- May 14th, 2016, 1:58 pm
#87839
Spring has sprung. The air smells sweet. And in the southeast U.S., that can only mean one thing…Seasonal Parks are starting to open! I have to say, shutting down Carowinds last year was very bitter sweet. It was the weekend before I was going in for major surgery to have part of my lung removed, and there’s always a chance that I may not make it thru that alive, so the impact of the park closing, and my impromptu visit on a Saturday to get what could have been my final rides ever on Fury was not lost on me. But here we are, the end of March, 2016/beginning of April and I’m alive and still kicking (hash tag sorry bout it).
I’d really wanted to go to Dollywood because Lightning Rod looks so flipping amazing. My friend Isaac and I planned to go opening weekend, but obviously the ride is (as of this writing) not quite ready, so we decided to delay our trip till it is up and running consistently. We had also planned on going to Season Passholder Preview night for Carowinds since we both have platinum passes, and it was the Thursday night before Good Friday, which I had off with pay, so why not make a weekend out of it?
I was really getting excited to get back on Fury. Seriously, one year later, and the ride is just so amazing. And to think it’s just a 45 minute jaunt from my house! We planned for Isaac to meet me at work since i’m on his way to Carowinds and we’d leave my work at 4, which gives plenty of time to get to Carowinds…under normal circumstances. We avoided getting on I77 because it’s always busy, but it took us over 2 hours to go 40 miles. We went thru uptown Charlotte, we hit back roads, we did everything to avoid traffic, and yet we always seemed to find it. Bummer.
The park was open from 5pm to 10pm. We got there, hungry (with me a little grouchy), and walked over first to Fury to see what the line was like. It wasn’t a terribly long line, but longer than we wanted to wait on before eating, so we went back to Harmony Hall. They’d made some changes in there, moved the Coke Freestyle machines, and made a weird ‘bar’ blockade that looks very hacked together and messed up. The food was as good as it has been since the new eatery opened. I recommend the Brisket.
They were having major opening nite issues with the registers, though, and we were in line for that quite a while.
After we ate we headed over towards Fury for a night ride. It’s just so amazing. The ride has airtime, sideways airtime, and a great first drop. I can’t gush enough about it, really. And at nite. We headed back over to Intimidator and did that as well. It’s running well, as usual. I think Intimidator and Fury compliment each other very nicely.
Friday morning we got up (later than we’d intended) to head to Virginia for the weekend to ride coasters, but those are stories for another trip report.
The following weekend, Rob Willi, whom I’d talked to years ago on AIM, and who is a frequent CBuzzer was coming thru with his kids, and I told him I’d meet up and help him with the little ones while he got his ride on. We were only there for a couple hours at nite for him and his oldest to get a few rides, and the younger 2 to get a ride or two in as well. The younger ones hung with me and we had a blast once I got over my fear of them doing something to hurt themselves (I’m clumsy and am not always the best around children).
Sunday Isaac and I went back to Carowinds for a few hours. It was a very light crowd. We rode Fury and Intimidator a few times. We hopped on Afterburn, and I finally got a chance to check out PvZ: Garden Warfare.
Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare-The queue and building look great. I wish they’d do *something* with the unused side, but the side that is in use was great. It looks fantastic, and the games are fantastic. Unfortunately, my gun wasn’t working, and I hope to go back soon with a better gun, but it was really a lot of fun, and very popular. Hopefully I’ll get to see the one at Great America soon to try that out as well, but for now, I think Carowinds has another hot property hit on it’s hands.
The third open weekend for the park saw me headed back down on Sunday again as Rob Willi, Kyle, Lisa, Nicole, and others were heading to the park from Dollywood’s now cancelled event. It was great hanging out and riding the rides. We got on Fury a few times, Intimidator, Afterburn. But this time I actually focused on eating. First, I had a great sundae at Ritas. But since I missed the Taste of the Carolinas last year, I wanted to do it this year. The prices are really good and the food is good. I had 2 of the Asheville Goat Cheese popovers, I tried the tomato pie, a Son of a Peach beer, chocolate bourbon pie, a spring roll, and more. I ended up going back to the Taste of the Carolinas with Isaac to get some more food and some more rides in, then on Friday evening before Mother’s Day, I met him and another friend for a couple hours on Friday with no waits on anything. PvZ is getting better already.
