7th Invades Carowinds
Posted by 7th on April 21, 2008

(A quick word to the reader. There are over 30 images in this article, and depending on the speed of your connection, some may fail to load. If this happens, simply right-click on the images and choose "show picture." Sure, I could avoid this by splitting the article into two pieces, but I've never done that with an Invasion article before, and I don't intend to start now, mainly because I'm a lazy bastard.)

Back in January of 2007 my company transferred me from my home of almost 10 years, sunny sunny Florida, to Charlotte, North Carolina.

They have lots of trees, and Ric Flair.

One of the first things I looked into before actually making the move was Carowinds, the local theme park.

In every town I've lived in from birth to now, I've never been more than two hours from a large theme park. In Chattanooga, it was Six Flags in Atlanta, or Lake Winnepasauka just south of the Georgia line (an old carnival style amusement park. I'll cover it some other time.) In Florida, take your pick. There's Disney World's parks, Cypress Gardens, Wild Adventures in Valdosta just north of the Georgia state line, Busch Gardens in Tampa, Sea World, and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. Each had its positives and its negatives, but overall, I've loved every one of them. And Carowinds, despite its size, is no exception.

But first, as always, a little history.

Carowinds was first opened in 1973 by a local business man who was inspired by a trip to Disneyland in the late 1950s, and it showed. Sitting on about 105 acres of land that was split right down the middle by the North/South Carolina state line, Carowinds as it was originally envisioned was split into numerous themed lands, one of them being an old western town (Frontierland) a Hanna Barbera Cartoon Land (Fantasyland), a Pirate Island (Adventureland) and a central hub that had an old Americana/Carolinas of Old feel (Main Street USA.) The name Carowinds symbolizes the two states the park it sits astride, with the "winds" of two states blowing across it.

Looking at these old pics, it's hard to see how the park avoided the wrath of the Mouse's legal team, as the theming, layout, and appeal of the park was pure Magic Kingdom. They had trolley cars like Disney's horsedrawn trolleys, singing quartets, wandering characters for pictures and autographs, you name it. Short of the fact that there were no dark rides, you could have slapped a sign reading "Disneyland Carolina" and few would have argued with it.

And of course, no Disneyland rip-off park would have been complete without an authentic old fashioned railroad to take visitors around the park. The track was almost identical in length between the two (The Magic Kingdom is 107 acres, Carowinds is 105.) The trains, as you can see above, were very similar in style and design. It's no mystery what the owners were going for here.

When you first walked into the park, you walked through a Plantation Mansion-themed entrance way, which led to a bridge split down the middle by the state line. Across this bridge was a decidedly Main Street style meeting place/shopping area/restaurant hub. This was all changed when the park was bought by Paramount. The entranceway is mostly unchanged (besides new high tech metal detectors) but the Main Street area now has a sort of Hollywood-inspired look to it, like they were trying to make it look like the Sunset Boulevard area of Disney/MGM Studios but instead ended up with something that looked more like the Swingin' 50's area of Dollywood.

No folks, this isn't Disneyland. Again, I am astounded this park didn't get the shit sued out of it. The monorail actually extended out into the parking lot and back, and was considered just another ride, much like the monorail in Disneyland, as opposed to a transportation system like the Monorail at Disney World. Ironically enough, the original plans for Carowinds included building a resort style hotel that this monorail would have traveled through to deliver passengers to the park, but the idea was scrapped due to lower attendance from the gas shortage that was going on at the time. Still, looking at this picture, it is impossible to deny the staggering resemblance. My first visit to Carowinds took place before I'd seen any of these old photos, so imagine my surprise when I saw what the place used to look like.

Oddly enough, I kinda wish it had stayed that way. Pretty much everything I've shown you above is gone. The monorail is gone. Now, there's a just a simple kiddie style two seater monorail ride in the kid's area with a Nickelodeon "Lazytown" theme that lives up to its name by going half a mile an hour and has less than a mile of track. The western village was torn down. Pirate Island was torn down, the moat surrounding it filled in, and the River Boat (River of Americas, hello?) that sailed through it was scrapped.

