[solarplexus]

I might as well chime in.

I <<really>> miss that there were so many things to do at Carowinds other than just Roller-coasters. back in the late 70s and early 80s it was so much fun just walking through the park. The theming was pretty good. It wasn't at DIsney standards but I definitely remember it being better than Six Flags (maybe not as good as BGW) I loved the Sternwheeler. I thought The Monorail was a great way to pass the time. The Train was one of my favs. The Skybuckets were fun. Thats one of the reasons I love the Sky-Tower. Although the last time I rode it we had a very sarcastic announcer that made the trip much less enjoyable than if he had just shut up. The Log Flume was great fun! Even the park like settings were great! I had completely forgotten about the Water wheel above! There are other types of patrons besides Roller-coaster lovers. So a nicely themed-and balanced park would be nice. Whirling Deverish, Wild Bull, Oaken Bucket, Witch Doctor anyone?

[Ty-Rant_13]

I didn't see the other K.E. parks suffer nearly as bad as Carowinds under Paramount's ownership (Although King's Dominion had its midway section ruined and Lake George basically reduced to a pond).

Although I still have yet to visit Carowinds, I see where you're all coming from. I actually just had this conversation on the Cedar Point fan page as well, and I'm pretty sure every ex-Paramount park fan feels the same way about Paramount's lack of respect for what the park was meant to be (and Dick Kinzel didn't help much either). Wonderland used to have a section of the park called The Grand World Exposition of 1890 when the park was first built:

You were greeted by many nations' flags and a globe (both thankfully still there), and every ride was themed to a different country or continent. Zumba Flume themed to Africa was replaced by Top Gun and XTreme Skyflyer (our version of Rip Cord), The Great Whale of China and Shiva's Fury (themed to Persia, I think) replaced by Tomb Raider, Pharoh's Falls replaced by Psyclone and Sledge Hammer... Even the rides they left were renamed from Sol Loco (Central American themed) to Orbiter, and Swing of Siam renamed to Swing of the Century (which doesn't make any sense anymore). The Dutch Restaurant was turned into You Go Grill and Ginza Gardens (Restaurant) turned into Backlot Cafe, both losing their cultural facades.

Essentially, there's no connecting theme anymore in "Action Zone" with Behemoth, Flight Deck, Backlot Stunt Coaster, and Time Warp, along with the flags and globe remaining. Thankfully for us, Paramount mostly stuck to that one section of the park, although they took out all the theming from Medieval Faire when they built Drop Zone and the Go Karts there... Even our glorious unique centrepiece, Wonder Mountain started literally falling apart!

Those were the dark days...

But now there's Cedar Fair and Matt Ouimet! They brought back much of the theming in Medieval Faire with Leviathan (even it's gift shop and station carry a medieval look consistent through the rest of the area), have been hard at work on repairing Wonder Mountain year after year, and now have set to work on "prime real estate" in the park that hasn't been touched in thirty years!

Have they gotten to Action Zone yet? No, but they will! Dick Kinzel's five year plans are just about up, and that means from now on it is Matt Ouimet who calls the shots. Matt Ouimet has only been in charge for four years and I already feel a difference in our park, including a dark ride inside Wonder Mountain carrying the theme started by another ride almost thirty years ago! He has said in interviews that he likes to walk around each park to feel what needs to be done for that particular park, because every park is different. With Mike Fehnel (who is pro tree) representing Carowinds, talking with Matt Ouimet about what the park needs, give it five years and you'll feel a huge difference!

[Jetp]

I have to agree with most of the comments here on chill space. I never noticed it before at Carowinds but I have at other parks. Specifcally at Cedar Point. The boats were where I went to chill but they took them away to put a bridge for the Dinos.

At Carowinds, I use the covered bridge to chill and now I head to the bar at Harmony Hall.

While I was at the park today I took more notice on lack of chill space and landscaping and the buildings than I normally have. Yes, Carowinds needs more than Thrill rides and coasters. Like many of you, I am hoping that changes soon.

[tylerSC]

While I lament the loss of the river, island, and trees, I do like the new entrance and what Carowinds is becoming now. An exciting future. But I would like to see them add more water fountains and trees, along with chill spaces to relax.

[coasterfreak]

I'm glad others feel this way too. Carowinds is where I grew up and I will forever love it, but it is really hard to find that 'chill spot.' Until I began traveling to other parks, I thought Carowinds was perfect, but now with BGW, KD and Dollywood among others under my belt, I cant help but envy those parks. One of my favorite sections of Dollywood is from county fair to Tennessee Tornado. There are literally no rides through there and it seems so down home and relaxing. Kings Dominion's entire entrance plaza is one of the most beautiful places in the park. My friend and I were walking through the plaza in front of Boo Blasters at Carowinds the other day and compared it to the area under the eiffel tower at KD, but that only made me want to go to Virginia. We still have potential, but lots of our past has been destroyed.

