I went on vacation to Barcelona last week, and knew that I had to see Port Aventura while I was so close by, so on Wednesday I decided to do just that. I took a few photos with a disposable, so I'll put pictures up when I get them developed.

Getting there
The park is in a beach town called Salou, a little over 1 hour south of Barcelona. If you drive, you park the car somewhere, although I didn't notice where the parking lot was. There is a train from Barcelona straight to Port Aventura, which, for 44 euro, includes admission and the round trip train ride. The stop for the train is right at the street entrance to Port Aventura, which means a very long walk up a hill, where you finally get to the entrance.

The Rides
Furius Baco is a strange Intamin Accelerator coaster, which takes you from 0-84 MPH in 3.5 seconds. The trains have seats on the sides of the track, not on top of it, as many of you may have seen. It is definitely the dumbest thing Intamin has done, because it is not heartlined, and that is very noticeable. I held my hands up, and my upper arms were bruised for the next two days. The beginning is fun, the launch is pretty inclined, and at the end of it the track just dips down, producing very good airtime at top speed. The heartline roll is also good if you sit on the left side of the track, some good airtime. Also, the ride is themed to a winery which was overtaken by monkeys who get drunk, the ride being their resulting shenanigans. Strange for an amusement park, but funny nonetheless.

Dragon Kahn was the first coaster to have more than seven inversions, and it was pretty awesome. Easily comparable to Medusa and Alpengeist, it felt like a combination of the two. It was very intense, and produced a lot of positive Gs. I also noticed that the track is very thick at faster parts, as thick as mega coaster track. I believe that since this train is heavier than floorless, it requires such track. In turn, I figured out that floorless coasters feel faster, because they slow down less at the tops of the elements, but regular sitdowns produce a more forceful feel, almost like an invert, because the trains weigh more. This coaster is easily as good as Alpengeist and Medusa, I rode it four times over the day. Also, this coaster is furthest from the entrance, it is actually incredibly close to the Mediterranean. You can see the sea from the top of the lift, and it is pretty awesome.

Diablo is an Arrow mine train, and a boring one at that. It has three lifts, but there aren't any airtime hills or sudden drops at all, so I consider it to be the worst mine train I've ridden. It looks cool, but is nothing short of a boring family coaster.

Hurakan Condor is a second gen Intamin drop tower, with magnetic systems instead of cables fortunately. On this tower you can choose to ride stand-up, sitdown, or sitdown floorless. Now I found the second dumbest thing Intamin has done, standup drop towers. It feels the same, except for when it slows down at the bottom, then all of the g force is directly on your groin area, which produces discomfort for the muscles, pelvis, and other unmentionable parts. It is pointless, and sitdown floorless is definitely better. I didn't ride the side with regular floor, though I wish I did. The station is in a building which rises up to where the car is going fastest, which makes a cool effect of people's screams being instantly silenced. I know it isn't the only tower to do so, but it's the first I've seen, and I was impressed.

Tomahawk, a small coaster made by CCI, is so small, that only one person rides per row in the train, unless they are very small children. It produces some good airtime in the back, but since the train is so small, I wouldn't recommend keeping your hands up, everybody who did came off with elbow and knee pain, which I experienced myself on my second ride.

Stampida is a racing/dueling CCI coaster with nice trains, and a fun race. The tracks are mostly racing, though at some point come out with the trains going head on. It feels very fast, and sort of smooth, definitely not as rough as Ghostrider. Either train can win, it really does depend on the weight in each one. A bell rings in the station of the winning train after each ride.

Final notes
The park is very clean and very beautiful, covered in gardens and greenery, comparable to BGE. There are really only four intense rides, and only one of them is exceptional, but it is worth a trip if you are nearby. I was only there for about 5.5 hours, but the park couldn't have had any more than two thousand people that day, most of them riding the coasters. The main language in that entire region of Spain is Catalan, but signs in the park are in Catalan, Spanish, and English, and the employees all know Catalan and Spanish, most also know either English or French.

The park is very clean and well manicured, however, the coaster collection, while interesting, isn't that great in terms of rideability. Dragon Kahn is worth the entire trip in my opinion, though it is interesting to ride Furius Baco, because it is very unique. I would say the park as a whole would be my fifth or sixth favorite, fighting for that position with Dorney, both of those below GAdv, La Ronde, KBF, and BGE.

Photos to come within a week.

I always love to see the trip reports and photos for international parks since those are very rare!

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I was put off by the title at first but reading in this was a very rewarding TR. I can understand Dragon Khan because it sounds like a Kumba ride. Nice. I cringed after reading about the standup side of the drop tower. I think James adored it because we've seen his onride photo from that side of it. You and him have the rare Furious Taco credit.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

Hurakan Condor = my love
Even with the standup cars.

Yea Furius Baco is interesting because when it feels like it throws you around on one side, it's smooth for that portion of the ride on the other side, and vice versa. The "heartline" roll, when riding on the right side, produces high positive Gs by pushing up on you from underneath. When riding the left side, you feel as if your seat is constantly dropping from underneath you, producing some good negative Gs. But everytime the coaster changes the direction of banking, you feel like you are in a cage being shaken by...monkeys.

Hurakan Condor is insane though. It's taller than Drop Zone at KD and KI, but it is way scarier.

I'm glad I got to go because I remember when I was about 7 I was reading one of those dumb roller coaster books telling about how Dragon Kahn has the most inversions in the world. The record has been tied and broken since then, but it's still the only one for B&M.