop and into the tunnel we go. From this point onwards I was just going crazy with what an amazing ride it was. Fantastic floater on all the hills – we didn’t land until the bottom of the hill in most cases – the turnaround was awesome and the speed hill, my favourite part of the ride, gave some insane ejector. All this combined with the view of a lit up Port Aventura along with the water splash secluded in its own area made Shambhala my number one.

Once I’d calmed down, I went and bought a Shambhala t-shirt from a nearby shop and then we headed back to villa. We were going to stop for the night shows but we were all pretty tired so we left, which concludes day one of Port Aventura.

Apologies for this very long first part – the others will be shorter! Coming up are the Water Park, a day trip to Barcelona and re-rides on Shambhala as well as Stampida and Sea Odyssey.
 

Rob

Mega Poster
Well, it sounds like you've had a fantastic experience so far, but I want to hear day 2! I do hope you stayed for Fiestaventura (the midnight show on the lake), because honestly, it's one of, if not the best show's I've ever seen (I eagerly/hopefully await your review).

With regards to Baco, the theme is actually consistant and in-depth, and just a little tongue in cheek and childish, a nice change really, because in the UK, I think it's fair to say Baco would be marketed as INSANE/ADRENELINE/THE WORLDS FIRST/BEST/ULTRAEXTREMEYOU'REGONNADIECOZTHISISSOMECRAZYASSRIDE. (Let's be honest, I think that summarises the height of the UK industry's marketing strategies).

The storyline goes, a professor who lives in a Spanish Vinyard has produced a machine, with the help of his sidekick monkey, to collect the grapes in the fastest and most efficient manner, hereby, strapping the grape pickers in and launching them through the vinyard. Genius! But yes, I believe, it's a thoroughly good ride, amazing, especially on the front row, and you're so right about it's intensity and how good the elements are, personally, I feel they outweigh the roughness but of course that's personal (and would very much depend where you are sat).

Love your reviews of everything else, finally someone actually paying some respects to how beautiful, well designed and thoroughly immersive PA really is.
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
^I'm sad to say we didn't stay for the show. Pretty gutted as I imagined it would be good but on the first day everyone was exhausted and on the second day we had to leave earlier. I'm sure I'll see it in the future though as there are plenty of reasons to go back to PA!

I suppose the Baco theme makes sense but it's still very random. I would have loved to have ridden on the front row, but as I stated in the report they didn't let us wait for it.

Part 2 is coming up soon. Well, as soon as the photo uploader will work that is.
 

andrus

Giga Poster
^Oh please get us some more sexy photos! I never get tired of PA, it's just sush a gorgeous park :--D
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
^There are lots more photos coming in the day 2 report from PA including quite a few of Dragon Kahn and Shambhala from near the bottom of the Shambhala area.

Anyway, the next part of the trip report shall concern Port Aventura Aquatic Park. We had to go there the day after the first visit to the theme park as specified by the 3 day/2 park tickets.

After arriving at about half 12, we parked up and headed to the main plaza outside the two parks and went left this time for the water park. As you can imagine, it was quite busy by this time but we managed to secure a set of sunbeds under a canopy. It was a really nice spot in the park.

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Port Aventura Aquatic Park is not the biggest water park by any means. Nor does it have the most slides. However, its setting is wonderful. The only time it’s really spoilt is near the back of the park where you can see flat wasteland, but everywhere else in the park you wouldn’t really be able to tell where you were.

Anyway as soon as we had all sat down we decided to go get a coffee. One person serving meant we were waiting quite a while but eventually we got everything. I had a Café Zero which was sort of a mixture of coffee and ice cream – never seen them before.

After this, we headed to the lazy river (El Río Loco) and it initially took a while to get any rubber rings.

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Eventually we headed off through “The Mad River” encountering split sections, numerous waterfalls and pumps. Definitely one of the better lazy river rides I’ve been on.