Paramount came in and completely de-Disneyfied Carowinds, preferring for more of a small Six Flags/Busch Gardens feel. Last year the park was bought by the company that runs Cedar Pointe, and most of the Paramount theming has been removed this year, short of the Nickelodeon-themed kids area. It's given the park a bit of a lost, confused feel, with bits and pieces of what once was scattered about in no particular order, and theming that doesn't seem to fit. You have a Star Trek coaster (just changed this year), a Top Gun coaster (also changed for 2008), and a Scooby-Doo ride sitting all alone in the middle of an area that no longer has a Hanna Barbera/Scooby-Doo theme. And an entire section of the park has had all the older rides and attractions removed and converted into a small Australia-themed water park called Boomerang Bay that's included in the park admission.

Carowinds as it now exists is one of the strangest theme parks I've ever been to: a theme park in search of a theme. But it's a lot of fun, nonetheless. So let's get right to the rides, shall we?

First up is the Top Gun Coaster (new for this year, the name has been changed to Afterburn, due to Paramount selling out.) This is an inverted coaster, with high speed turns and numerous loops and inversions. If you've ridden Montu in Busch Gardens, the old Hangman coaster at Opryland, or the Batman coaster at Six Flags over Atlanta, then you know what to expect here.

Now I haven't been back this year, so I only learned about the name changes to these rides when I visited the last this week to update this article with any new attractions they might have added (all they added was a newer, bigger wave pool, which I'll touch on later.) But at the time that I saw the park, the disjointed theming really came into play with Top Gun. The ride is smack dab in the middle of what used to be Hanna Barberaland, hence it's sitting right across from the old Scooby Doo ride. But it being Top Gun (Afterburn), you'd expect to hear Danger Zone, or that seemingly endless guitar solo, yeah?

WRONG. As I walked up to the coaster for the first time, John William's epic theme to Superman blares over the loud speakers. For fuck sakes, that's not even a Paramount movie! That's a Warner Brothers flick. Somebody explain this shit to me, PLEASE. All the same this is one slick ride, even if the theming sucks.

Next up you have The Hurler. Now don't get excited, this old wooden coaster will not induce vomiting, even for the weak-stomached. It's called the Hurler due to Paramount, who bought the park in the late 80's/very early 90's. At that time, the Wayne's World movies were somewhat of a phenomenon, so the coaster was named after their word for "puke." It's a simple out and back coaster, nothing revolutionary here. I don't recall what it was originally called, and I'm too lazy to look it up, so don't ask. All you need know is that, back in 1992 or so, they actually had the Mirth Mobile, The Wasted Duo's old Gremlin, parked right in front of the coaster, flaming plastic highlights and all. And that alone makes it a cool ride, even if the car (and all the theming, save for its name) is long gone.

This, my friends, is the Thunder Road (no, it had no connection to Explorers, so don't go into a 80's geekgasm.) Thunder Road, like the Gwazi in Busch Gardens, is a "dueling" wooden Coaster, only whereas the two trains on Gwazi constantly intertwine in opposite directs, Thunder Road runs side-by-side, to give it a sort of roller coaster drag race feel. Like The Hurler, this is an older wooden coaster, and short of having another train racing right alongside you (which isn't always the case, depending on how the lines are going) there's really nothing here that you haven't experienced on other wooden coasters, especially when compared to some of the wooden coasters at Six Flags Over Georgia (I'll try to cover it by the end of this summer, if possible. I also plan on updating my Dollywood invasion piece this summer, so keep an eye out for that as well.)

This is the Vortex. The Vortex is a "Standing" coaster, where you're strapped to a padded brace in a standing position. These were considered the scariest coaster imaginable back in the mid-80's, but they're considered pretty tame nowadays, especially when compared to the "flying" coasters and other newer innovations. The look of the train itself is very similar to the Kumba speed coaster in Busch Gardens. The track is fairly similar too, and it hits a top speed of about 65 miles an hour, which is the same as Tampa's green and yellow beast. This was one of the park's first "big steel" coasters, but still has one of the longest lines in the park. It's a short ride, but it's well worth the wait.

