PortAventura World closed last Kings Day (January 7) and will inaugurate the thirtieth season in just two weeks: February 9, for Carnival. The park will launch the longest season in its history with an added challenge: carry out maintenance work, including the inspection and review of the major attractions, in less time: thirty-two days. Race against time.
“Having such limited time, we focus on exclusively carrying out the work that cannot be done at any other time of the year,” highlights Jordi Vidal, head of attraction maintenance. He already experienced the construction of the park more than three decades ago. He knows it in detail.
The closing is the best time to carry out the most important operations. If a major attraction requires major repair while the season is already underway, it must be temporarily closed to the public. And this greatly upsets customers and damages the image of the park.
To avoid this and guarantee the safety of the attractions, the pillar of every theme park, when the course closes, the work of a team of 150 people begins. A bobbin lace that does not start from scratch. The attractions are routinely checked, also when the park is open, and repairs are made.
The most complex operations are those carried out these days. It’s five weeks of intense work for the crane drivers. Specialists rise to great heights to inspect structures. All points are looked at to the millimeter, including the pillars and the rails along which the trains are launched. Crane technicians carry out repairs. All motor, electrical and mechanical elements are also checked.
Technology has made the mission easier. The emergence of drones allows large structures to be inspected without having to physically walk through them with a specialist, inch by inch. The drone team is in charge of flying over the attractions and obtaining high-resolution images. The videos are reviewed to the millimeter, with the help of zoom, and possible critical points or any small anomaly can be detected. Microcracks are looked for.
Flights with drones, complementary to the inspection with cranes, must be carried out with the express authorization of Reus airport, since PortAventura is within the no-fly area. “We managed to cut review times thanks to drones,” highlights Vidal.
What is known as “predictive maintenance” is carried out, which makes it possible not to change all the same parts of each attraction every year, but rather to predict when it is necessary to intervene.
Magnetic particles, ultraviolet light and ultrasound are also used. The foundations, anchors, tracks and wagons are analyzed with the help of specialized companies.
The level of detail is so high that topographic tests are even carried out to verify that the ground where the pillars of each attraction are anchored is stable. Especially those with greater weight and strength such as the Shambhala, which reaches 70 meters in height, the Dragon Khan (40 meters) or the Red Force (110 m.), in the Ferrari park. Preparations are being made to place a large spiral high up, in the Red Force, on the park’s skyline. It is an air diffuser to minimize the effect of wind gusts.
The attractions are dismantled in pieces to be able to check, for example, the brake systems in the workshop, as is being done with the latest major attraction released, Uncharted (June 2023).
There is a European framework regulation that regulates inspections. What is known as the MOT of each attraction is annual. They are not all carried out at the same time coinciding with this closing month because it would be unfeasible; They are distributed throughout the year. It’s a long-distance race. There are a dozen inspectors now working in the park.
In addition to the team specialized in attractions, more than 900 people work in the different areas of the park during the month of closure. It is also a career for the entertainment and theming area. Once the Christmas campaign is over, half a thousand items of clothing and 200 pairs of shoes are collected, cleaned, classified and stored, in addition to saving all the decorations and changing them for Carnival ones. Props, sets, music, videos and songs are also replaced. It is a team of 30 people that is changing the face of PortAventura: from Carnival they will move on to Easter theming, then to the high season, Halloween and Christmas.
