> The Convention Econo Lodge in Spartanburg was the
> worst sleep of the trip.

Wasn't this the one that was so hard to find? Well, I mean it was ONE of the ones that was so had to find ;-) And wasn't it the first with a bullet-proof outside window for the check in-desk? I think it actually rented rooms by the hour.... if you catch my drift.....

> Donna refused to co-operate with our
> request. Adam stayed to take the photo while
> John, Nolan, and I dodged the entering traffic to
> get our picture in front of the sign.

It was at this point that I knew we were going to have a great day. Before we even walked into that park, we were like a couple of kids running across that road for that picture. My initial reaction of Carowinds was "Deja Wonderland." Driving up to it, I got the same feeling as I do when I pass Wonderland on the 400 or 401 or whatever.... Maybe the flatness of the park, or the lack of thick trees around it is why. but it sure felt like I was headed to PCW.

> We had to pay for parking because none of the
> Paramount Parks honour each other parking passes
> in 2002. Cheap! Cheap!

I am with you here. IMO all park chains should honor parking passes from sister parks. The excuse I was given at the Paramount Parks we attended was "Your admission to the park is a gift to you for having a season pass for Kings Island, that is the privilege of having a Paramount Parks season pass. However that privilege does not include parking." I disagree with that. Admission to the parks is not a gift or a privilege... I paid for it and it was advertised as such so I consider it a requirement. Honored admission to the other parks in the chain is a large reason why I bought the pass, as well as the parking pass that cost additional. Honestly, this is the biggest and only real fault that I can find with the Paramount Parks chain. Really there are relatively few season pass holders that will attend 2,3,4 or 5 of the chain's parks within a season. So the reason parks are so protective of their parking fees can only be explained as greed. Oddly enough, until this year PKD ALWAYS had honored my PKI pass for free parking. But apparently no more. As a final rant, the folks such as ourselves that arrange our trips and vacations in order to visit numerous parks within a specified chain should be viewed as valued customers and treated as such. Complimentary parking does not seem out of the question for those that consistently support the chain.

> Yum! Yum! What a ride. Up to this point CP's
> Raptor was my favourite B&M invert but, Top Gun
> quickly stole that position.

By far the best steel coaster in the chain. Amazing layout, terrific placement, good pacing and noteworthy theming. Carowinds hit the ball out of the park with this one. I can not find any real faults with the ride except one minor dead spot when the track crosses over the left after the Batwing. That is so minimal that I never even focused on it. Did you know that when Top Gun was designed, it originally did not have a barrel roll planned? A certain Marketing Director (now at PKI) pushed for an ending similar to Alpengiest's... hence the barrel roll at the end with the quick turn into the brakes was added.

> Thunder Road the roller coaster that takes you
> into two states. Now how neat is that?

This coaster used to be completely white. Now it baffles me when parks have a coaster that was once completely painted and then poof! it has it's natural wood color back. (Big Dipper at SFWOA is another classic case) Well, turns out that upkeep on the paint was seen as pointless and for several years the park did not repaint and let it just peel off and return natural. Also, it is my understanding that originally Thunder Road was built with trains designed to resemble a getaway car and cop car... as if to suggest a high speed chase. Alas, that theming is long gone.

> Wonderland was the first Paramount park to
> install the Scooby Doo ? Sally Corp dark ride in
> 2000. Carowinds followed suit in 2001 with the
> same install.

They are fun rides. The only problem I see is if you indeed "shoot" while riding then you miss all the sight gags and have no time to enjoy the dark ride itself. Typically you are so busy looking for little blue lights that you overlook the theming and effect hitting the targets has. I hope that PKI's takes this into consideration. As far as the building it is housed in... well I find it ironic that the shows that travel the Paramount Parks circuit are designed and imagined local to PC. Yet PC has no theatre for said shows... it is now the Scooby Ride. Apparently lack of interest spawned the eventual demise of the shows at PC... and people just did not care. If the theatre had to bite the dust, then they certainly made good use of it. The ride suits the building perfectly. However the location (no in the kids area) seems a bit odd to me.