I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling this was originally just a very generic old carnival-style haunted house ride. Everything except for the new ghost hunting stuff is very low tech, with cardboard scenery and black lights through out. The queue line plays old episodes of Scooby-Doo all day, and on a busy weekend this ride, believe it or not, can have an hour wait (it is the only indoor ride, short of the Sky Tower and the 3D theater, so it's popular simply as a way to get out of the heat.) It's your basic dark ride, but has been given a Scooby-Doo of the 60's inspired theming. You have "ghost Blasters" that you use to shoot cardboard ghoulies that pop up at you, for which you earn points, much like the Men In Black ride at Universal or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin at the Magic Kingdom. Only thing is, half the time the scorekeeper is broken, so you have no idea how you did. When this happens, I just let my kid blast away while I enjoy the breeze. Completely innocuous, and when the ride is over, they don't reveal the old park owner as the real culprit, so I was pretty damned disappointed.

This is the Carolina Skytower. It stands at about 400 feet tall, and has a revolving passenger car that rides all the way to the top, revolves for a few minutes, and then brings you back down. There is a similar, multi-floor version of this attraction at Sea World Orlando, and I'm sure several other parks around the country have one too. This one is mostly thrill free, if you're not afraid of heights, and it is air-conditioned, though the ventilation isn't the best. Unless you ride it first thing when the park opens at 10:00 AM, the car perpetually smells like unwashed Arabian armpit and feet. Not a pleasant aroma, to say the least. Despite the smell, this is usually the last ride we go on before heading home, as the line is mostly non-existent, and it's a nice place to rest your feet before making the trek to your car (no, there are no Disney parking lot trams here. You have to foot it.)

Next up is the Spongebob Squarepants 3D movie Theater. This is a cute enough film, and like Scooby-Doo, is a great place to get in out of the heat. This is an older attraction (I believe the previous movie was a Nascar film.) This is not a state of the art 3D attraction like the Spider-Man ride at Universal, or even like the Mickey's Philharmagic 3D movie at the Magic Kingdom. It's a 3d motion simulator about on par (and age) with older rides of this type, such as Star Tours at Disney/MGM, only with the addition of 3D glasses. But it's Spongebob, and at four minutes is a pretty action-packed mini adventure. You've all just been hired as new fry cooks at the Krusty Krab, and Spongebob is taking you through the paces. There's a lot of Muppets 3-D style sight gags and the like. For kids or adults, it's a fun experience, but don't expect to have your breath taken away like you would at something like the Terminator 3D Experience, or what have you. Even so, it's still more fun than the old Hanna-Barbera 3D ride they used to have at Universal.

Next up is the best coaster on property, a "flying" coaster that, when I was last there, was known as the Borg Assimilator. They actually had a mock up of one of the circular Borg ships from Star Trek First Contact half-submerged in the water that the coaster track flew around. I have no idea if they removed it or not, but the website says the coaster is now known as The Nighthawk (I assume no relation to the crappy Marvel comic from 1991.) Basically, you get strapped in like in a standing coaster, and then the back-bracers lower themselves till you're lying on your back. When you get to the top of the lift hill, the coaster flips under the track and off you go, in the closest experience to being Superman that you'll likely ever have, assuming everyone doesn't have their own Rocketeer style back pack in the upcoming future. Talk about the interesting traffic accidents those will contribute to an upcoming Fox special.

This is the Nickelodeon Flying Super Saturator, and I can't say I've ever seen anything else quite like it. There are no inversions, no really steep drops, and in fact, you don't really go all that fast at all. Basically, the track is surrounded by various water cannons that soak you to death as you glide along the track. But that, my friends, is not the best part. There are several places along the track where attendees can use water cannons to spray riders as they go by. But you aren't completely helpless. Each ride has the ability to press a button and cause a 6 gallon "flash flood" to fall from the bottom of the car, soaking whomever happens to be walking by. There are also pump-action mounted water cannons the riders can use to shoot at anyone who gets in their sites. It's a short ride at just over a minute in length, but it's a lot of fun, especially on a hot day. Due to the soak factor, and it's proximity to Boomerang Bay, this ride runs on the water park hours instead of the general park hours, so try to keep that in mind when planning out your ride plan.

This is the Carolina Cyclone, most likely the first steel coaster ever brought to the park. This same design is used in almost every major theme park in the country. Busch Gardens calls it the Mighty Python. Opryland (before it became a strip mall) called it the Wabash Cannonball. Carowinds calls it the Carolina Cyclone. There's not really that much to it. You have one steep drop that takes a hard right into two corkscrew inversions, then you're out and back to the loading dock. It's over almost too fast for you to realize you rode the damn thing. But back when it was first built, inversions were a relatively new novelty in the world of coaster design, so in its day this was as wild as it got. I would still recommend it purely on the nostalgia factor, plus the line for this one is usually pretty short.