Our heritage still looms in places; Rip Roarin' Rapids, the waterwheel mentioned last page and Goldrusher; everything else feels almost industrialized anymore.

[tarheel1231]

I think the lack of "quiet places" might actually be due to the lack of trees. It seems like the shady places of the park are the ones that you can sit down and relax. This is why I envy smokers.

[TrevorBondi]

When I went to the park on Saturday my family and I's chill spot was in between Afterburn, Intimidator, and Planet Snoopy near the little waterfalls and ponds. It was actually quite nice. We also rested under the trees near Vortex and slingshot which was refreshing after taking on Fury! Now I only go once every 2 years or so, so I don't have that much to base my opinion off of. However as a BGW and KD local I can vouch for how much space there is in both parks to still and relax (my favorites on KD are the Grove and near the Eiffel tower; my favorites for BGW are the chairs/swings area near griffon's splash down which is totally secluded and shaded on its own trail)

[tarheel1231]

The park doesn't feel very family oriented anymore. It feels like once you leave planet snoopy, you stop seeing families and the rest of the park is dominated by teens. I think some of the kid's rides should be spread out more throughout the park. Maybe the sight of families will encourage people to stop cursing every 5 minutes.

[cameronmbrown1]

The park doesn't feel very family oriented anymore. It feels like once you leave planet snoopy, you stop seeing families and the rest of the park is dominated by teens. I think some of the kid's rides should be spread out more throughout the park. Maybe the sight of families will encourage people to stop cursing every 5 minutes.

I don't think that would happen. I went to the park yesterday and I was standing next to the carousel and heard this mom get mad at her daughter and dropped the f bomb three times, so if there saying it in the kids area, I don't think it'll change if they add kids rides anywhere else.

[arby]

I know this is a serious topic so I took some time thinking about it. Unlike some of you here, I grew up going to Geauga Lake and Cedar Point. It appears that you feel the same way about Carowinds that I feel about Cedar Point. In the 70s and 80s CP had a lot of charm and stuff to do for the entire family. Little by little, they chipped away at the charm and transformed CP into a 'thrill park.' It lost a lot of its family appeal. (Kiddie rides alone don't make a park a family park IMO)

I moved from the coast of NC to Charlotte in 2000 which was my first trip to Paramount's Carowinds. We fell in love with the park and the family friendliness. My daughter's first coaster was Woodstock Express at 2 because the height restrictions were lower. We went every chance we could and loved every moment. To date, nobody except BGW made better fresh made pretzels as Paramount had at the pretzel stand which is now Auntie Anne's (maker of moderate, at best, pretzels) Then Cedar Fair bought it in 2006 and proceeded to ruin it. They jacked up the ride height restrictions, they fenced off a lot of the great guest interaction with Afterburn, and started taking away what family friendliness was left along with jacking up prices (and replaced the awesome pretzels with frozen crap that tasted like cardboard). The park also started looking more ill kept while trees were harvested in the masses. We didn't renew our season passes for a few years afraid that Cedar Fair would completely ruin the park we grew to love. Instead we went to other parks like Dollywood and WDW.

Then Intimidator came. I kept hearing the hype and finally couldn't hold off anymore so we bought passes again in 2010 and came back. I never realized they were building coasters like that and immediately became an enthusiast with credit #34 for me although the park felt neutered and sterile. Pretty much the same way CP felt to us in 2011. But I gave them a chance and tried to look at the positive things that they were doing. They started repainting coasters, repairing buildings, adding nice looking pavers, and really did try to improve on the park so we continued to support them.

I have no personal ill will feelings towards the Kinzels and appreciate the good that they did. I think they just didn't understand the Dollywood mentality of family friendliness for everybody at a park from age 2 to 102. If you don't like thrill rides, there's not much to do at Carowinds. The selection of flat rides and shows is disappointing. Disney and Dollywood get it and the parks are fun for toddlers, teens, parents, and grandparents.

