PortAventura World is an entertainment resort in Salou, Spain, made up of two theme parks, a water park, six hotels, a convention centre and an RV park. It’s about an hour south of Barcelona and only 15 minutes from Reus Airport. If you’re looking for the absolute best rides and the top 10 PortAventura attractions, you’re in the right place!
The main theme park, PortAventura Park, opened in 1995 and is the busiest theme park in Spain (even busier than the rival Parque Warner in Madrid) and the 6th busiest in Europe. It has six themed lands: Mediterrà nia, Polynesia, SésamoAventura, China, México and Far West. A second theme park, Ferrari Land, opened in 2017 and is home to the fastest and highest roller coaster in Europe: Red Force.
PortAventura Resort is perfect if you’re staying somewhere nearby like Salou or Cambrils and you could easily do two days and visit both parks. If you’re just doing one day, we recommend sticking to PortAventura Park. There’s not a whole lot to do in Ferrari Land yet but they continue to expand it. Be aware too that it can get very hot in the summer months and like most theme parks, there’s a lot of standing in queues. It can be really busy in the summer too when a lot of Europeans visit the surrounding areas on the Costa Dorada for their holidays.
If you’re coming from Barcelona for the day, the train is the easiest option. The park has its own station (PortAventura World) on the R16 line. We recommend checking train times and booking tickets on Omio in advance to save time at the station.
It might be worth considering staying onsite at one of the six resort hotels: Hotel El Paso, Hotel Gold River, Lucy’s Mansion, Hotel PortAventura, Hotel Caribe and the new Hotel Colorado Creek. They’re close to both parks and you get great benefits like early ride time. We stayed at Hotel El Paso and absolutely loved it.
As with all major theme parks, never buy your tickets at the gate! It’s always more expensive and you waste time queuing. We recommend buying your PortAventura tickets in advance online. This lets you scan your phone at the turnstiles and walk straight in.
Another thing to consider in PortAventura is an Express Pass. For an additional fee, you can skip the lines which is especially helpful in the busy summer months. The Express Max pass gets you on everything once without queuing and costs roughly €40 depending on the season.
Just as a foreword to our top 10 PortAventura attractions list, we haven’t included Ferrari Land because we’ll do a separate list for there. We’ve also not included any of the children’s attractions because we don’t have kids. Suffice it to say, there’s lots to do for younger kids, especially if they like Sesame Street!
10. Angkor
A ride where the main objective is just to fire a water gun at people! Angkor is a slow-moving boat ride through the ruins of a temple in the Asian jungle. You use a pump-action water gun to shoot at interactive targets that trigger special effects and pop-ups along the banks. You also get to shoot at riders in other boats! It’s all fun and games until some little kid decides it’s hilarious to soak you to the bone when you’re not looking. The whole Angkor Wat temple theming is really detailed and it’s great fun for the whole family.
9. El Diablo – Tren de la Mina
El Diablo is what some in the business would call a “kiddie coaster” and I’m sure younger kids would love it. For adults who are a little less enthusiastic about some of the bigger coasters in PortAventura, this is a fantastic starting point. It’s themed around an old abandoned silver mine and it winds its way through the México section. It features three separate lift hills, which makes the ride feel much longer than a standard family coaster. It’s not too fast or twisty so you won’t lose your lunch! El Diablo is a lot of fun and is always worth jumping on if the queue isn’t too long.
8. Furius Baco
Furius Baco is the only ride located in the Mediterrà nia section of the park and it’s quite the experience. It’s themed around a wacky grape-harvesting machine built by a local inventor. During the pre-show, a mischievous monkey tampers with the controls and you’re suddenly sent flying out of the station. It was the fastest roller coaster in Europe when it launched in 2007, firing riders from 0 to 135 km/h in just 3 seconds! It features wing-rider seating which means you’re dangling completely off the side of the track. It stays low to the ground and finishes with a dramatic inline twist right over the lake. The launch is very intense and the ride itself can feel a little rough, so once a day on Furius Baco is usually more than enough for us!