Next in line is the Ricochet, a modern twist on the old "Mad Mouse" style coasters from the 50's and 60's. These have been making a comeback in recent years, what with Animal Kingdoms' Primeval Whirl, and Busch Garden's Crazy Cheetah Chase. Ricochet is more or less the same ride as Cheetah Chase, so far as I can tell. There's not much speed to this one, and of course, no inversions of any sort. But it's a good coaster for the younger kids that are too small/afraid to conquer the bigger thrills. It goes just fast enough to pull some minor g-force turns, but that's about it. The line for this one is usually far longer than the actual experience warrants, mostly due to the fact that this is one of only four coasters that smaller kids can ride (and if the child is under 44 inches tall, they still can't ride it.)

Next up, the Carolina Gold Rusher. This is a pretty standard wood/steel hybrid "runaway mine train" style coaster, another design that just about every major park has. Six Flags Over Georgia has one that's almost identical to this one short of train design, Opryland had one (though they eventually gave it a Rock N' Roll theme) and of course, who hasn't heard of Disney's Thunder Mountain railroad, but the kind of theming you'll enjoy on Disney's mine train experience is worlds beyond what you'll see here. At the most, these coasters usually end with a sudden drop into a wooden tunnel meant to represent the entrance to a mine shaft. The tunnel typically ends in a turn out to the left, with the back wall being covered with a mirror to give the illusion that you're about to smash into another train. I can't recall if this one has that or not, as I've only ridden it once and that was a little over a year ago, but I certainly wasn't blown over by the sheer awesomeness of the experience, so it is safe to assume that there were no real surprises here.

Here is a new experience for me, as far as coasters go: a suspended coaster for kids. This is the Rugrats Runaway Reptar coaster. It's located right across from the Nickelodeon Cafeteria (tofu burgers disguised as real meat extraordinaires... you'll notice on the park map that it lists one of its menu items as "char-grilled burgers." The only restaurant on property that lists "all beef patty char-grilled burgers" is a country style sit down place over by the entrance to the water park area. Everywhere else is tofu city. Nasty, nasty tasting shit.) There are no inversions, but a couple of steep drops and lots of quick turns. And as you can see from the pic above, it takes you fairly close to the ground on its last few runs, so the younger ones get a kick out of it. Again, no one under 44 inches tall can ride this one, so if your child is under seven, he/she may need to head over to the other side of the Nickelodeon area for smaller coaster offerings.

Another kiddie coaster, though about 30 years ago this would have been a favorite of the bigger kids. Yeah, that's right, it's a Fairly Odd Parents coaster. This is another straight-forward out and back wooden coaster, we're talkin' no frills here, but the younger kids love it. It's one of the oldest rides in the park, and it shows. It makes a god awful racket, and seems to be broken down one out of every three times we go there. Not the smoothest ride in the park, by any means, and yet it's deemed one of the coasters that's safe for a young audience. As far as I can tell, the only real thing that distinguishes this coaster from the Hurler is the Hill height, so of course, you build up more speed, but otherwise the ride is very similar. If you have no kids, this is an easy one to skip over.

Now for the last of the kiddy coasters. This is the Hey Arnold Taxi Chase. It's tucked back in a corner behind some architectural theming, perhaps out of sheer embarrassment. Seriously, where the hell did they dig this thing up, the Buttlick County Fair? This is the kind of Coaster you might pay 75 cents to ride at the local white trash strip mall, flea market, take your pick. It's over in 20 seconds, kids have to ride with a parent, there's only a lap bar, no seat belt, and since you're riding with your kid, your lap holds the safety bar up higher than their lap, so the kid will invariably slam his/her head against the safety bar when you come off the first "drop." And towards the end of the ride is a succession of about 4 or 5 small bumps in a row, which slams the metal frame of the unpadded seats into your back while giving your child a concussion. I have no idea why they still have this piece of shit in operation. In addition, the track is half-rusted over and rickety as hell, the whole thing shaking violently when this joke of a coaster is in operation. I recommend you setting it on fire and roasting your tofu burgers over it at the earliest convenience.

