Hiking
Backpacking
Canoeing
Rafting
Skiing
Biking
Amusement Parks
National Parks
Route 66 Cities Beaches

Outpost

Rides

Carowinds

Carowinds
Lodging
Restaurants
Coasters

Carowinds has an interesting collection of flat rides. Their main problem is their short ride cycles. Almost all run 90 seconds from start to stop, which means only about a minute at full speed.

Skytower --- Ride this as soon as you enter the park. It is a great chance to familiarize yourself with the layout and offers great photo ops, especially aerial shots of the coasters. Basically a revolving platform hoisted high in the air. Kings Island has its Eiffel Tower and Indiana Beach its Giant Wheel, but other parks need one of these.

Scrambler --- This is one of the few Scramblers we’ve seen with seat belts in addition to the usual locking bar. And the ride attendants check both religiously. It’s a smooth, well maintained model.

Screamweaver --- CW’s version of the Enterprise or Orbiter. Gondolas ride around a circular path, spinning in place. Smooth and well kept model. The 90 second cycle really hurts here because it slowly lifts the wheel to the vertical position, then slowly drops it back down, so you only get about 30 seconds in the full vertical rotation, much less than at most parks.

Drop Zone --- Standard free fall. This one is 160 ft. tall. They claim you come down at 56 mph, but our radar detector clocked it at less.

Sky Flyer --- The usual extra cost slingshot. Our members who rode this judged it an average ride of this type.

Boat Plunge --- Lift hill is a vibrating washboard. Built at the back end of the park so not scenic. Drop neither long, high nor steep. Very average.

River Rafting --- Second only to Kennywood’s. A long, fast descent with real waterfalls and rapids and wide sweeping turns which keep the rafts continually spinning. Only the beginning and the end are visible to the public.

This view looks down on the rafting ride from atop the Skytower. The rafting channel winds through the entire area occupied by the trees. Once on the river, the rafts pass through fine landscaping and the gradient keeps a relentless pace. But the loading and unloading facility is curiously convoluted. Once riders step out of the rafts, a conveyor belt takes the empty rafts up a long, steep hill, where they break into two channels and pass through the loading station before merging again into one channel. This is slow and unwieldy and backs lines up unreasonably.

CW should redo this loading – unloading maze to emulate KW’s and move the lines faster.

Bumper Cars --- An A for the large round floor with 30 cars running. Only a few parks have these largers floors and they are much better without the wasted space in the corners. Unique Azura cars with multiple lights front and back and very comfortable high back seats. However, these cars are slow and unresponsive. Can’t we combine the speed and quickness of Indiana Beach cars with the comfort and appearance of these ? The only Bumper Car ride we’ve seen running clockwise.

Balloons --- A real sleeper. Fast, high and very smooth. Basically a Flying Scooters without the steerable fin, or a Swings with gondola seating. Soaring up there in the trees with the cool summer night air rushing by and the lights of the park strung out below is a treat. Long ride cycle. Avoid the rear facing seats.

Carousel --- A mixed experience. One of the last classic old four row all horse carousels, plus richly upholstered sleighs. The horses are well maintained, and the polished oaken floor adds class. But the sound system is weak, and the central column and overhead panels are just pastel painted wooden flats without the usual engravings and rich colors. A great park needs a great carousel. This isn’t it.

Helicopters --- A clone of the ones at PKI with a shorter track. You pedal your two person copter above the tree tops around Kiddieland. This is a neat little ride, but they should run the track all over the park, add a hundred copters, and use it as a people mover since CW doesn’t have a chairlift or train connecting various sections.

Turnpike --- CW makes a mistake downgrading this to a remote corner of Kiddieland. They should feature it as a premier attraction like most parks.

Haunted Mansion --- Themed to Scooby Doo, this interactive dark ride was so successful that Paramount installed a clone at Kings Island. Riders use laser guns to hit targets and accumulate points. It’s fun, but CW still needs a full scale state of the art dark ride. Surely with all its resources, Paramount could create one.

Train --- Embarassing. Don’t park managers visit the competition? With Disney, CP and Kings Island featuring their magnificent steam engines and full sized cars, why settle for a toy ? Trains can be people movers, photo ops and park symbols. Especially since CW took out the greatest artificial channel riverboat in the country, it needs to atone for that misjudgement by bringing in a full scale park circling railroad.

Water Park --- CW includes its water park inside the regular park. It does not come close to Holiday World, but PKI only beats it because of the Proslide Tornado. Adding one of those, a switchbacking rafting ride, or any other state of the art water coasters, CW would have a tremendous attraction.

Wave Pool--- Average. Rather long intervals between sessions.

Wipeout --- Great four person family rafting ride. One of the better attractions in the park.

Abyss --- Tubular water slide. Earlier model of this ride, not especially high, long or fast.

Tidal Wave --- Open tube slide. Once outstanding,now surpassed by many parks.

Pipeline Peaks --- 80 ft. tower with four tube slides coming down from all sides. Still a great ride, long, fast, and varied.


Rambling River --- Not as long as the ones at Disney or Sandcastle, but this Lazy River incarnation winds along half the Racer, under Tidal Wave, and past the children’s play area. One of the better versions. Pictured at very bottom left.

Shows --- Next to the North Gate is the magnificent Paladium, a tremendous place for an outdoor performance, maybe the best arena at any amusement park. Inside CW is the state of the art Paramount Theatre. Over by Thunder Road is a 3-D venue currently showing Spongebob Squarepants, which is pretty cool. But these facilities are not being exploited. CW should send a team up to BGW to study their entertainment.

Golf --- Carowinds has a magnificent miniature golf course. It has wide fairways, huge greens, clever obstacles, smooth and continuously cared for mats, and tasteful landscaping. Only Cedar Point rivals it. CP runs its holes up and down that artificial mountain with its caves and waterfalls, so it wins on scenery. But CW has the better course.

Games --- The usual array of games. They've recently renovated many of the booths, so they're clean, spacious and brightly lighted. Nothing special here, but the few members of our crew who patronize these say CW is competitive with Kings Island, Cedar Point, etc.

We conclude that Carowinds has a tremendous potential which has not yet begun to be exploited. Paramount knew what it was doing when it added this park to its chain. Now it’s time to cash in on the investment with better maintenance, Kiddieland, a real train and a new carousel.

Like Us On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/OutpostUSA/) To Receive Daily Outdoor Adventure News and Notes And To Comment
This Year's Unique Visitor Tally : 1,003,492 Contact us at Omlordw@aol.com Meet our writers at Staff