It was time for lunch next so we went and joined a queue which took absolutely ages as they had one person serving food on a busy summer day. All the food was ready to go – it obviously just took way longer with only one person taking orders, serving food and then taking the cash. This can easily be improved and should be in my opinion. We were also initially going to eat at one of the sandwich places but both were closed. :? Seems a bit like Merlin to me… but I swear PA numbers are up so what’s the need for it?

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This isn't where we ate; but it's a nice part of the park

Despite this disappointment, we decided to hit some of the slides after lunch. We started off with Barracudas and I took the blue side after not too much of a wait. It was a pretty fun ride but just a standard ring slide really.

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Next up was El Torrente, which we were certainly looking forward to. It is a raft ride where 4 people sit inside the circular raft and last time my cousin, uncle, dad and I went on one of these was in Aquatica where it nearly flipped. :lol: This had a larger queue than the last ride but moved quicker due to the throughput.

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We finally reached the top, set off and immediately started flying down the slide. We picked up a lot of pace and were going pretty much vertical on all the corners. It was longer than I expected and was a hell of a lot of fun. It also has a pretty intimidating colour scheme and provides some awesome views from the top.

After we headed to the body slides (El Tifón) and I took the turquoise side. The timer counted down from 25 seconds and we were off.

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Ok I didn’t expect this at all. It was pitch black apart from a few lights half way down and it was so quick! I think Port Aventura’s website is pretty accurate when it says the slides “finish with a truly dizzying descent”. I haven’t managed to capture much of their layouts on the photos but they are truly insane, especially the final interaction which I did manage to snap.

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Look at that!

We then went and got an ice cream, which was followed by a bit of time in the park’s wave pool – El Triángulo de las Bermudas. To finish off the day, we took another lap of the lazy river.

Overall, the water park is good – its most redeeming feature being its ambience – but doesn’t really offer anything unique in terms of rides that I hadn’t seen before. With better service and a couple more slides it’d be top notch.
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
Part 3 of the report shows some parts of our day trip to Barcelona. We got the train there from where we were staying which took longer than we anticipated but as soon as we got there we headed for lunch. Then we took a bus tour in the afternoon, followed by a walk down to the port where we had tea. I’ll just put photos up so you can see how nice the city is despite being ridiculously busy.

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This is where we boarded the train

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This is where we got off ~2hrs later

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Where we had lunch; the service wasn't great to be honest, meals didn't come at the same time and they took ages to bring the bill - this seemed to be common for the whole week :roll:

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The Sagrada Família - an incomplete church which began construction in 1882 idealised by Gaudí, it is a seriously impressive building

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A magic square at the entrance that I had coincidentally read about only weeks before - the rows, columns, diagonals and inner square all add up to 33

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Camp Nou

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Estació de França station in Barcelona

Up next, second day at Port Aventura including lots of Khan and Shambhala pictures.
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
Triple post but hey ho...

So we’re now onto the last part of the report which describes our second day at Port Aventura. We got there a bit earlier this time (about 11am) and headed through the entrance, greeted once again by that fabulous view of Shambhala. The aim today was to ride things we didn’t get to before (Stampida especially) and to get re-rides of Dragon Khan and Shambhala. Upon seeing the queue board outside Furius Baco, which said Stampida didn’t open until 12pm, we headed straight to China.

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The queue for Shambhala read 30 mins I think, but we entered to see the whole cattlepen full – even longer than we had waited for our first ride. Still Stampida wasn’t open and we loved Shambhala so we stuck it out.

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It was probably an hour or so before we boarded on row 5 in the middle seats. We were gutted we didn’t get outside seats but it just gave us another reason to come back to ride it again later!

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Compared to our front row night ride which is the only thing we had to go on, I wanted to see if a middle of the train ride in the middle of the day would impress me as much or whether it was just the atmosphere which amazed me before.

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I’m happy to say this ride was again fantastic. There is so much airtime for a B&M. People talk about having to hold the restraint in the right place to get air on other hypers but you don’t need to do any of that on this.