On the tail end of the Nickelodeon area, adjacent to the "NightHawk" coaster is the Wild Thornberry's River Adventure. if you've ever rode a log flume ride, you'll be completely familiar with this attraction, as it's exactly the same as every log flume I've ever ridden. All of the Nickelodeon theming, much like the other carnival quality rides in that area of the park, is primarily located in the queue area. Were it not for plywood paintings of the characters strewn about the line queue, you'd have no idea it had anything to do with the Wild Thornberrys, which is just A-Okay with me, since I can't stand that badly animated piece of garbage. I've yet to be able to sit through one single episode all the way through. Why the hell does every character with a mustache have the fucking hair growing out of their nostrils?! Why are there only ugly people on this show? Stop, Stop, I'm digressing way too far here. Fun boat ride, nothing special, theming is ass. NEXT.

And par for the course, here's your rapids ride. They call this one the Rip Roarin' Rapids. Different name, same old shit. Same as Busch Garden's Jungle Rapids. Same as Dollywood's Smokey Rapids, same as Opryland's Grizzly Rapids, etc etc etc. It's rapids. And a round boat. Only Islands of Adventure Popeye And Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges) and Animal Kingdom (Kali River Rapids) have added anything new to this old design. You will get wet. That's about all I can say for it.

This is Tommy's Take Off. I'm only bothering to show you this so you can get an idea of just how cheap Carowinds went on the kiddie area of this park. All of it is just cheap carnival/fair rides with Nickelodeon characters painted all over them. In addition to this thrill-a-minute attraction is the TV Road Trip (old cars driving past billboards advertising old TV shows), Rocket Power Airtime (old Spinning Genie revolving platform ride), Danny Phantom's Phantom Fliers, (small boats suspended by steel cables that spin around in circles with a rudder that causes it to sway back and forth in mid air), Boots Balloon Race (spinning Balloons ride), The Flying Dutchman's Revenge (Tilt-a-Whirl style ride, only the cars are made to look like pirate ships), Backyardigans Swingalong (kiddie sized swings), Lazytown Sporticopters (the slow ass two seater monorail I mentioned earlier), Little Bill's Cruisers (boats that go around in circles with a little "ding ding" bell), Nick Jr Jets (another spinning plane ride, like a small Dumbo but with jet planes), the Nick-O-Round (classic carousel that's been ruined by paintings of Nicktoon Jr characters all over it. Same old horses though,) and lastly, Dora The Explorer: Azul's Adventure ride. I save this one for last because of how shitty it really is. They tout this as a major draw for the kid's area. What it actually is, however, is your standard carnival style kiddie train painted to look like Azul, the blue train from Dora's show. You ride around on this thing, and while snail trailing down the track, you'll come across various painted backdrops from the show that have Swiper the Fox popping out so the kids can spot him and say "Swiper, No Swiping!" These are supposed to be triggered by the train going by, but all of them were broke, so the one time I took my kid on it, just about every kid on the train was crying and getting upset because the audio kept saying "Find Swiper! There's Swiper! Holy Flying Fist Fuck! Andele, Andele! It's that dumbass Swiper!" and he was nowhere to be seen. Even for a kid's ride, this was a piece of overblown cheap ass shit. Ah maaaaaaaaan.

In closing, if you want to see how a kid's area SHOULD be done, check out the newest addition to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay at the following link:

http://jungala.com/jungala/index.html

Or better yet, this link:

www.disneyworld.com

Hey, waddya know, a big swinging boat, never seen one of these before, PFFFFFFT.

And a drop tower so generic that it's name is... oh man oh man oh man... DROP TOWER. Wow, just think if the whole park was given such forethought. The restrooms could be labeled "Where People With Vaginas Piss and Shit," and "Where People with Penises Piss and Shit." The Nickelodeon Cafe could be called "Buy Fake Burgers Here." Guest Relations could be renamed "Overpaid Teenagers Who Pretend To Care." The possibilities are endless. Anyway, they strap you in, you go up, you fall down. Be sure to hold your feet in, there was a kid over in Kentucky who got her feet cut off on one of these not long ago:

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/06/21/six.flags.accident/index.html

Aside from a few carnival rides for the grown ups (a Scrambler, a Spinner, an old Swings ride) and one of those Superman things where they raise you up in a harness strapped to a steel cable then drop you head first towards the asphalt, that's all for the main park, so it's on to Boomerang Bay. As you can see here, Boomerang Bay has all your essentials: speed slides, family slides, tube slides, and on and on. It's like just about every other water park you've ever been to, but cramped into a very small space that used to share the aforementioned Pirate Cove area with the land the "Nighthawk" coaster now sits upon. This year they added private "cabanas" you can rent, but for a water park this size, I fail to see the need for it.