Anyway, jumping ahead to today, we really love the direction Cedar Fair is heading with Carowinds. I love the modern contemporary feel of the entrance and hope to see the old 'Carowinds Plaza' redone to match the new style. My wife and I went the middle of last week for about six hours. We rode Fury the first thing and last thing of the day. We spent the rest of the day doing nothing but walking around the park and chilling. We went to every area of the park and easily found a shaded area to sit, chill, talk, and watch people. We had a blast since we don't get out alone much. Sure, the park could use more trees and I hate that the 'old Carowinds' I remember is also gone, but I can't believe how much cleaner and better maintained the park is starting to look. To me, it seems they are starting to pay attention to some of the little details that have been lacking.

So while I miss my childhood Cedar Point that will never be the same, just the same way that Carowinds will never be the same park that it was in the 1970s or even the early 2000s as it was for me. However I see all the good that Cedar Fair is trying to do within their operating budget. While it will never be the same as it was, Carowinds is really a great park and I'm happy that someone has finally realized its true potential. I'm proud to call it my home park. .

[j___sante]

^ very, very well said. thanks for sharing that.

[KenB]

I can echo a lot of what Arby said, with a bit of historical perspective being a native that DID grow up with Carowinds. I went to the park in '73 as a six-year-old, and went a time or two a year with the family and extended family every year until I was a teenager. I rode the train, the monorail, the jalopies and speedway cars. I rode the skyride and Oaken Bucket. I finally rode a coaster (Goldrusher( when I was 9 or 10, then Thunder Road, then White Lightnin'. I waited a year or two on Cyclone after it opened, as it looked like you could fall out of the thing in the corkscrews. Oddly enough it was the mid-Eighties before I got on Scooby Doo, thinking it was a kiddie ride. Quite a fast little kiddie ride, that one.

As a teen, I got a season pass and hung out a good bit in the "water park", which was of course just the wave pool at that time. My friends and I would tour the park in "typical GP mode", meaning we'd ride everything once.

I probably stopped getting a season pass in '89 or '90. The park, quite frankly, was getting a bit boring. No new coasters since 1980, and they'd removed White Lightnin' and many of the flats. I went one time in 1991 when my company had a picnic day there, and it felt old and tired. While Paramount gets a bunch of flak for removing rides (and they should for Sternwheeler and the swings if nothing else) - an awful lot of the old favorites were long gone before they set foot on property.

Fast forward to 2001. I hadn't been to the park once in a decade, so missed Vortex and the early days of Paramount. My friend James had been going for a while with his kids and had a season pass, and dragged me and some other co-workers out there one day. My first coaster in 10 years was Top Gun, which I absolutely loved. An enthusiast was born. I started going to the park as much as I could and planned trips to other parks. I enjoyed finding parts of the park from my childhood and teen years, like the Sternwheeler and the covered bridge and the water wheel. All my old coasters were there still and I enjoyed riding them again. What I really liked, though, were the new things that breathed life into the park - Thunder Road running backwards, 7th Portal, Drop Zone, Hurler, the Scooby dark ride, the bigger water park, the bigger kids area, Saturator, and of course Top Gun.

I still had a pretty positive impression of the place until the last year or so of Paramount. I mostly loved what they did with Boardwalk and really enjoyed Outer Hanks over the years. I thought the Nick re-theme of the kiddy land was a huge step in the right direction, as Nick was much more relevant to kids than the stuff from MY childhood that was still in the park. I hated losing the Sternwheeler, especially as any initial positive reactions to BORGHawk diminished over the years. Losing the island meant the loss of my 2nd-favorite Scarowinds haunt, and made the park seem a bit smaller, although admittedly easier to navigate. Still, we have to remember the GP have a much higher opinion of the ride, so it worked quite well from the park's perspective. Getting the Flyers from PKI in 2005 was a huge win, as this is probably THE best flat ride on the planet. The waterpark makeover was mostly positive.

What I really liked from this era was the operations. Paramount ran every train on every coaster even on slow Wednesdays in the dead of summer, and there were hardly ever any lines except on Saturdays / holidays. The food was mostly good and the service seemed pretty good most of the time. We got some great discounts with the Gold season pass. Season Pass processing was very efficiently run, and they'd give you cookies while waiting in line. Cookies!

Now, the park wasn't Busch, or Disney level, but felt a noticeable step up from Six Flags parks - and from Cedar Point. CP was a nice park with some good-to-great rides, but I always felt like cattle being herded while there and not a valued guest.

Paramount was wildly inconsistent when it came to theming and direction, never figuring out what they wanted to be. They seemed to want to be Universal without spending the money to do so properly, and it showed. I think the last couple of years they apparently knew they were going to sell to someone and kinda gave up. The food went downhill almost everywhere except Outer Hanks and the service dropped. Hurler went to crap, and other rides started losing their luster a bit. Top Gun was getting a bit shabby looking, and many water effects weren't working anymore on Saturator. Then Cedar Fair happened.