I can’t wait to get back to the park after the new water park opens. I really think Carowinds is turning into something special and amazing. The new Starbucks at the front looks great. I hope other buildings follow suit and change to a more Carolinian Feel (Hint Hint, winky wonky). Otherwise, I’m glad the park is open. Here’s to another great season!
On Friday morning we woke up a little later than planned, but headed north to Kings Dominion. This weekend would be 2 new parks for Isaac, and a new credit for me. Traffic was a problem for the first part of the weekend, but we finally made it to the park around 1pm. The park wasn’t very busy and the weather was overcast but the temperature was great. We got in to the park and beelined to Volcano. I wanted to check out the way they re-worked the entrance. Sadly, the ride was down. Instead, we headed over to I305 instead.
I think Fury is probably my favorite giga coaster but I305 is really very good. It has ejector air, speed, and even though it’s really compact, the ride is a lot of fun. Very intense. There was barely a wait.
Next I believe we went to Flight of Fear. I have to say, I like that they shortened the queue, but could they please just repaint it, add some lighting, dust it, and make it look less trashy? The ride still runs great. I wish it’d been moved to Carowinds as planned. The Flights of Fear both tend to launch as designed. The Six Flags versions, for the last few times I’ve ridden them, have most certainly not.
We walked over to Delirium. It looks great, and the ride is a lot of fun. The cycle doesn’t seem as long as the 2 Huss Giant Frisbee rides that Cedar Fair operates, but it’s still really good, and we got a decent cycle. I hope Carowinds gets one of these. And the lighting package is great.
We went over and had some issues finding the entrance to Grizzly (you have to go thru the Dinos Alive gift shop, it seems like a cluster, and no-one was over by Grizz). The station seems like it’s gotten some love, and there was new wood on Grizzly. I thought it was running great as ever. I love that ride.
We walked around to the Eiffel Tower and went up top to get some pictures before heading down to get some food.
Now that Thunder Road is gone, I feel very nostalgic riding Rebel Yell. Isaac never got to ride Thunder Road, so he was happy to get to ride Rebel Yell. Only one side was running at this point, and it was running mostly well. The return trip was a little rough, and it could use some work like Thunder Road had received.
We went over to the other side of the park and decided to put our stuff in a locker to ride the flume, but Isaac noticed he didn’t have his phone. We trucked it over to Rebel Yell, where they thankfully had found it. Then we went back, put our stuff in a locker, and rode the log flume. It’d been a few years since I’d ridden the Shenandoah Log Flume, but it’s a lot of fun.
We wondered around the park and then hit up the line for Volcano since it wasn’t long. Unfortunately, not long before we would have gotten on, the ride broke down. We waited for quite a while, but then the park was going to close soon and we got out of line. That at least gave us the opportunity to get a nite ride on I305 (my first nite ride) before heading out to Williamsburg.
We got to Williamsburg around 10pm. I had Hotwired a 3 star hotel that day at Kings Dominion. We booked some Colonial named conference center. It was decent. And older property (but clean and nice). Unfortunately there were tons of kids there for a volleyball tournament. They were leaving the next day and we were staying two nites.
I was hungry and tired. They had a pub that served food till 11pm, so after we dropped our stuff off at the room, we hit it up. Well, at least we tried. We sat at the bar and the bartenders purposefully ignored us. As one guy brought out some food, he sighed and asked if anyone had helped us. I asked for a menu and he sighed again. The food stopped at 11 and the drinks at 11:30. On a Friday Night. With a bar FULL of parents trying to get away from their kids.
Sensing they didn’t want our business, we just left. I’m not giving money to someone who doesn’t want it. Seriously, we were prepared to buy food, and since we didn’t have to drive, likely a few drinks. Oh well. We drove to Wendy’s down the street and I got a couple burgers.
The next morning was rainy, but that was forecasted to pass over. We had purchased a spring special ticket to BGW that, for an amazingly low $99, included parking, a day ticket, two meals, AND they’re front of the line access! It was too good a deal to pass up. We got to the kiosks (Love these, wish all parks had them), got our tickets and Quick Queues, and headed in. Isaac seemed to love the park. I figured he would. I love this park too.