7. Silver River Flume
The Silver River Flume is an absolute classic and easily one of the best flume rides we’ve ever been on. That being said, traditional log flumes seem to be going out of fashion a bit lately with both Alton Towers and Thorpe Park permanently closing theirs. Maybe it’s the gloomy British weather? Thankfully, the Spanish heat makes this ride an absolute necessity! You climb into a hollowed-out log and navigate through a sawmill. The Silver River Flume has three drops that get progressively bigger and steeper. Best of all, it gives you a great splash but you don’t step off completely drenched. We’re massive fans of water rides where you get wet but don’t have to spend the rest of the day squelching around in wet shoes!
6. Stampida
Wooden roller coasters seem to be making a massive comeback lately but Stampida has been in the Far West area since it opened back in 1997. It’s one of the few duelling wooden roller coasters in Europe, featuring two completely separate tracks: Red and Blue. Both trains start together as they go up the lift hill and then head off in completely different directions before coming back together to race to the finish line. There are some brilliant near misses and the duelling element is good fun. Make sure you try both colours if the queues aren’t bad because the layouts are quite different. They sometimes keep this area open later than the rest of the theme park and riding Stampida in the dark is a great experience!
5. Hurakan Condor
Hurakan Condor is one of the tallest drop towers in the world, standing at 100 metres high. What makes it so special is the fact that each side of the tower has completely different seating configurations. Depending on where you queue, you could be sitting regularly, sitting tilted forward at an angle or even standing up! They haul you up into the sky, take your photo at the very top and then drop you into a freefall. It’s all very intense. It’s themed around an ancient Aztec sacrifice ritual which really adds to the nerves. PLUS, if you can keep your eyes open, you get an amazing view out over the PortAventura World resort and the Mediterranean Sea!
4. Tutuki Splash
Tutuki Splash is located in the lush Polynesia section of the park and is themed around an erupting volcano. You start off with a gentle, scenic river ride before hitting a small drop. You’re then slowly pulled up the main lift hill right into the mouth of the volcano. This is where things can get very, very wet! Depending on your timing, if another boat is splashing down as you’re going up the lift hill, the force of the water can soak you before you’ve even dropped! We’ve been on it where we came off saturated and other times where we’ve survived bone dry. The final splashdown is great fun and Tutuki Splash easily ranks as one of the best water rides we’ve ever done.
3. Uncharted: The Enigma of Penitence
This is a brand new roller coaster at PortAventura and the very first indoor coaster at the park. It’s based on the hit Uncharted movie and even features the film’s cast. It’s located in the Far West area and blends roller coaster action with immersive storytelling, projection screens and physical sets. It’s packed with unexpected twists including a completely unique, world-first sideways launch! It drops you backwards, spins you around and sends you flying through the darkness in search of Aztec gold. It’s a great mix of fun and adventure that captures the spirit of the movies. It’s a great addition to the park’s lineup.
2. Dragon Khan
When Dragon Khan opened in 1995, it held the world record for the most inversions on any roller coaster, with eight upside-down elements! It retained that record until 2002 when Colossus opened in Thorpe Park. That record was later beaten again by the 14 inversions of The Smiler in Alton Towers. Dragon Khan is located in the China area of the park and its red track dominates the skyline. It actually intertwines with Shambhala. It’s an intense ride featuring a vertical loop and a zero-g roll. You really feel the G-force on every single inversion so it’s probably not for you if you’re of a nervous disposition. If you’re a true roller coaster fanatic though, it’s an absolute rite of passage. They’ve just retracked quite a bit of it too!
1. Shambhala
Shambhala is, without a doubt, one of our favourite roller coasters in the world. It’s 76 metres tall and hits a top speed of 134 km/h! It held the title of the tallest roller coaster in Europe until Red Force opened right next door in Ferrari Land in 2017. Its full title is Shambhala: Expedición al Himalaya which is fitting because it’s themed around an expedition into the Himalayan mountains. It’s a hypercoaster, which means there are no inversions, just pure speed and huge drops. It’s packed full of airtime hills that lift you out of your seat and it even has a water splashdown element! You feel like you’re flying as you dive over and under Dragon Khan’s red track. You simply can’t go to PortAventura and not ride Shambhala. Simple as!
What do you think?
That wraps up our ultimate top 10 PortAventura countdown! Do you agree with our number one pick? Did your favourite ride miss the list? Let us know your thoughts and your own rankings in the comments below!
