Carowinds TR 6/22-23

[Joncars05]

Since my wife was pregnant last year we decided earlier this year to make good use of Cedar Fair letting us carry over our platinum passes to this year. My wife and I have never been to any other Cedar Fair park outside of Cedar Point and Kings Island, so we decided to do a Carowinds/Kings Dominion trip this year. We ended up going to Carowinds for two days (6/22-23 a Monday and Tuesday). We didn’t really know what to expect so we held off on buying Fast Lane passes until we got into the park. We got into the parking lot about 10 minutes before the park opened to season passholders. I was really worried that the crowd was going to be really big (especially with Fury 325 being added this year). But when we entered the park and headed to Fury the ERT session maybe sent out 1 full train. We ended up riding it 5 times in a row before switching rides once the park and "flood" (maybe about 10 minutes worth of riders) of people came to Fury325.

Fury 325 is just as good as advertised, if not better. The ride is as close to perfect as you can get. The lift hill is fast enough to get you to the top quickly but slow enough to still allow you to freak out a little bit or take in the view. The drop was insane. The front hangs a bit before you head downhill but the back you get slung over the top. I enjoyed the drop more in the back than the front. I was literally thrown into the restraint while falling down. The first turn is high banked but you get a pop of airtime before you actually enter the turn. I was really shocked at how fast this ride is. The next couple of “s” turns that gave you a big pop of airtime. They come at the top of the hills so they give sideways airtime. It is incredible. Then into the high banked 90 degree turnaround you carry so much more speed than what is shown on the POV. The drop into the tunnel/under the bridge is fun because there is always someone there standing and waving at you so I almost always waved back. The ride then heads back towards the station but you hit a trimmed (ugh) but powerful airtime hill that gives you great floater air in the back and ejector (yes ejector!) air in the front. You roll through a massive helix that has a support beam that is a mega headchopper halfway through it. I ducked almost every time because it looks so close as if you could touch it. Then you are hit with two airtime hills that again provide ejector air in the front and very good airtime pops in the back. I think the back row is the best row on the ride. Overall I haven’t been on very many coasters (maybe 80+) but this ranks #2 for me. My wife who has been on the same amount I have ranks it as #1. The pacing is fantastic, the elements are awesome, and the ride is butter smooth. The only thing I could come close to saying was a drawback was the fact that they just cleared the land surrounding the ride. There were no trees near the ride and for as low to the ground this ride gets the trees and grass would make the ride seem like it is going even faster! The total land clearance has to be a Cedar Fair thing because almost all of their new rides have no trees around them. But that is just nitpicking this ride is fantastic and if you can get a chance to ride this thing then I would most definitely take that shot and get to Carowinds to ride Fury 325.

 

We headed to Drop Tower next which provided a good ride. We went to Carolina Cobra next and that was an interesting boomerang coaster. We have never been on a sitdown boomerang and it was a bit rough on the backwards portion so it was a one and done. Our next ride was Nighthawk. It is very similar to Firehawk minus the station which is single loading and made the wait a little bit longer (25 minutes). It was really fun I liked how it went over water and the double corkscrew ending was unique. I think I would give it a very slight nudge over Firehawk at KI. Next we took a cycle on WindSeeker. It was a great view. The one thing that my wife and I noticed was that it seemed the Cycle for WindSeeker was way longer than the ones at KI and CP. I don’t know if that is true or not but it felt a little bit longer. Next we headed to Afterburn which I will say is probably tied for the 2^nd best coaster in the park. The ride utilized the surrounding trees and hill to provide an awesome ride. The elements were very forceful but smooth enough to not be dizzying or painful. There was no headbanging whenever I rode it.  The elements including a tunnel and a very good zero-g roll made this ride very good. I was very surprised how much it packed into such a small place. It was practically a walk on for us the entire time there. Next we went to Intimidator. It is a B&M Hyper that has a very long but not wide footprint. I liked the first drop and while sitting in the front you get a good pop of airtime over the turn to the right. In the back on that same turn you get some good lateral g’s and pull similar to the turnaround on The Legend roller coaster at Holiday World. The airtime was great and I really liked how the turn around was set up. After the brakes the ride slowed way down luckily it was only the helix after that and then we were done. I really liked this ride and I was surprised because the POV looked almost boring but that’s why you ride them I guess. We left the park for lunch and to take a break so we ate at Culver’s next to the park.

 

After about 2.5 hour break we came back into the park to ride some of the smaller rides. We headed to the Carolina Skytower. It was a great view. I thought it was going to be a bit more air conditioned than it was but at least it wasn’t hot in the cabin.  We left and headed to Thunder Road since it was closing down during this summer. We were able to get a ride on both state sides the first ride was without racing and the second one was with racing. It was a good ride. I went on Dodgems after our ride to perform my ritual of trying to avoid contact. I was only hit once. Next we headed to Afterburn again for a couple of laps. We then headed to ride Woodstock Gliders. Now I have been on 4 Cedar Fair gliders and this one without a doubt is the best. I have never been able to snap a glider until this one. It was super easy to do. Even my wife was snapping the ride. There were ten buckets and I will say about 6-7 of them were snapping the ride it was amazing. It almost felt as if we were going to break the ride. Without a doubt this was the best gliders I have been on. After a couple of rides there we ended up heading to Intimidator again to get a couple of rides in and we ended out night on Fury 325. Fury 325 at night is just insane. It gets pretty dark in the area plus the underground tunnel has the highlighter green color illuminating the tunnel. Fury is just out of control at night. After 5 cycles we headed to our friends place to rest up for day 2.

