- April 11th, 2010, 9:16 pm
#39810
Had my first Carowinds trip of the season today. Me and my friends Jeff and Cody got to the park around 9:45 ish, parked, and while they were buying their tickets I went to get my season pass processed. That process was much faster than I expected, I wasn't in the building for more than 60 seconds.
The first thing we did was go to Intimidator. The line was moving very quickly, in the regular queue we only waited about 10 minutes. We got assigned front row for our first ride, which was awesome. I gotta say that I loved it, even with the abundance of trim brakes. It's my favorite B&M hyper so far. (Then again, I've only ridden Nitro and Apollo's Chariot before this). It was a pretty good way to start the day. When we got off the ride, we noticed the line was still short and moving fast, so we hopped back on and got back row. I can't decide whether I liked the front or back the most.
After intimidator we headed over to Nighthawk, because the line didn't look too long for usual Nighthawk lines. We waited about 25-30 minutes, and they were actually running two trains. It's a pretty fun ride, a tad bit rougher than I remember though.
Next up was Afterburn. Still probably my favorite coaster of all time. I always forget how fast it flies through the track.
After that, we rode Southern Star, and thanks to that ride holding you upside down with a mix of my bad allergies, I couldnt breathe the entire time, so I didn't enjoy it too much. After that we went over to Thunder Road and got on the used-to-be backwards side in the back car. Oh. My. GOD is this ride rough now. It's starting to reach Hurler roughness, minus the retracked area. Despite it being somewhat painful, we rode it a couple times just because there wasn't really a line.
By this point the park started getting somewhat full, as I noticed as we were walking by Cobra and saw the line was around 45 minutes long. We skipped that and went over to the good ol' Cyclone. I love the new paint job, and I still love the ride. It was my first upside-down coaster, so it's probably always going to be fun for me. After that we rode Dropzone, which is always fun.
Then we rode Hurler. This ride either needs to be retracked, or scrapped. That's all I've got to say.
After hurler we stopped in that Diner to catch a bite to eat, and I've got to say that was probably the rudest cashier I've ever seen in my life. I don't feel like typing out everything this girl was doing, but lets just say I almost had a mind to report her. That's all I'm going to say.
After we got done eating, we went over to Goldrusher, and then Vortex. After vortex we headed back over to Intimidator and rode that 2 more times, because the line was still moving very quick. The longest we waited for this ride the whole day was about 15-20 minutes. I was really impressed with that crew. With 3 trains running, sometimes the train coming back to the station wouldn't even have to come to a stop because the train in the station had already started going up the lift hill. They were moving quick all day.
We circled around the park again, riding Afterburn, Thunder Road, etc. We saw the Cobra line had shrunk so we went to that, and as we were standing in line we noticed that Borg was down. After we got off Cobra we headed over there and saw the line was very short, but they had started only running one train now (Surprise!). The wait was only about 15 minutes even with one train though.
We finished the day by riding Intimidator again, riding Afterburn once, and then hitting Intimidator up 2 more times as we were leaving. We saw something quite unique as we left Afterburn. A man on the train after us had a prosthetic leg, that had fallen off mid ride. We were sitting down for a minute after we got off, and heard an announcement saying that Afterburn was going to have some delays, About 2 minutes later we saw a maintenance guy walking up the exit stairset with the prosthetic leg. It wasn't exactly something I ever expected to see today. haha.
Overall it was a really fun day, minus the Diner experience. It was a good start to my amusement-park-season, and I'm looking forward to going back again.
The first thing we did was go to Intimidator. The line was moving very quickly, in the regular queue we only waited about 10 minutes. We got assigned front row for our first ride, which was awesome. I gotta say that I loved it, even with the abundance of trim brakes. It's my favorite B&M hyper so far. (Then again, I've only ridden Nitro and Apollo's Chariot before this). It was a pretty good way to start the day. When we got off the ride, we noticed the line was still short and moving fast, so we hopped back on and got back row. I can't decide whether I liked the front or back the most.
After intimidator we headed over to Nighthawk, because the line didn't look too long for usual Nighthawk lines. We waited about 25-30 minutes, and they were actually running two trains. It's a pretty fun ride, a tad bit rougher than I remember though.
Next up was Afterburn. Still probably my favorite coaster of all time. I always forget how fast it flies through the track.
After that, we rode Southern Star, and thanks to that ride holding you upside down with a mix of my bad allergies, I couldnt breathe the entire time, so I didn't enjoy it too much. After that we went over to Thunder Road and got on the used-to-be backwards side in the back car. Oh. My. GOD is this ride rough now. It's starting to reach Hurler roughness, minus the retracked area. Despite it being somewhat painful, we rode it a couple times just because there wasn't really a line.
By this point the park started getting somewhat full, as I noticed as we were walking by Cobra and saw the line was around 45 minutes long. We skipped that and went over to the good ol' Cyclone. I love the new paint job, and I still love the ride. It was my first upside-down coaster, so it's probably always going to be fun for me. After that we rode Dropzone, which is always fun.
Then we rode Hurler. This ride either needs to be retracked, or scrapped. That's all I've got to say.
After hurler we stopped in that Diner to catch a bite to eat, and I've got to say that was probably the rudest cashier I've ever seen in my life. I don't feel like typing out everything this girl was doing, but lets just say I almost had a mind to report her. That's all I'm going to say.
After we got done eating, we went over to Goldrusher, and then Vortex. After vortex we headed back over to Intimidator and rode that 2 more times, because the line was still moving very quick. The longest we waited for this ride the whole day was about 15-20 minutes. I was really impressed with that crew. With 3 trains running, sometimes the train coming back to the station wouldn't even have to come to a stop because the train in the station had already started going up the lift hill. They were moving quick all day.
We circled around the park again, riding Afterburn, Thunder Road, etc. We saw the Cobra line had shrunk so we went to that, and as we were standing in line we noticed that Borg was down. After we got off Cobra we headed over there and saw the line was very short, but they had started only running one train now (Surprise!). The wait was only about 15 minutes even with one train though.
We finished the day by riding Intimidator again, riding Afterburn once, and then hitting Intimidator up 2 more times as we were leaving. We saw something quite unique as we left Afterburn. A man on the train after us had a prosthetic leg, that had fallen off mid ride. We were sitting down for a minute after we got off, and heard an announcement saying that Afterburn was going to have some delays, About 2 minutes later we saw a maintenance guy walking up the exit stairset with the prosthetic leg. It wasn't exactly something I ever expected to see today. haha.
Overall it was a really fun day, minus the Diner experience. It was a good start to my amusement-park-season, and I'm looking forward to going back again.
Coaster count: 64
I may live a few timezones away now, but Carowinds will always be my home park.
I may live a few timezones away now, but Carowinds will always be my home park.
