- April 1st, 2004, 7:25 pm
#4773
I've been on Mean Streak, SOB, and Hurricane Cat 5 at Myrtle Beach - and Hurler has never been nearly as rough as any of those for me. And, at least Hurler has the airtime hills and some speed. So they don't need to tear that one down.
Really, they don't need to tear down anything to put in new rides - they have space, especially if they go over existing rides. I mean, how much usable room would you gain by removing Vortex or Frenzoid or White Water Falls, etc.?
I'd like to see a hyper and a launch coaster added to the park - it'd save me money on travelling! I'm not a big fan of the twister coasters, so their current woodie lineup is pretty good - although I won't complain if we get a Georgia Cyclone or PKD Grizzly clone.
Still, I think sometimes people don't realize what we DO have at Carowinds. Does anyone realize that there are only THREE parks in North America that have more coasters? Cedar Point, Paramount's Canada's Wonderland, and Six Flags Magic Mountain. PKD, PKI, SFGrAm, SFGrAdv and SFoT are tied with Carowinds with 12. Unless I missed one in looking around on RCDB, Carowinds has more coasters than ALL the other parks in N. America. I've seen people say Carowinds has "only" 12 coasters, and I don't think they realize how good that really is. It's FAR better than the 1991 count of 4.
We have a racing woodie and a junior woodie, neither terribly common outside of the Paramount chain. There are less than 20 flyers and less than 20 standups in the world, and Carowinds has both types. We have one of only TWO Setpoint water coasters. We have a B&M inverted, widely regarded as a world-class steel coaster and probably the best steel coaster in the Paramount chain. There are only about 25 B&M inverts in the world, and half of those are Batman clones - and we have one of the custom versions, one of only 2 with a batwing element. We have a free waterpark that's got some good slides. We have great operations for the most part, pretty good food, nice landscaping and shade, etc.
What I'm getting at is that Carowinds is a great park, that I've only come to fully appreciate when I've been elsewhere the last several years. Other parks have some better rides, or better theming, or better atmosphere - but Carowinds does pretty good in all areas, not just a few. BGW,for example, is wonderful, and probably my favorite park to visit due to the atmosphere and theming, plus some good rides. They have great diversity considering they do only have 4 coasters, but I'd get REAL tired of the 4 coasters and lack of wood if that were the park I hit 25 times a year.
I'm not saying I wouldn't like a hyper - far from it, I feel the coaster selection is lacking a tall coaster and one with a long ride time among other things - but I certainly enjoy what we DO have quite a bit.
KenB