We headed to Tempesto first since it’s not on the Quick Queue and I’ve heard horror stories on wait times. We waited 20 minutes for the back.
Tempesto: The ride is really fun. Not sure I’d add it to my large park, but I can see why there are a lot of these going in, and good for Premier. It’s a great ride. Even the vests on this one didn’t bother me. The first launch up is cool, then you launch back all the way to the top of the structure, then come back down and launch all the way around. It’s great. The slow roll at the top is scary good fun. The non inverting loop has airtime. Dropping off the top is fun. It’s just a great little ride. Not worth more than a 30 minute wait at any park, it’s still a neat addition, and actually looks great where it’s at.
We were going to do Apollo, but it had a slight line and we had the QQ for later. We walked thru and saw the new Italian eatery that looked and smelled great (we never ate there tho, maybe next time).
So we walked up to Germany. I liked Verbolten quite a bit from the year it opened and subsequent visits. I still hadn’t gotten to experience all three ‘themes’ in the dark portion. We went to get in line, but decided to wait. Again, we had QQ for later. So we did DarKastle instead.
I wish they’d get the 4k projectors for DarKastle and fix all the non functioning theming thats in there. And the sound. I like the concept better than Spiderman, but it needs some work, and could be easily amazing if they’d update it.
We walked over to New France and finally used our QuickQueue on Alpengeist. Haters think it’s too big or whatever, but I actually like the ride. I think it’s grand. I like the intense B&M inverts, but I like this one for not being quite as intense. I think it still runs great and looks great in it’s surroundings.
We were hungry and I think it’s at this point we walked around a bit and ended up at Festhause to get our first included meal. I had a meat sampler, drink, dessert and a beer. I love that BGW is so liberal with their beer (and that its not ungodly expensive, though it is more than when A-B owned the park). The shows they’ve had in there since I started going have been terrible. Especially since the rest of the shows seem to be decent to good. Oh well.
So we went and watched some Wildlife shows. Isaac is a Birder and so we went into a bird aviary and watched a bird show. We hit up Griffon, my first dive coaster. It is still a lot of fun. We used QQ again, but honestly, the wait for it was never very long. Then we walked around the park quite a bit. We hit up Apollo’s Chariot. I don’t remember if we ever used the QQ for that, because after it got dark we had no waits, and it’s what we ended the nite on. Then we went back around to Germany after finding Ireland.
Verbolten was up next, and eventually we did use our QQ on it, and I finally got the wolf sequence. As it was getting dark, we found the Clydesdale house, rode Loch Ness Monster, and once it was close to closing, had dinner at Trappers Smokehouse for our final included meal (finally), and headed back to Italy by way of a few rides on the skyway.
We decided since Tempesto still didn’t have a terrible line, we would wait for the front. Front, at nite, was really great. I love that ride. Then we finished the nite out on Apollo. It’s not my favorite Beemer speed coaster, but it is better at nite. And I actually got our on-ride photo for once.
We headed out of the park and to our hotel not far away, where I showered and quickly fell asleep. Sunday was Easter, and finding a place for breakfast without a long wait was challenging. We went with our first choice, and it wasn’t the best, even if it did get great reviews online. Oh well.
Since there was so much we had missed at Kings Dominion, we headed back on Sunday. After arriving, it was even deader than it’d been on Friday. We head to Volcano first. I love me some Volcano. When it actually runs, it’s really great. That Launch, doe! I like how they re-did the station and ride entrance. It makes much more sense and is less claustrophobic.
On Friday, the mouse was not running, but it was at this point, so we hit it up. I like it better than the Carowinds version. And yes, wild mice still terrify me. We hit up Dominator with no wait for the front, then got on Stunt Track, which we just kind of forgot about on Friday. Anaconda wasn’t up on Friday, but was running on Sunday. I initially didn’t want to ride, but we did, and it really wasn’t bad. Pretty smooth for an older Arrow. Then we hit up I305 one last time. We hit Delirium up at some point again as well.
I didn’t make it for Kings Dominion’s 40th last year, but the changes they made, the light packages they added, the reintroduction of the singing mushrooms (YAY!!), and overall sprucing up make it look great. I went a lot as a kid, and always loved the park. Now if only they’d reopen the time shaft.
