10-13-01 Paramount's Scarowinds

My 13th visit to Carowinds this year on the 13th day of the month for a Halloween event. How ironic. I was not going to make the mistake of going to Scarowinds on a day that the park had already been open during the day. Thousands of cars were pouring out of the park when I arrived from the private BMW company party. After the ticket salesman charged me for two tickets rather than one and had to re-do my charge on my credit card, a friend and I finally made it into the park. We headed for Top Gun immediately, which was basically a walk-on. We took the back seat and had an impressive ride, my 84th of the season.

The park was decorated pretty thouroughly and I must say that Carowinds has created a very nice effect once again. Some things were quite violent, such as the dunking booth style game where hitting the target caused a dummy to be electrocuted (I got a pic I'll post it soon :P). We had to take a ride on the bumper cars, which were nicely decked out. Green lights and a fog machine (there were literally hundreds they were EVERYWHERE in the park) gave the bumper cars a little extra thrill.

After only getting to do the island haunted trail thing and Superstition simulator last year, I wanted to get in as many of the haunted houses as possible. First was the Asylumn. Of note is the guys I saw near the Asylum (part of the scare crew) who wore thick kneepads and slid across the pavement, scaring guests. It was a nice idea, I must say. The Asylumn was a large mist filled maze of chain linked fences and mirrors. Inside 'cells' of chain linked fences were some of the 'patients', and while I don't know how scary I would call it (many others were scared of everything so don't take my word for it), it was definitly humorous. The 'nurse' walking around looked exactly like the nurse on that old game Theme Hospital, I swear ;). Next, it was on to Dungeon of Doom.

I stupidly made the same mistake I did last year of following the map around to the front entrance where the actual building for Dungeon of Doom is, while the queue line was over in the Animation Station area. The line was only about 10 minutes, and it was a very nice haunted house. I love how the human creatures cannot actually touch you due to liabilities :P. There were some nice animatronics and suprises, especially when the normal looking maid turned around from dusting only to have the entire left side of her face bloodied :).

I had missed the Circus of Horrors 3D last year and was disappointed earlier to see it not open. Luckily, after Dungeon of Doom it was open. This was probably my favorite attraction. It was not really scary, but 'neat' would be the way to describe it. It was a walk through attraction in the laser tag building with 3-D glasses. Bright colors and shapes that popped out provided a nice effect, and it was hard to tell whether a clown was an actor or a real person with the 3-D glasses on.

Next it was on to Bloodbath Bayou, the only Scarowinds attraction (with the exception of Superstition, which I did last year) we had yet to do. It was on the former Smurf Island and very similar to last year's island attraction. It provided the same gimmicks as the haunted houses (with the addition of a chainsaw and some fake lightning), and they were not as effective as they had been before.

We decided to try and hit Thunder Road and Top Gun before leaving. Fowards had a small 'issue' going on in the loading platform (try a large helping of puke), so we hit backwards. Sitting three seats from the back, it was a bumpy ride, but still a good bit of fun. We then waited about 30 minutes for the front seat of Top Gun, for the final ride of the season. Sitting front row, third seat, it was an amazing ride in the pitch black of night, and a great finale to the season. It was also my 85th ride this year.

I will add Scarowinds photos to the gallery at Starcoasters.com soon as well as a detailed feature on Halloweens in the Parks that may also include photos and features from Six Flags Astroworld's celebration and Six Flags America.

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Top Gun: The Jet Coaster Flights in 2001: 83
Coaster Tracks Ridden: 57
http://www.starcoasters.com

Did you get a pic of the puke?
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I've got laser eyes, and I know what you're thinking. It comes to no surprise, the Christmas lights are blinking.

Now THAT is scary!
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Son of Drop Zone - PKI CoasterCamp I Champions!!!