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After we mulled about and explored the Shambhala area further as I got carried away taking photos – there are so many opportunities here! We also noticed how close you can get to the tunnel which encloses the bottom of the first drop; let’s hope the guy who thought it’d be fun to go down Oblivion’s tunnel doesn’t visit…

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Since we’d been watching Khan and Shambhala go around and around for quite a while; we decided it was time to go ride Stampida. There wasn’t much of a queue from what we could see (we certainly walked through a lot of empty queue line) so we didn’t see much difference in choosing a certain side first.

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We opted for red initially and reached the end of the queue at the inclined switchbacks. While walking through the queue, I noticed how well themed Stampida is and I love the whole wooden area. Then it gets spectacularly spoilt by all the graffiti at the end of the queue.

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Anyway we were soon on and I had no idea what to expect. I’d heard of the roughness but I also try to ride new roller coasters with an open mind. However, I soon got an idea as we took the little drop towards the lift hill which wasn’t exactly what I’d call smooth.

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Both trains headed up the lift hill and the turn and first drop were very fun but as soon as it hit that turn hard – ouch! The restraint pinned down, which wasn’t majorly comfortable for the rest of the ride but the layout was pretty cool.

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We were hungry by now so went to the chicken place next to Stampida’s entrance. Reasonably priced meals there and I’d recommend if you’re looking for a quick yet filling lunch.

Instead of going straight back on Stampida to try the other side, we sidetracked to Tomahawk. I didn’t really have a clue what the layout was or how they managed to fit (effectively) three woodies in the space.

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We only had to wait a few circuits before we were on (it was actually running two trains!) and soon got comfortable in the one abreast seating. The big clunk on the lift hill wasn’t encouraging but the first drop was fun.

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However, I had no idea there was a left turn straight after you go back up which caught both of us by surprise – as well as our knees! The rest of the ride was enjoyable despite being a little rough for a family coaster.

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The blue side of Stampida completed our trio of woodies. The queue was even smaller than last time but unfortunately the ride was even more uncomfortable. Didn’t really enjoy it very much and wouldn’t necessarily want to ride it again soon.

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A quick glance at the queue board told us that Khan and Shambhala had pretty short queues, so we went back up to China. After waiting in a lot of the cattle pen that is Dragon Khan’s queue (apart from what I like to call the home straight) a few days before, it was refreshing – yet annoying – to see very little of the queue filled.

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Without even thinking about it we joined the queue and soon selected the back row for our ride. On the back row you really get thrown through the inversions but, again, it didn’t really wow me. It is a good, solid ride but not an amazing one for me.

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We then went to see what the Shambhala queue was like and it was also very small. After a short while, we managed to grab the back row and soon we headed up the lift hill with what felt like nothing around us. It is especially apparent as you are climbing and you can see clearly down the lift behind you.

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The train started to crest the hill, slowed, then bam! On the back row you literally get flung out of your seats and it feels like you’re falling for ages. You eventually hit the bottom then you’re up again over another hill, before the turnaround, which is really accentuated on the back row.

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After more airtime-filled hills, we reached the water splash and on the back you actually get hit by water – a little painful if it gets you in the eye! More hills and turns finished a fantastic ride, leaving me wondering whether the front or back gave a better ride.

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The last coaster in the park was yet to be conquered, so we took the path from China down to SésamoAventura to ride Tami Tami. It was pretty much walk on and I was really impressed with the setting for just a kiddie coaster. I also like how they even have cameras on this that film an on-ride video of you.

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The ride itself was fun but just a standard model. You get whipped around some of the turns on the back row though.

I’d heard good reviews of Sea Odyssey, so we decided to head there next to check it out. It was a shame that this queue was actually walk on because the line itself was themed very well. After waiting outside the doors with our 3D glasses not really knowing what to expect, we entered what seemed to be a large simulator.

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We donned our glasses, the lap bar came down and the ride started. I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed. It was supposed to be 4D, but there didn’t seem to be any effects and the simulator just made me feel a bit sick. Not a lot seemed to really happen either.