So the weekend was mostly over. We hit up BK across the street, and Isaac drove most of the way home because I was beat. My stamina is quite a bit down what with losing part of a lung. I’d say don’t smoke, kids, but I never smoked and still lost part of a lung. Oh well, at least I’m well on my way to recovery, and still doing the things I Love.
I’d really wanted to go to Dollywood because Lightning Rod looks so flipping amazing. My friend Isaac and I planned to go opening weekend, but obviously the ride is (as of this writing) not quite ready, so we decided to delay our trip till it is up and running consistently. We had also planned on going to Season Passholder Preview night for Carowinds since we both have platinum passes, and it was the Thursday night before Good Friday, which I had off with pay, so why not make a weekend out of it?
I was really getting excited to get back on Fury. Seriously, one year later, and the ride is just so amazing. And to think it’s just a 45 minute jaunt from my house! We planned for Isaac to meet me at work since i’m on his way to Carowinds and we’d leave my work at 4, which gives plenty of time to get to Carowinds…under normal circumstances. We avoided getting on I77 because it’s always busy, but it took us over 2 hours to go 40 miles. We went thru uptown Charlotte, we hit back roads, we did everything to avoid traffic, and yet we always seemed to find it. Bummer.
The park was open from 5pm to 10pm. We got there, hungry (with me a little grouchy), and walked over first to Fury to see what the line was like. It wasn’t a terribly long line, but longer than we wanted to wait on before eating, so we went back to Harmony Hall. They’d made some changes in there, moved the Coke Freestyle machines, and made a weird ‘bar’ blockade that looks very hacked together and messed up. The food was as good as it has been since the new eatery opened. I recommend the Brisket.
They were having major opening nite issues with the registers, though, and we were in line for that quite a while.
After we ate we headed over towards Fury for a night ride. It’s just so amazing. The ride has airtime, sideways airtime, and a great first drop. I can’t gush enough about it, really. And at nite. We headed back over to Intimidator and did that as well. It’s running well, as usual. I think Intimidator and Fury compliment each other very nicely.
Friday morning we got up (later than we’d intended) to head to Virginia for the weekend to ride coasters, but those are stories for another trip report.
The following weekend, Rob Willi, whom I’d talked to years ago on AIM, and who is a frequent CBuzzer was coming thru with his kids, and I told him I’d meet up and help him with the little ones while he got his ride on. We were only there for a couple hours at nite for him and his oldest to get a few rides, and the younger 2 to get a ride or two in as well. The younger ones hung with me and we had a blast once I got over my fear of them doing something to hurt themselves (I’m clumsy and am not always the best around children).
Sunday Isaac and I went back to Carowinds for a few hours. It was a very light crowd. We rode Fury and Intimidator a few times. We hopped on Afterburn, and I finally got a chance to check out PvZ: Garden Warfare.
Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare-The queue and building look great. I wish they’d do *something* with the unused side, but the side that is in use was great. It looks fantastic, and the games are fantastic. Unfortunately, my gun wasn’t working, and I hope to go back soon with a better gun, but it was really a lot of fun, and very popular. Hopefully I’ll get to see the one at Great America soon to try that out as well, but for now, I think Carowinds has another hot property hit on it’s hands.
The third open weekend for the park saw me headed back down on Sunday again as Rob Willi, Kyle, Lisa, Nicole, and others were heading to the park from Dollywood’s now cancelled event. It was great hanging out and riding the rides. We got on Fury a few times, Intimidator, Afterburn. But this time I actually focused on eating. First, I had a great sundae at Ritas. But since I missed the Taste of the Carolinas last year, I wanted to do it this year. The prices are really good and the food is good. I had 2 of the Asheville Goat Cheese popovers, I tried the tomato pie, a Son of a Peach beer, chocolate bourbon pie, a spring roll, and more. I ended up going back to the Taste of the Carolinas with Isaac to get some more food and some more rides in, then on Friday evening before Mother’s Day, I met him and another friend for a couple hours on Friday with no waits on anything. PvZ is getting better already.
I can’t wait to get back to the park after the new water park opens. I really think Carowinds is turning into something special and amazing. The new Starbucks at the front looks great. I hope other buildings follow suit and change to a more Carolinian Feel (Hint Hint, winky wonky). Otherwise, I’m glad the park is open. Here’s to another great season!