Here's the tallest of the tube slides, and a good example of the one thing I can't stand about water parks. It's bad enough that you have to stand in line for normal rides, but now you have to climb up a thousand flights of stairs for a 45 second water slide. Would escalators be too much to ask? I don't think so.

Disney and the Schlitterbahn park in Texas are starting to get the right idea. Disney recently opened a new "water coaster" attraction at Typhoon Lagoon where water jets blast you up and down the slide track. Is that too far behind having water slides that start on the ground, or water-powered elevators? One can only hope.

Here's one of the smaller tube slides. This one tends to have a longer line than the taller ones, I assume because the obesity rate is so high in the Carolina's that most park attendees fear a possible coronary or stroke making the long climb up to the bigger slides. Plus these seem wider than the others, so there's less chance of getting stuck.

And here's the wave pool. This one was dug up and replaced by a new wave pool for this year, over 10,000 gallons larger than the one pictured above. And it's a good thing, since every time I went there last year the damn thing never worked. Wade pool? Yes. Wave pool? Shit, no. Regardless, nothing compares to Typhoon Lagoon's wave pool. They have surfing competitions in that thing. Rick Kane's probably there right now, showing off to the local Orlando chicks...

Here's your kiddie area. It's not as big as it looks. I spent a good portion of my day over here, and got the crap kicked out of me by that giant bucket at the top. Every so often that thing tilts over and pours water everywhere. My son begged me to stand and take a shot, so I did. I must have been standing right at the perfect spot, because my sunglasses went flying and I damn near got knocked on my ass. Meanwhile all the little kids that didn't even come up to my hip laughed and danced about as their parents took 2000 gallons right to the ear canal.

Now here's the one that really pisses me off. I am a connoisseur of the Lazy River ride. I can plant my 7th ass down in one of those inner tubes and just drift all day long. Screw water slides, this and a water proof MP3 player are as close to Heaven on Earth as I'm ever likely to get. But can I enjoy such a relaxing day at Boomerang Bay? Hell no! The park is so small they had to gip out on the length of their Lazy River. Because of this, you only get to go around once, otherwise they run the risk of overcrowding it. I learned this the hard way, when I just coasted on by the life guards directing everyone to the exit stairs, and was rather abruptly stopped and told I had to get out. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. "Wassat? One Lap? Lazy River? Get Out? Whaaaaaaaaa?"

And just to round things out, here's the "beach" area that has no sand. Oh, there's some sand over by the wave pool, but it's not much bigger than a playground sandbox (or it wasn't at the the old pool, no idea with the new one just yet.)

So what's the bottom line? Well personally, I think Boomerang Bay is a mistake. They get no extra ticket off it, and by cutting into the main park's acreage it turns a 105 acre theme park into about a 75 acre theme park. This is why Carowinds is just as big as The Magic Kingdom, but feels like it's half the size. And of course, this also means that Boomerang Bay is only about half as big as most water parks you've ever been to, so short of only paying one ticket price you're doubly screwed. Of course, at this point, it's too damned late to just build a water park next door, but damn I wish they would. At least three more coasters could sit on that plot of land. As it stands, there's no water park parking, so you have to drag all your water park gear all the way through the parking lot and to the back of the park before finally getting to a locker to unload it all, so it's a major pain in the ass. Oh, and did I mention that they took the Train out when Paramount took over, so the only way to get around the park is by foot power?

It's a fun park. My family loves it, and I enjoy just watching my kid have fun. But with a little more thought and a decent investment, it could be so much more that what it is. It's better than Dollywood in ride count, but it's theming and tacked on mini water park gives it a lower overall score. Very good, but not mind blowing.

-=7th=-