 

 

Day 2

We started out with the ERT rides on Fury 325. After a couple of spins with Fury we headed to Hurler and rode it once. I was really expecting more airtime during the hills portion of it but it was a good coaster. My wife was happy it wasn’t rough. Next we headed to Carolina Cyclone. It is an old school arrow looper. It was an enjoyable ride. I really liked how the ride interacted with the walkway as well as the helix at the end. I enjoyed it. Next was Vortex. It is a standup coaster. I thought it was just okay. It wasn’t rough but I never really was a fan of standup coasters. Next we headed to Nighthawk for a spin. The final ride we rode before our break was Intimidator. We headed out of the park around 1230 and went back to our friends place for a longer break. We ended up not getting back into the park until 530. The reason for such a long break was because the parks temperature hit 100 degrees and it was a heat index of 108. I like how the park handled the heat. Instead of making people wait in line for water they made a tray of water cups and let people just walk up and take how many ever they needed. Once we were back in the park we hit Fury 325 with no wait, Carolina Skytower, WindSeeker, Carolina Goldrusher, Thunder Road, and dodgems. We did their Boo Blasters and it was pretty fun. Very similar to Kings Island but different enough to entertain us. We had about an hour and a half left in the park so we hit Woodstock gliders a couple more times. We were snapping so much that the announcer called out both my and my wife’s glider numbers for going so high. After that I took a couple of spins on Afterburn, we rode twice on Intimidator, and we were able to ride to close out the night with 3 night rides of Fury 325.

 

Overall my wife and I thought that Carowinds was a better park than Kings Island. A major reason was due to the tiny crowds. I’m not sure if it was due to the heat or just that people didn’t come out but I was expecting atleast a 40 minute wait for Fury 325 on both days. But to my surprise the longest we waited was 10 minutes during the night. The crew was pumping out people so fast that the trains during the first night session were not able to proceed to the lift hill after being shuttled out of the station because the train in front of them hadn’t cleared the next block. It was amazing. The Fury crew was hands down the best crew we have seen this year. In fact all of the crews were extremely fast. It didn’t matter if there were 5 people or a full train of people riding all rides checked seats and cleared the station with great effort to maximize capacity. The longest line we had to wait was 25 minutes for Nighthawk on the first day. That was more due to everyone trying to ride it early. Because the line was less than 5 minutes later in the day. Everything was basically a walk on or a one cycle wait. Fury was a walk-on for ERT and a Walk on during the middle of the day. It was an amazing time to ride.

 

Final Coaster Ride Count for 2 days:

Fury 325- 22

Afterburn- 12

Intimidator- 9

Thunder Road- 3

Nighthawk- 2

Carolina Cyclone- 1

Carolina Cobra- 1

Carolina Goldrusher-1

Hurler- 1

Vortex- 1

Ricochet-1

 

Lastly here are some photos I snapped from my phone. I hope you enjoyed my TR. Sorry for it being so long I just like writing down a lot of details to save for our family memories.

[marth555]

Fun fact the gliders that currently reside at Carowinds were at KI from the parks opening in 1972-2005

[Joncars05]

Awe man that's crazy. I knew that either Carowinds or KD had the old KI gliders. But knowing that Carowinds has them makes me even more sad because those gliders were insane! They were easy to snap and so much fun to ride in. All of the other CF gliders I have been on don't even compare. No wonder so many people we're upset when the old KI gliders left

[Joncars05]

I guess I didn't copy the last part of my trip report in the original post so I will put it here.

Carowinds had beautiful scenery. I really enjoyed the trees and how the park was presented. I really liked how almost every ride in the park either interacted with the walking paths or was easily seen from the walkways. Fury 325 goes over and under the entrance, Carolina Cyclone goes over a walkway, Nighthawk goes over a walkway, Afterburn goes under the south entrance pathway and over the pathways, even Intimidator goes right next to the south entrance gate. I thought that was really unique and it allows for some really neat photo ops if you a taking shots with something other than a camera phone. I really liked how the park seemed very compact. Many of the rides were very close to each other and I feel like there weren't very many long walks to get to where we needed to go. The trees and close proximity of all of the rides made the park more enjoyable even with the 108 degree heat index!

 

Another big difference and its a big difference with Cedar Fair in general is the staff was very accommodating and helpful when needed. First the ride ops were fantastic. It didn't matter if the line was full or they were sending quarter filled trains through the line they were moving the trains out at capacity. It was fantastic. Secondly, I forget the employee's name but my wife and I must have looked a bit lost when we were trying to find Thunder Road because an employee stopped to help direct us to where we needed to go. She was very helpful and completed the conversation with have a nice day after we thanked her. It is such a small thing but little comments like that go a long way in how trips are remembered. Also the workers in the concession were great and friendly as well. The new era of employee/customer actions is really showing. Its a huge plus when heading to Cedar Fair parks and I couldn't praise the workers that we talked with enough for working hard and being polite to us.

 

Overall we may not be able to make it to Carowinds every year but I feel like it is a park that we will go to every other year or so. We had a great experience and we would most definitely recommend the park to other people. Lastly check out my shirt that I bought from Fury 325's gift shop. The lettering in the front glows in the dark and it was a nice memento from the park.