> After Scooby Doo we walked over to the
> Nickelodeon Flying Super Saturator. After a few
> minutes of watching John, Adam, and Nolan went to
> ride. I was going to ride and for some reason I
> bailed out. John does have an evil side and this
> were it came out.

This ride surprised me. Probably more than any other on the trip. Why? Well I loved it. I, for once, readily got soaked. I am hard pressed to allow myself to get wet at a park. But the minute I saw it, I knew it was going to be a blast. The clincher was when I managed to hit innocent spectators with a ton of water on my first bucket dump. I had a blast and now know why Hershey jumped that the chance of installing one.

> it is Capler. He found us? Darn it. Okay
> lets feel him out . First impressions ? I don't
> think he is psycho? Okay everybody I think he is
> safe. Just kidding bud, we knew right from the
> start that you are a super guy and you were just
> like us. Normal! Yeah Right like John Keeter is
> normal.

It was great meeting the infamous Capler. A great guy that really knows how to roll up his sleeves and have fun. I feel a bit bad, because I didn't get to spend quite as much time talking with him one on one as Donna and Kevin did, I was a bit distracted by my surroundings and the two young fellas next to me ;-) But hopefully we'll get that chance again soon in the future.

> Carolina Boardwalk section which is home
> to the new Ricochet Mack wild mouse. Before
> Ricochet we rode the classic Arrow Carolina Gold
> Rusher. Gold Rusher was holding up pretty good
> and an enjoyable ride.

I actually was ready to do the Goldrusher again. We never got around to it. But I really enjoyed it. Truthfully, I did not know it existed until Adam said "There's the Goldrusher." I thought to myself, what the heck is Goldrusher?" So it was a surprise addition to my day at PC that I had not counted on.

> Over to Ricochet which
> is different from PCW's in that it does not have
> the initial 50ft drop.

But it does have track that turns so close to the lift that you can reach up and touch it! It has had a protective shield placed around it, and trains are timed to not pass by each other at that point, but never the less, how many other mice are built so that you can touch the turnarounds while climbing the lift? It is getting to the point where a mouse is a mouse is a mouse for me. It's hardly unique after you have ridden several at various parks, although fun and peppy.

> The ride ops
> on Ricochet were doing a very good job of loading
> and unloading the cars.

Ummm except for the fact that they were allowing a 5 year old to push the dispatch button while we waited in line!

> Carolina Cyclone is
> another example of a fine Arrow mine Train ride.

Isn't it a looper? ;-)

> We then walked over to the old Wayne's World area
> of the park.... Hurler is very similar
> to SFKK's Thunder Run. We got a front seat ride
> while Robert and John road the back. Hurler
> seemed to be running in very good condition not
> rough and nice pops of air. Overall the Reids
> gave Hurler two thumbs up and returned later in
> the day for more re-rides.

I am not sure if it is still Wayne's World. I know PKD is not and all the Wayne's World theming (except Stan Makitas) seemed to have been removed from PC.

> Vortex is similar to most B&M
> standups just a little bit smaller.

It reminded me a lot of Iron Wolf. I actually prefer the older, and more intense B&M standups to newer ones such as Chang and Mantis.

> Scooby Doo's Ghoster
> Coaster is just like the other junior woodies at
> PCW, PKD, and PKI? they are fun little coaster.
> When a first time adult rider is riding one of
> these gems I give the following words of advice.
> Only ride with a small child and never ride with
> another adult and watch your knees.

And now you say this even though you could not understand why I would not ride with you on PCW's the first season I attended ;-)

> Then we walked over to Taxi Jam to get our final
> coaster credit. Adam was really to tall to
> qualify as kid riders but he was allowed to go.

The biggest in the chain. Next time you see a Paramount Park commercial (no matter which park) they always show a Taxi Jam, and it is always Carowinds version.

> Since the carousel was around this area we
> couldn't resist a ride but Roberts did want to
> ride and stayed off and chatted with Donna. We
> discover three lead horses on the carousel.
> Roberts tells us that at one time all the horses
> where given away. Then years later the park
> wanted to restore the carousel asked people to
> return or donate the horses back. I guess this
> how the carousel ended up with three lead horses.
> Robert shared his carousel horror story as a
> young boy first with Donna and later with the
> rest of us. Robert's Carousel is my Drop Zone.

