Like all amusement parks, the tickets, parking and food prices are insanely high. However, it's not worth it here. We visited during the week in the Spring, and were pleased with the size of the crowd- however, Carowinds also understaffs during this time. They only had one employee working each ride- so the one person was doing the job that 4-5 employees could have done to make the lines move quickly. It took 5-7 minutes to load and unload each 30 second ride. Hours of waiting in lines, especially for kiddie rides, is unacceptable. There s not much to do aside from the rides for young kids- unless you pay extra for entertainment- and the layout of the park is terribly confusing and poorly planned. The water rides were not in operation either- which should have been reflected on their website. Due to the complete lack of water fountains, you are left to buy the $4 bottle of water. It is a clean park and the employees are generally friendly- although when we stopped at a 'help' spot to find out what rides we could do with our 2 year old, the employee was clueless. We won't be returning.