We paid for our holiday to PortAventura ourselves but wanted to share our experience of staying at Hotel Gold River.

We spent a week at PortAventura World, one of the biggest theme park resorts in the South of Europe, for the first time in August/September 2019, staying at Hotel Gold River, one of their on-site hotels. If you want to read more about the hotel you can read our post here. This post details the type of food at Hotel Gold River.

There are three main restaurants available for hotel guests at Hotel Gold River. The main one is the Grand Hall Buffet, where we went for breakfast and dinner. We booked the half-board option for our stay. We were hesitant to go full-board just in case we didn’t like the food, but we needn’t have worried. The last thing anyone wants after a good time at the theme park is to be disappointed by the food on offer when they are hungry and tired.

Both breakfast and dinner are buffet style, where you can go up and help yourself. For the buffet breakfasts, you are given a choice of time slots to choose from when you check in to limit how busy the restaurant is, which is great for high season when it can get really busy, and it guarantees you breakfast before you start your day. We had an early slot of 8.30 am on our first day as it was the only slot left, but we had a 9.30 am time slot on the second day and for the rest of the week, which worked out well for us. The Port Aventura theme park opens at 10 am daily, but most rides don’t open until 11 am. Luckily, the theme park isn’t far from the hotel, a short walk of around 20 minutes or a 5  minute drive

For breakfast, there was a choice of hot food, such as:

• Sausages
• Bacon
• Beans
• Eggs – fried and scrambled
• Freshly made pancakes
• Churros
• Toast

There was also a large selection of pastries, sliced meats, fresh fruit, yoghurts and cereals available, a machine for tea or coffee, and a choice of hot chocolate or chocolate milk for kids. However, if you have any special requests or dietary restrictions, it’s best to talk to the employees to ensure you don’t eat anything that you need to avoid. As a family-friendly hotel, they make sure there is something for everyone to enjoy; however, it’s still worth making them aware of any dietary considerations you need to make.

Dinner is served from 7 pm until around 10.30 pm, and again, there is a wide selection of food that should cater for most tastes. Over the week, there was a choice of the following for our evening meal:

• Salad bar
• Soup Station with pasta, noodles, paella, pizza and grilled meats
• Fish
• Steak
• Chicken
• Lamb
• Hot Dogs
• Burgers
• Meal Selections incl french fries or chips, rice and vegetable accompaniments
• Fresh Fruit
• Cakes
• Jelly
• Ice Cream

We were really impressed with the food, and the boys loved being able to pick and choose what they fancied eating each evening. I liked that the food was on full display so we could see what was available before deciding what we wanted to eat.

Exchanging vouchers to eat at the park

Choosing half-board or full-board at Gold River allows you to exchange your meal onsite at the hotel for vouchers to use at selected restaurants at PortAventura Park. You’re given a value of €20 per adult and €9.50 per child, which can be used only on the A la Carte menu. Bookings have to be made in advance at the hotel reception. We did this on the first evening we were there and had our dinner at The Iron Horse, a restaurant serving American food. Once our vouchers were deducted, we paid an extra €25-€30 in additional charges for our meal, which we felt was overpriced. We didn’t feel it was the best way to make the most of our vouchers and get good value for money, but we were glad we tried it to compare it to the food at the hotel.

We didn’t really think much of the food at The Iron Horse. Service was slow even though it wasn’t busy when we dined. The food was mediocre and not overly hot, either. It simply didn’t compare to the food at Hotel Gold River, so we chose to continue dining there each evening.

Tips for dining

• If you have a later time slot for breakfast, there may be a queue to enter the hall, so it’s worth allowing extra time for this.
• For dining in the evening, we found the best time to arrive was early evening at 7 pm, just when the buffet opens as everything is hot and fresh. It also means once you’ve eaten, you are free to head back into the park for the evening. (in the Summer, when we went, the park was open until midnight)

Read my other PortAventura posts

• Our stay at Hotel Gold River, PortAventura

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