Carowinds Coasters

On Sunday the afternoon was dragging, and I could tell that the kids were bored. We hadn’t gone to church that morning (I slept in since I was so wiped out from the garage sale the day before), so CG and CB were wound up with energy.

At some point I had had enough, and cried, “Let’s go to Carowinds!” They were surprised, since they didn’t know that I had bought season passes for this summer. But they were also thrilled out of their gourds at the idea of going.

We got there around 4:45 p.m. and quickly traded in my printed receipt for our permanent summer passes. With that, we entered the park and made our way over to Planet Snoopy, which is the section of the park that had the most rides that CB was tall enough to ride (hopefully he’ll grow another 4 inches between now and the end of summer so he can ride more).

It was cloudy, and there were calls for rain, but we gamely began riding rides, ignoring the weather as slight mist turned to big fat drops. We were on a kiddie rollercoaster when the skies opened up and the torrential downpour began. It was bad. Fortunately, we were under cover at the rollercoaster we had just ridden (3x in a row without disembarking because the park was emptying out as the rain approached). We waited about 10 minutes and finally the rain relented.

We began walking around again, but the rides were slow to open back up (they all closed during the rain due to safety issues). But soon enough, the skies cleared, and it was all systems go.

At that point the park was practically ours alone. There were no lines for anything and we literally walked on all the rides. At some point CB and I headed over to a rollercoaster and we rode it 3x without getting off. Then CG came up and hopped on in CB’s place and we rode it twice. So I rode it five times in a row without getting off! FANTASTIC!

The kids love rollercoasters. See Exhibit A below, a kiddie rollercoaster that had some decent hills for the younger set.

See the smiles on their faces? And that was for a SMALL coaster. Imagine the smiles they’ll have when they can ride the big ones that are only for big kids!

They realized cameras were installed on some rides, and we proceeded to make funny faces whenever we went by them. They had a blast doing that all day and I came close to buying at least one round of silly picture.

As the park closed (around 8 p.m.) we walked by the new coaster, The Intimidator. There was NO LINE. For a brand new coaster that had only been open a couple weeks.

“Denis, I have to go on this – the line will NEVER be this low again.” He told me to go for it, so I ran through the entrance. I literally walked up the stairs, waited for the next set of seats to come through, and hopped on.

I’ll admit I started to freak out as we went up the first hill. It was so steep I was literally laying on my back. I turned to the girl next to me and said, “I’ll admit – I’m a bit freaked out, and I LOVE rollercoasters.”

“It’s a sweet ride,” she gushed. “My mom and I just rode it a couple minutes ago and were in the front seat!”

Just then we reached the top of the mammoth hill and started to teeter over the top.

What a coaster. That thing was amazing. The only thing it was missing was a loop of some kind, but that first hill is amazing – all you see is GROUND below you. You literally plummet to the earth. And it’s fantastic.

CG and Denis are going to a birthday party this Saturday, so CB and I are going to head back and ride a few of the rides we didn’t get to hit this weekend. I can’t wait!