Actually the story goes like this. The carousel that we rode originally came from a park in Indiana and was built in like 1923 or so by PTC. There was once another carousel in the park located near the flume. It was a double decker German hand-carved carousel that was eventually removed. Many of the horses from that double decker carousel were given to retirees and those near and dear to the park. However, when the manufacturer and the small town in Germany found out that the carousel was no longer operating and being given away in pieces they demanded it back. Carowinds got a lot of bad press about it and began the task of re-collecting as many as they could in order to appease the mess. As a result, the carousel that now exists has had names placed on many of it's horses for those that returned them or did something the park wanted to honor since. Even though it appears 3 lead horses exist on the current carousel, there is indeed only 1.... it is the horse named Nelson.

> No cho cho train for Donna to ride at Carowinds
> so we all boarded the next best thing the
> Carolina Sternwheeler for a quick trip around the
> island. Most of us were up on the upper deck
> while Nolan and Donna were on the lower deck.
> Nolan was on his way to the front of the boat
> when the whistle blew. Gee! Nolan almost jumped
> out of his shorts and quickly turned and went
> back to his mom. The Sternwheeler is a rather
> large boat for such a short voyage. It does give
> you a chance to get some nice pictures of the
> park. The Carolina Skytower was next with also
> afforded great photo opportunities of the park.

The Sternweeler, as I understand, is basically doomed at this point. I do not look for it to be around from much longer and I consider myself lucky to have ridden it. I was next to Adam Reid and a bunch of other innocent bystanders on the highest platform when that whistle blew. It scared us all so badly that we nearly jumped overboard. I must have laughed for 10 minutes straight after that ear-piercing fright. Poor Adam seemed as though he was about to have a heart attack. Man is that thing loud!

> After the Skytower is was time to have some fun
> at the front entrance by walking/jumping between
> the North and South Carolina. We took lots of
> pictures of us straddling the state line.

No, we're not tourists ;-)

> This is
> where you really miss the Paramount International
> Street and the large fountain. Carowinds has done
> a nice job on their front entrance but I like an
> International Street. When you see that fountain
> you know you are home. Actually the state line is
> a perfect spot for the Paramount Story rather
> than using up valuable park space like the other
> Paramount Parks have done. The Paramount Story
> especially at PKI and PCW is a waste of space. No
> tears here if they ever want to remove it. We
> stayed around the entrance to catch a few minutes
> of America Rock. We don't have this one at PCW? I
> wonder why?

Carowinds just re-did the main entrance in recent years. As I understand it, there used to be many more shops and buildings in the skytower plaza, but the layout was confusing and the buildings had basically gone to pot. There was even a large train station in the middle which explains why the entrance place has that "bridge" that you cross midway. The train station was below it. Of course in Paramount Park tradition, the train was sacrificed because it kept interrupting their desires to build rides in other areas of the park. Areas that had train tracks running through them. Thus a gem was sacrificed for the likes of *ahem* Wayne's World. The current skytower plaza, from what I understand, is much better in layout. But personally I found it boring and really the worst in the chain. The entrance is very traditional and southern with red brick buildings/white columns. However when you get to the skytower plaza just a few feet away, everything is modern architecture with stucco buildings and "beachy" colors. Eeeeeyuk.

> John wants to do Drop Zone and I say, ?Go ahead
> we will meet you later?. While John got a handful
> of rides on Drop Zone we were able to get a few
> more rides on Hurler.

I logged 4 consecutive rides. I chose not to do more simply because I was getting bored with it. It still amazes me how that thing was a constant walk-on. I am not a fan of either Hurler. I give PC's the edge though. It was at least tolerable. But I'll take Thunder Run at SFKK over those two anyday.

> The
> thing I found a little strange was that it was a
> weekday in July and the park closed at 8:00PM.

But alas, there was no one there. I can see why the park closed so early.... low attendance. However what baffles me is why everyone just disappers from that park by about 5. It's really odd.

Carowinds is indeed a wonderful park. Since our visit I have found myself ever-increasingly curious about it. I am getting as fascinated with it and it's beginnings as I have been about PKI. I cannot wait to dig deeper and learn more.

Shaggy