On Friday morning we woke up a little later than planned, but headed north to Kings Dominion. This weekend would be 2 new parks for Isaac, and a new credit for me. Traffic was a problem for the first part of the weekend, but we finally made it to the park around 1pm. The park wasn’t very busy and the weather was overcast but the temperature was great. We got in to the park and beelined to Volcano. I wanted to check out the way they re-worked the entrance. Sadly, the ride was down. Instead, we headed over to I305 instead.
I think Fury is probably my favorite giga coaster but I305 is really very good. It has ejector air, speed, and even though it’s really compact, the ride is a lot of fun. Very intense. There was barely a wait.
Next I believe we went to Flight of Fear. I have to say, I like that they shortened the queue, but could they please just repaint it, add some lighting, dust it, and make it look less trashy? The ride still runs great. I wish it’d been moved to Carowinds as planned. The Flights of Fear both tend to launch as designed. The Six Flags versions, for the last few times I’ve ridden them, have most certainly not.
We walked over to Delirium. It looks great, and the ride is a lot of fun. The cycle doesn’t seem as long as the 2 Huss Giant Frisbee rides that Cedar Fair operates, but it’s still really good, and we got a decent cycle. I hope Carowinds gets one of these. And the lighting package is great.
We went over and had some issues finding the entrance to Grizzly (you have to go thru the Dinos Alive gift shop, it seems like a cluster, and no-one was over by Grizz). The station seems like it’s gotten some love, and there was new wood on Grizzly. I thought it was running great as ever. I love that ride.
We walked around to the Eiffel Tower and went up top to get some pictures before heading down to get some food.
Now that Thunder Road is gone, I feel very nostalgic riding Rebel Yell. Isaac never got to ride Thunder Road, so he was happy to get to ride Rebel Yell. Only one side was running at this point, and it was running mostly well. The return trip was a little rough, and it could use some work like Thunder Road had received.
We went over to the other side of the park and decided to put our stuff in a locker to ride the flume, but Isaac noticed he didn’t have his phone. We trucked it over to Rebel Yell, where they thankfully had found it. Then we went back, put our stuff in a locker, and rode the log flume. It’d been a few years since I’d ridden the Shenandoah Log Flume, but it’s a lot of fun.
We wondered around the park and then hit up the line for Volcano since it wasn’t long. Unfortunately, not long before we would have gotten on, the ride broke down. We waited for quite a while, but then the park was going to close soon and we got out of line. That at least gave us the opportunity to get a nite ride on I305 (my first nite ride) before heading out to Williamsburg.
We got to Williamsburg around 10pm. I had Hotwired a 3 star hotel that day at Kings Dominion. We booked some Colonial named conference center. It was decent. And older property (but clean and nice). Unfortunately there were tons of kids there for a volleyball tournament. They were leaving the next day and we were staying two nites.
I was hungry and tired. They had a pub that served food till 11pm, so after we dropped our stuff off at the room, we hit it up. Well, at least we tried. We sat at the bar and the bartenders purposefully ignored us. As one guy brought out some food, he sighed and asked if anyone had helped us. I asked for a menu and he sighed again. The food stopped at 11 and the drinks at 11:30. On a Friday Night. With a bar FULL of parents trying to get away from their kids.
Sensing they didn’t want our business, we just left. I’m not giving money to someone who doesn’t want it. Seriously, we were prepared to buy food, and since we didn’t have to drive, likely a few drinks. Oh well. We drove to Wendy’s down the street and I got a couple burgers.
The next morning was rainy, but that was forecasted to pass over. We had purchased a spring special ticket to BGW that, for an amazingly low $99, included parking, a day ticket, two meals, AND they’re front of the line access! It was too good a deal to pass up. We got to the kiosks (Love these, wish all parks had them), got our tickets and Quick Queues, and headed in. Isaac seemed to love the park. I figured he would. I love this park too.
We headed to Tempesto first since it’s not on the Quick Queue and I’ve heard horror stories on wait times. We waited 20 minutes for the back.
