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| - If you want a one-liner, I had a really great time here with my friends and wife, but I do not think that Carowinds is a great theme park.
Tickets - Just like department stores, Carowinds largely overprices its tickets at the door ($55?) but has numerous gimmicky sales. For example, going to Bojangles can get you $15 off. Various schools and hospitals have various discounts ranging from 50% off to only $10 off. You'll never feel like you got a good deal.
Parking - Preferred parking is $25 while standard parking is $15. Preferred parking is basically designed for families that want to eat outside of the park for lunch or dinner and I would recommend it if you plan on coming in and out of the park.
Weather - It rained just an hour after we arrived here. There are no rain checks or refunds. Most of the rides shut down until a good 30 minutes after the sun started shining. It can really put a damper on your day.
Rides - There are some pretty good rides and some really, really bad rides. The log-ride is literally one slope. Literally one. If you don't know this beforehand, you might wait an hour to experience about 15 seconds of ride. Drop-zone (I forget its new name) is literally one free fall for a couple of seconds. Do not waste your time on these two rides. Good rides include The Intimidator and After-Burn which are both quite impressive. You can expect to wait quite a long time for each of them but I would recommend waiting for a front-seat on each of them. It's really a great experience to see the entire park from the top of the coaster and you really do get a great sense of flying on After-Burn.
One thing that really bothered me about some of the rides is that no one cleans the restraints, especially the overhead bars, and as a result, it's stained with the odor, oils and dirt of thousands of riders before you. As a result, my experience on Night-Hawk was not quite as pleasant as I would have liked. In addition, somebody should tell the ride operators that there is no need to speak loudly into the microphones because most of the time they're painfully loud and the speakers are distorting.
Food - $10 minimum for any main entrée, $4 for drinks, everything will gouge you. They don't allow ANY outside food or drinks. Prepare your wallets.
Extras - The dinosaur park is $2.50/person for groups of 4 and it was kinda nice, but you have to really like reading (there's a LOT to read) and learning to get the most out of it. The 3D movie about dinosaurs is included but it's kind of depressing, and doesn't have the cool gimmicks like moving seats or mist that Star Tours or Honey I Shrunk The Audience had.
In conclusion, I actually had a great time at the theme park with my friends and wife, mostly because we luckily came to the park on a Sunday that apparently wasn't very popular and thus didn't have to wait very long on any lines. Had we come on a "normal" day, I probably would have been a little bit less happy.
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