It was now approaching late afternoon and we were to be picked up at 6pm due to going out for tea, so we decided on Baco for out last ride – the first thing we rode at Port Aventura. I wanted to try an inside seat to see if it made any difference, so we entered a remarkably shorter queue than the one we had seen before to end up once again on row 2 (after the ride had had a little hissy fit and broken down for 5 mins or so).

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My opinion of the ride was pretty much the same as before, but my cousin found it a lot rougher on the outside seats. I ended up getting the ORP of this ride, which wasn’t too pricey, and then we headed to the large shop near the entrance where there is a plethora of park merchandise.

I decided to buy a Port Aventura mug and in the shop we also saw an amusing Furius Baco t-shirt which doesn’t seem to have Furius Baco on it… :lol:

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All in all we had a fantastic week, especially thanks to Port Aventura. It is a well themed park with a pretty good variation of rides and I would definitely recommend it if you haven’t been before. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the report.
 

The Grape Wizard

Hyper Poster
These pictures came out even better on the laptop :wink:

I Think I can say after much deliberation that whilst Portaventura was the most beautiful park I've been, with the best ride i've even been on (Front Row, in the dark ftw): Shambhala... Stampida is one of the WORST rides i've ever been on hahaha!

However, Portaventura in my opinion is a MUST visit park.

Great report.
 

Kebab

Giga Poster
Don't see all the hate for Stampida^ I think it's the most intense coaster at the park (aside from Baco maybe). I've had excellent rides on it before, this year it didn't seem to be running to well, you can feel all the chips and bumps in the track, but still has a kick-ass drop and finale.
 

Mark9

Roller Poster
Great to read another Shambhala review, I really think that if it had an interesting queue line it would be further up in my top ten because the ride itself is such a masterclass of getting the most out of every single hill, drop and turn around. Agreed with you about Dragon Khan, maybe the sit downs lack that certain something when compared with other B&M types because I felt the same getting off of Hulk. In saying that, my partner really enjoyed Khan so maybe it's just one of those things.
 

Rob

Mega Poster
Stop hating on Baco, Stampida and Kahn please!

Baco has been explained, Kahn knocks the socks off Nemesis and is, in my opinion the best B&M loopers out there. It's relentless, and just does what B&M do/did best; provides a smooth ride, which never seems to stop changing direction and offers a big spectrum of forces, I love it! My only thought here, is it is a hyped coaster, and as with many hyped coasters, the hype often has a way of belittling the experience.

Stampida, is fantastic. It's not smooth by the circuit, again, is relentless, and has the added interaction of racing. The trick really is the old slouching technique, ensure sufficient space between oneself and ones lap bar, and, hey presto, you have a pretty comfortable ride. Stapling yourself does and will hurt. A lot. I suppose it's just one of the characteristics of the ride, once you know the tricks to it you suddenly appreciate it, and my god, there is a lot to be appreciated. John Wardley designed too.

Finally, Sea Odyssey has been ruined in 2010, when Universal pulled the rights to the film that the ride was actually designed for. The themeing in the queueline fits seamlessly into the story that sea odyssey was made for, but, essentially, Universal pulled/demanded too higher price for the film, and what you now get, is promo videos on every screen, a small clip of the original story for the safety brief, and then a terrible, blurry, very average 3D film, that looks as though its just been taken out of any old motion simulator. Bad PortAventura.

Otherwise, yay! Glad someone else likes it.
 

oriolat2

Giga Poster
Rob said:
Finally, Sea Odyssey has been ruined in 2010, when Universal pulled the rights to the film that the ride was actually designed for. The themeing in the queueline fits seamlessly into the story that sea odyssey was made for, but, essentially, Universal pulled/demanded too higher price for the film, and what you now get, is promo videos on every screen, a small clip of the original story for the safety brief, and then a terrible, blurry, very average 3D film, that looks as though its just been taken out of any old motion simulator. Bad PortAventura.

Ergh, where did you exactly get that information? Because it seems like you made it all up...

And Stampida is unbearable, stapling or not.
 

