Having spent two full day exploring the PortAventura theme park, we seized the opportunity – and discounted tickets available when purchasing within our on-property hotel – to visit the neighbouring Caribe Aquatic Park, also part of PortAventura World, one morning.
When we visited, in early June, the park had only been open about a week and the temperature of the water would very quickly tell us why that was the case, as we often found ourselves throwing ourselves onto slides at full speed just to avoid having to sense the Baltic climes of the water for any longer than absolutely necessary.
During our visit, the park stayed reasonably quiet throughout the day and – oddly – any attraction that ordinarily offered Express seemed to just have no queue whatsoever.
Generally the whole park is compact, and you can easily get from one end to the other within 10 minutes. The whole area around the entrance on to the first wave pool meanwhile seems to consist entirely of shops, changing rooms, and eateries.
After staking out our ideal deck chairs for the days lounging, we decided to quickly brave the chilly temperatures and we headed straight for ‘El Torrente’, a wild rafting slide that seemed like it might just flip upright at so many points along its winding, descending course. Great way to kick things off!
After that, we decided on a brief battle at ‘Barracudas’, before moving on to ‘Rapid Race’, where riders lie atop a floor mat and sail down the undulating surface. I don’t know why, but for some reason quite how I was to propel myself down from the slide evaded my intelligence and I ended up missing the start of the ‘race’ and just wiggling awkwardly at the top of the slide for a cringeworthy amount of time.
Eventually, I did however manage to set myself loose and enjoy the now 1-man race to the bottom.
After the morning’s gallivanting around all the attractions, it was time for an early lunch. I’m not sure why, but PortAventura theme park food – and this overwhelmingly extended to the water park – is just not great. After a few stodgy nuggets of questionable provenance, we headed to the back of the park to continue the day’s fun.
Amazingly, the park never really got more full than it started out being in the morning and before long, we decided to stand around making ourselves uncomfortably nervous watching riders freefall down King Khajuna.
To finish the morning off – and to be honest, when there’s no queues like this day, a morning maybe until around early afternoon is more than enough time – we each decided one by one to tackle King Khajuna, even though the view of the car park along from the never-ending tower of stairs gave me occasion to pause halfway and reconsider my life choices.
Caribe Aquatic Park, overall, was a fun way to spend half a day – it’s compact, easy to get around, with a fine mix of attractions, but wouldn’t necessarily need a full day and realistically, could be a nightmare on a super packed day in the height of summer.
