- August 1st, 2008, 6:10 pm
#25169
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter about coasters and parks in general. I’m very excited about King Island’s new coaster and I can’t wait to see the photos of it being erected. I was equally excited about the new Wonderland coaster and the new arrivals at SFOG, Bush and Dominion in recent years. I’m just not happy with the Carowinds situation. Back in the day, the park was basically given the same treatment as it’s peers. If one attraction was added to a sister park in the company, you could likely expect it to be installed at all parks eventually. If not the exact attraction, something similar in terms of investment. My gut tells me that Carowinds will not likely see another large state of the art installation for quite some time. A Top Spin seems more likely since just about everybody else has one except us. Personally I would feel better if Fair had sold Head Spin to an overseas park and placed the money into an account that would be used towards an capital investment for Carowinds at some future date. This is similar to the way they did Great America last year. They basically said, ‘hey we’re committed to this park, you’re getting Firefall next year, but we have a major woodie in the works for the park later on.’ In all the interviews Fair’s CEO has given to papers, I’ve don’t ever recall him ever saying anything encouraging about Carowinds. I’m looking for a little encouragement like; ‘that’s a nice little park down there in Charlotte and we’re going to build it up in the future so that it can compete head on with SFOG and Hard Rock. I’m just looking for a little love, I guess. Give us one new, large state of the art attraction every 8-10 years and I will be very happy. It is very unrealistic to expect Cedar Point type treatment, coaster every other year, for Carowinds.