The Kinzel era was exactly what I feared. Trim brakes on Hurler, single-train operation on many coasters, a creeping "theme-park mentality" in how they treated everything and everybody, a loss of trees, and a crapload of trashcans because, you know, Cedar Fair. The food somehow got WORSE. And yes, I again felt like cattle much of the time.

Now, we got a lot of things painted and looking better as they had to re-theme stuff like BORG and Reptar. The park started looking better in some ways, but worse in others (trees!).

I was still going, of course, for the rides. Top Gun was still awesome no matter what they called it. Intimidator was the kind of positive thing I was hoping for from Cedar Fair to offset the bad. Then Ouimet took over at the top and we've seen the results. The park isn't what it was but it's heading in a very positive direction. I've eaten more times at the park in the last month than I have probably in the prior 3-4 years. The reason there aren't as many "chill areas" in the past few weeks isn't due to what Cedar Fair is doing wrong, but what they're doing right. The park has been PACKED on many days this season, which is why the midways are crowded.

[RollerBee]

I worked at Carowinds the last season it was owned by Paramount, Hurler had turn three retracked prior to Opening Day 2006 and Mid-Summer 2006. Except for the trim and rebuilt turn three, Hurler is no worse or better than 2006.

[arby]

I do want to add something. Those of you who know me personally know I'm not a Six Flags hater/basher. However it seemed relevant to add that despite all the legitimate comments on this thread about disappointment over some of the past changes/removals, I am extremely happy that my home park is not a Six Flags park even before we got a new GM.

[offtopic]We have been to at least six Six Flags parks and the only one where we had a good experience was SFGAdv. We actually thought it was slightly better than CP. SFSA was average and all the rest were below average.

Our trip to SFoG last year was a bomb. In the four hours we were there we only got to ride one ride because of poor operations. My son is in a wheelchair so we do like the parks that offer a time sheet for us. We feel that is fair and it allows me to enter the ride entrance, approach an operator, and get an equivalent ride time based on the line since we have to take him up the exit - he can't walk very far. We then wait in the shade near the ride exit until our time. At SFoG last time (against what is listed on the Six Flags site) they prepopulated all the ride times on the pass. 1) most of the rides are not what my son is able to ride like BTR 2) all the times were at least six hours away. It prevented us from using it at all so we just left. Recently my wife said she doesn't care if we ever go back to SFoG again and truthfully we have no plans to go back to the park anytime in the near future.[/offtopic]

We have usually been treated well at Carowinds and they have a fair system in place so that I don't feel like we are jumping the line. Since he has little patience, this method allows us to redirect him so he doesn't think he's going to ride until it is our time just as if we had physically waited in line.

[super7]

I completely agree with this post.

I was lucky enough to see the park back in the 80's as a kid. It was well thought-out, with everything in each section to match the theme of the area. Plus the park had an overall theme of the Carolinas. Lots of special touches. Water was everywhere. It was actually my favorite theme park as a kid.

When KECO took control, there budget cuts were obvious. The first began the ride removal, neglect of the appearance of the park, and mis-matching the theming. They were the ones responsible for killing Pirate Island with the removal of White Lightnin' (which by the way still is operational in another country) and filling in part of the water there.

But Paramount was the end of it all. Just about everything they did ruined the overall atmosphere of the park. Removal of the Carolina Sternwheeler is still unforgiveable.

Just about every true family attraction (ones that anyone can ride) has been removed. Railroad, Sternwheeler, Jalopies, Speedway, Cable Skyway, Monorail. Not much for the non-thrill seeker to do.

People that never saw the park in its prime, that don't appreciate theming and atmosphere or ones that only care about thrill rides wouldn't understand how bad this park is compared to where it started.

Disney has the most attended parks in the world. Their parks have changed little from the beginning, with all theming still intact. They offer tons of family attractions and great atmosphere. These C-class amusement park operators like Cedar Fair don't get that. Cedar Fair tends to market themselves to teens and 20's thrill seekers, who typically don't have a high disposable income. The parks would be much more profitable if they provided attractions and an atmosphere that everyone enjoyed.

While Cedar Fair is an improvement over Paramount, they are still C-class when it comes to operating parks (Disney is A-class, Herschend and Busch B-Class, etc). They care very little about theming. Look at all their new ride installations. The queue line is pipe with tarps over it. It looks hideous and the same at all of their parks.

I have no desire to go to Carowinds again, and I go to about 10 or 12 parks a year. With a few exceptions, the rides are mediocre and the atmosphere is horrible.