Tempesto: The ride is really fun. Not sure I’d add it to my large park, but I can see why there are a lot of these going in, and good for Premier. It’s a great ride. Even the vests on this one didn’t bother me. The first launch up is cool, then you launch back all the way to the top of the structure, then come back down and launch all the way around. It’s great. The slow roll at the top is scary good fun. The non inverting loop has airtime. Dropping off the top is fun. It’s just a great little ride. Not worth more than a 30 minute wait at any park, it’s still a neat addition, and actually looks great where it’s at.
We were going to do Apollo, but it had a slight line and we had the QQ for later. We walked thru and saw the new Italian eatery that looked and smelled great (we never ate there tho, maybe next time).
So we walked up to Germany. I liked Verbolten quite a bit from the year it opened and subsequent visits. I still hadn’t gotten to experience all three ‘themes’ in the dark portion. We went to get in line, but decided to wait. Again, we had QQ for later. So we did DarKastle instead.
I wish they’d get the 4k projectors for DarKastle and fix all the non functioning theming thats in there. And the sound. I like the concept better than Spiderman, but it needs some work, and could be easily amazing if they’d update it.
We walked over to New France and finally used our QuickQueue on Alpengeist. Haters think it’s too big or whatever, but I actually like the ride. I think it’s grand. I like the intense B&M inverts, but I like this one for not being quite as intense. I think it still runs great and looks great in it’s surroundings.
We were hungry and I think it’s at this point we walked around a bit and ended up at Festhause to get our first included meal. I had a meat sampler, drink, dessert and a beer. I love that BGW is so liberal with their beer (and that its not ungodly expensive, though it is more than when A-B owned the park). The shows they’ve had in there since I started going have been terrible. Especially since the rest of the shows seem to be decent to good. Oh well.
So we went and watched some Wildlife shows. Isaac is a Birder and so we went into a bird aviary and watched a bird show. We hit up Griffon, my first dive coaster. It is still a lot of fun. We used QQ again, but honestly, the wait for it was never very long. Then we walked around the park quite a bit. We hit up Apollo’s Chariot. I don’t remember if we ever used the QQ for that, because after it got dark we had no waits, and it’s what we ended the nite on. Then we went back around to Germany after finding Ireland.
Verbolten was up next, and eventually we did use our QQ on it, and I finally got the wolf sequence. As it was getting dark, we found the Clydesdale house, rode Loch Ness Monster, and once it was close to closing, had dinner at Trappers Smokehouse for our final included meal (finally), and headed back to Italy by way of a few rides on the skyway.
We decided since Tempesto still didn’t have a terrible line, we would wait for the front. Front, at nite, was really great. I love that ride. Then we finished the nite out on Apollo. It’s not my favorite Beemer speed coaster, but it is better at nite. And I actually got our on-ride photo for once.
We headed out of the park and to our hotel not far away, where I showered and quickly fell asleep. Sunday was Easter, and finding a place for breakfast without a long wait was challenging. We went with our first choice, and it wasn’t the best, even if it did get great reviews online. Oh well.
Since there was so much we had missed at Kings Dominion, we headed back on Sunday. After arriving, it was even deader than it’d been on Friday. We head to Volcano first. I love me some Volcano. When it actually runs, it’s really great. That Launch, doe! I like how they re-did the station and ride entrance. It makes much more sense and is less claustrophobic.
On Friday, the mouse was not running, but it was at this point, so we hit it up. I like it better than the Carowinds version. And yes, wild mice still terrify me. We hit up Dominator with no wait for the front, then got on Stunt Track, which we just kind of forgot about on Friday. Anaconda wasn’t up on Friday, but was running on Sunday. I initially didn’t want to ride, but we did, and it really wasn’t bad. Pretty smooth for an older Arrow. Then we hit up I305 one last time. We hit Delirium up at some point again as well.
I didn’t make it for Kings Dominion’s 40th last year, but the changes they made, the light packages they added, the reintroduction of the singing mushrooms (YAY!!), and overall sprucing up make it look great. I went a lot as a kid, and always loved the park. Now if only they’d reopen the time shaft.
So the weekend was mostly over. We hit up BK across the street, and Isaac drove most of the way home because I was beat. My stamina is quite a bit down what with losing part of a lung. I’d say don’t smoke, kids, but I never smoked and still lost part of a lung. Oh well, at least I’m well on my way to recovery, and still doing the things I Love.
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403 Coasters and counting...
403 Coasters and counting...