The Grape Wizard

Hyper Poster
Stampida needs ripping down. Might be a bit of a brutal statement but I think it does.
Baco is a good ride and the launch is fantastic, just a bit of a head banger.
Khan knocks the socks off Nemesis? By that i hope you mean Nemesis Inferno. It never stops changing direction because its inversion after inversion and frankly it wasnt that thrilling, give me Kraken anyday of the week.
 

Rob

Mega Poster
oriolat2 said:
Ergh, where did you exactly get that information? Because it seems like you made it all up...

And Stampida is unbearable, stapling or not.

Information regarding Sea Odyssey was from PAfans or similar, I had done some general browsing and found a thread where a few people mentioned that, admittedly, I only could be bothered translating a few pages (not speaking Spanish), but the few I did translate came out with a story of that or similar, I believed this to be correct? If you know otherwise please do tell, but it would explain the fact they didn't actually just turn the original film into a 4D experience, or swap back to the old film after nothing but criticism of the new films, everywhere from Trip Adviser to all the fan sites.

Stampida is amazing, from my experience, and it has hurt me only once in my last 2 visits (both lasting a week, so, I'd guess at that equaling around 20 rides on Stampida).
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
Rob said:
Stop hating on Baco, Stampida and Kahn please!

Baco has been explained, Kahn knocks the socks off Nemesis and is, in my opinion the best B&M loopers out there. It's relentless, and just does what B&M do/did best; provides a smooth ride, which never seems to stop changing direction and offers a big spectrum of forces, I love it! My only thought here, is it is a hyped coaster, and as with many hyped coasters, the hype often has a way of belittling the experience.

Stampida, is fantastic. It's not smooth by the circuit, again, is relentless, and has the added interaction of racing. The trick really is the old slouching technique, ensure sufficient space between oneself and ones lap bar, and, hey presto, you have a pretty comfortable ride. Stapling yourself does and will hurt. A lot. I suppose it's just one of the characteristics of the ride, once you know the tricks to it you suddenly appreciate it, and my god, there is a lot to be appreciated. John Wardley designed too.

I wouldn't agree that Khan knocks the socks off Nemesis at all; I find Nemesis a much better ride. I don't even think Khan is the best B&M looper. You may be right about the hype that surrounds it though - I was expecting something amazing, and it just didn't deliver.

As for Stampida, well, I can't think of many things positive to say about it. It may be relentless, but only in the area of delivering pain. Even if I slouched, I was still stapled. I tried making my restraint looser initially and it locked after the first drop. John Wardley being involved doesn't make the ride suddenly smooth and enjoyable - after all, he doesn't design it himself, he only idealises it.

Don't get me wrong, I am the first person to have an open mind when riding new coasters and I actually thought Stampida would be alright... until we hit that first turn after the drop. It just really is too painful in my eyes. It definitely isn't amazing; it doesn't touch modern woodies at all.
 

Rob

Mega Poster
^ Apologies for my spelling! I suppose it's a matter of opinion, I've never been a massive Nemesis fan so my opinion will of course be biased, but hey hum. I prefer it to the other B&M loopers I've ridden (the Florida ones). Hype is always a bad thing.

Well, my woodie experience is more limited, but, honestly, maybe it's after repeat riding, but it /is/ forceful throughout, it is fast paced and does offer quite a lot of ejector airtime, I manage to get slouched lap bar, with a gap, every time, the only real advantage I can claim here is I tend to go for a week at a time, so learn every particularly harsh jolt/bump/corner in each of the layouts and tend to be able to brace for the worst bits, I enjoy it, if no one else does, it can be my pet. As for Wardley, it was a joke; a lot of people do seem to subscribe to the Wardley effect, which you pretty much explained yourself.

Tell you what, I'll invite you for a ride or two whenever I next go and show you the Stampida light :p
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
^I'll take you up on that! Though I've no idea when I'll be back at PA. I honestly understand where you're coming from - I believe that it is a good ride if you know how to ride it. Obviously, the best of rides shouldn't need the rider to do something in particular to make the experience enjoyable but I do see the potential.
 
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