Don't waste your time or money with Paramount's Carowinds....

Take it from me. Twice now, I have been there, and both times it seems that they spend more time repairing the rides than actually running them.

Lets go back a couple weeks and I'll tell you why they pissed me off so bad...

D has a membership in something called We Save that does discounts at various places. This is something she gets through the state since she works at UNC. So they had a special State Employees appreciation day at Carowinds. Tickets were discounted to 35 bucks or so and the deal included a free lunch for We Save members.

So we bought 2 tickets and also got her sister and her sister's friend to get tickets as well, and planned for a nice, long day of fun and rides.

We got up saturday morning, Kelly and April had arrived the previous evening, and packed up and took off for Charlotte. We had a nice ride, and a good breakfast at McDs and after driving for 3 hours, the day quickly went downhill.

First, we go there a little late, so we had to sit in line for nearly 30 minutes just to get into the parking lot. Then we had to pay 10 bucks for parking. WTF is that? the tickets are normally nearly 50 bucks, PLUS 10 dollars for parking, PLUS something like 3.50 for a freaking bottle of water? Their park ain't THAT nice.

So after all that, we get to the gate and present our tickets to get in. Now... there are only two rides that I REALLY wanted to ride. In fact, I could spend the whole day just riding those two over and over.

The first is the coaster based on Top Gun. It simulates flying an F-14 off a carrier and then through aerobatic manuvers... its hella fun. And wouldnt you know it, it was shut down for repair. I dont think that one even ran at all while we were there.

The only other ride I wanted to ride was the Bork Assimilator. The assimilator is a laydown roller coaster. You spend the time on your back, flying like Superman sometimes... its also hella fun. But I'll get to that in a moment.

It was warm and not quite lunch time, so we decided to hit the Rug Rats coaster first. This is a bit of a cheesy coaster, but it involves spraying water, so it would be a nice way to cool down before we really got started. We stood in line for that stupid ride for nearly an hour. We got all the way to the loading platform, and they shut the ride down.

"Sorry," said the guy running it, "I dont know why they shut it down, its running fine, but I am sure it will be back up in a moment."

Nope. We stood there another 15 minutes while Carowinds employees stood around with their thumbs up their asses until I finally got pissed off and walked out of the line.

After that, we decided to try to find a locker. Well, as luck would have it, the only available lockers were in the water park, where we had to pay ANOTHER 10 bucks to get a key to use the locker. What a freaking ripoff. We dumped our stuff and made our way back to the rides in the main part of the park.

Next, we rode the train roller coaster... I dont know what else to call it. It's a train, it's a roller coaster. But it took us ANOTHER 45 minutes to get onto that one, and it wasn't all that fun.

We then tried for lunch, but standing in fucking lines everywhere had made us miss lunch completely. So no free lunch . Jeffy is pissed off at this point.

Next we tried the Borg Assimilator. There was some chick at the line intrance that said, sorry, it's closed for now. WHAT? CLOSED??? thats two now that are closed. So we went across the way to another coaster and got in that line. We hadn't been in that line for more than 5 minutes and saw that the Borg ride was back and running. We left that line and returned to the borg ride.

This time, the beeotch wouldn't let us in because we D had a fanny pack on. They said no loose articles. Well, my dear idiot minimum wage park employee, IT WASNT LOOSE! IT WAS SECURELY FASTENED TO HER FREAKING WAISTE!

So we gave up on that.

At this point, it was hot, so we went to the water park. Now mind you, I really hate water parks. Part of it is my general unease with being half naked in a pool full of strangers, but the other half is the idea that I would be standing in a pool full of other peoples sweat, hair, skin cells, piss, spit, vomit and other effluvia. Nasty nasty NASTY! So I sat out the water park. Oh, and did I mention that EVEN THE FREAKING WATER SLIDES HAD 30-45 minute wait times???

And the lazy river wasnt. They only let you float around it twice, and it moved WAY TOO FAST.

Jeffy just got madder and madder.

This continued on the rest of the afternoon. I DID get to ride the freefall thing, but to be honest, after such a shitty time at the park, I couldn't even enjoy that.

After that ride, we went BACK to the Borg ride. We stood in line for an hour and a half, AND THEY SHUT THE FUCKING THING DOWN because of some storm. Then, when people got fed up and started leaving, they came on the PA and told people that if they left the line, they would lose their place in line.

I stood there a while longer, now putting us at an hour and 45 mintues in line for this damned thing, and finally got pissed off. We were stuck in that line, and the water park, that had all our crap in it, was closing in 15 minutes. So I left the girls in line and walked to the opposite side of the park to get our crap, stood in line for ANOTHER 20 minutes just to turn the damned locker key back in and get a 3 dollar rebate, then carried all our crap BACK to the Borg ride.

I had to sit outside that ride for ANOTHER 15 minutes before they finally gave up and came out.

We left Carowinds after that.

The only good thing about the whole trip was dinner at the South End Brewery in Charlotte, where I had what were probably the best ribs I have every tasted. But otherwise, the entire trip pretty much sucked.

So I tell you, as a warning, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY WITH CAROWINDS... it is one of poorest excuses for a theme park I have ever been to. We have been twice now, and both times were disappointing. AVOID CAROWINDS!!! Go to a better park like Busch Gardens, Emerald Pointe, Six Flags, or whatever.