PortAventura amusement park opens its doors earlier than ever
Theme park expects to welcome over 5.3 million visitors in year marked by opening of new ride
Catalonia's largest amusement park, PortAventura, opened its doors on Friday, marking the earliest season start in its history.
Until now, the park used to welcome its first visitors during Easter Week, but this year they decided to celebrate Carnival over the weekends of February and March.
This will mark the first Carnival celebrated in PortAventura, inspired by the ones in Rio de Janeiro and Venice. In addition to the parades, there will also be new shows, and the amusement park will be decorated for the occasion.
"If Disney does it, why shouldn't we do it?" David García, PortAventura director, said to media outlets on the first day of open doors. If "Carnival works," the plan is to open all year round.
During these weeks, the company expects to see around 70,000 visitors, with the goal of finishing 2023 with 5.3 million visitors. So far, sales are going better than expected, as they sold 4,000 more Saturday tickets than they had planned.
Opening in February will mean that PortAventura will be open all months of the year, after closing its last season in early January. Overall, the amusement park will welcome visitors for 278 days, 20% more than in 2022.
This is not the only record broken this season, as so far they have started it with 700 workers and plan to hire 3,800 during the summer.
Virtual queues
Another novelty at PortAventura this year is "digitalization," as they plan to launch an app that will allow clients to "personalize their experience."
Some features include booking restaurants, planning their trip, and even checking the waiting lists to get on any ride.
PortAventura will also test virtual queues just to avoid long waits to get on a ride.
New ride in spring
In the 'Far West' area, PortAventura will after a more than €25m investment open a new ride inspired by the movie 'Uncharted' with Tom Holland.
The ride will be an immersive experience in an enclosed dark space with special effects and audiovisual projections.
It will be a 700-meter ride with five speeds at 12 meters below ground level. The ride will be a minute and a half long and the cars will fit up to 12 people.