Paramounts Carowinds

Following the day in Myrtle Beach we headed back inland towards the Carolinas border. This Paramount park is unusual in that is situated across the state line and depending on the side of the line you're on the products in the shops are priced differently.

Here's the view that welcomed us to the park. A lovely looking inverted coaster. We had cheated a little in parking in the priority pass holder car park around the back of the park. Telling the car park attendant that we'd buy the pass later on was enough to let us in. On this occasion we were true to our word and bought the pass (I had mine already but Keith didn't). If you fancy avoiding the majority of the queues, try this!

Walking over the Top Gun coaster (you enter over its tunnel) we decided that the first ride of the day should be on Borg Assimilator, the park's flying coaster. I'd originally ridden this in 2002 when it was in Paramount's California park where it was called Stealth. The theming here was a little better with a great looking sphere beneath one of the helixes and a really cool voice telling you you were about to assimilated.

The ride itself was pretty decent and just as good as X-Flight, not surprising considering they're very similar. Keith, who hates the restraints on these rides came off liking it! I was expecting the lowering mechanism to be really rough as it was in 2002, but they'd sorted it out and it was OK this time around.

Vortex is the park's stand up coaster and like the others it was pretty uncomfortable but of a nice short length to not hurt you too badly.

Like King's Island the park has a Runaway Reptar kiddy inverted coaster and it was pretty much identical to the other both in ride experience and theming.

The obligatory "Paramount Parks have tranquil bits too!" photo.

and just like Kings Island, Scooby Doo was the shooting dark ride. This one featured guns that worked though, which is always a bonus on these kind of rides.

This post indicates the state line, if you weren't attentive you'd probably completely ignore it.

Paramount Carowinds lacks the baby Eiffel Tower and Fountains entrance that both King's Island and King's Dominion have. I'm guessing this is because unlike the other two Carowinds was never a King's park.

Is it me or do the stall prizes get bigger and bigger each year? Which came first; the big prize or the big car to drive it home in? After a quick respite getting Keith to rock out at the School of Rock we had lunch then went off to enjoy the rest of the park.

Hurler was a fairly decent wooden coaster, which took a considerable amount of time to open up. We thought it was out of action as there were no signs of life around the ride for most of the morning. It opened just after lunch.

Interesting sign #n
"Enter this way y'all"
One way to know for sure that you're in the southern states. Nice to see the Carolina hospitality extending to the signage around the park. Just a shame there was a strong smell of vomit in this area. I think someone found the mouse ride a little too heavy going.

We spent a long time at the Flying Super Saturator coaster, which as the name indicates is another of those coasters that encourages water fights. I didn't even know that this coaster existed thinking that Hersheypark were the only park to have one. After riding it and getting off fairly lightly in the wet stakes we spent a great deal of time with another group of people playing with the one of the water cannons. Definitely a lot of fun, and one of the few occasions where I think you can get away with attacking people you don't know.

The Goldrusher coaster is the park's mine train ride and it was never bad nor great. It just did its ride thing well.


Whilst they lack the Eiffel Tower they do have an observation tower and it provided a good way to see the park (and take pictures of course). So how I managed to take absolutely rubbish pictures from up top I have no idea.

Thunder Road was a racing coaster that actually raced up until the backwards side broke down. When service was restored the station staff didn't bother resyncing the trains. A shame as it could have been a fun ride.

With Top Gun we intentionally saved the best for last. This ride is blistering and its unique layout made it better than a lot of the other ones I'd been on. In 2002 it was Top Gun at the Californian Paramount park that became my favourite coaster of all time. This, although not as perfect as that day, is up there.

Fair to say the public were loving this ride just as much too!

I've come to the conclusion that of all the chains of parks out there, Paramount is my favourite with a great mix of rides, friendly staff, decent hospitality and good operations (most of the time). It will be interesting to see how this changes under the ownership of Cedar Fair. I'm intrigued whether they'll have these playing second fiddle to their original parks like Cedar Fair, Googoo and Dorney.

North-east to Busch Gardens