Carowinds short report - GREAT mine train!

My first time at Carowinds today, me and my buddy got in late and had 2.5 hrs in the park before 8pm closing.

Very nicely kept park!

Intimidator (back, outside seats) - looks great, great fit for the park. People love it, very popular. Running 2 trains with about a 15 minute wait. Nice steep lift - the red lights at night look great. It's a B&M... They pretty much all feel the same to me. This was also my first time on the new staggered seating - the seats are more snug than the older B&M hyper seats.

Afterburn - once in back, once in 2nd row. Nice, steep lift (I have a thing for steep lifts I guess). The dugouts were great. Other than that, pretty much a spread out element to element 'Batman'.

Thunder Road (1x back blue, 1x front grey) - back seat was painfully rough. I'm suprised with all the new wood on the ride how rough it is. Front of grey was much nicer, and we asked the op to race the trains - which he did and of course made the ride more exciting. A couple interesting things to note about this ride is the PTC ratchet bars are similar to Viper at SFGAm in that they do not fall down (very rare). The other is that the side steel quide track is below the top track - someone else can explain it better. I assume this is b/c the ride originally opened with 2 trains from Riverview, Chicago's coaster (either Jet Stream or Fireball?) Those trains likely had flanged wheels.

Hurler (front) - better than I expected, running 2 trains, no wait. Trim brakes greeted us after the pull out of the first drop - on the straight away.

Cobra (front) - these new Vekoma trains with wide shoulder bars and added vests are more comfortable in that you do not bang your head. But you are held back against the seat and the rubber vest is not comfortable when being jerked around (perhaps it it were more of a material like the new Intamin soft restraints it would be better).

CCyclone (2nd to back) - full out fast as heck arrow. No pauses or slow sections. Little rough of course.

Ricochet - great mouse ride, I love these.

Carolina Mine Ride. Wowza what a suprise! Me and my buds favorite at the park so far. The tunnels/trenches are great, the ride is smooth, and can't wait to ride it a bunch tomorrow! What a suprise...

Tomorrow we'll hit Vortex, Night Hawk (was running one train with a long line today), and the 2 junior coasters.

I love CWinds mine train. It's starts out a little slow, and makes you think that that's it's pace, but at the end, it goes crazy, gets a lot faster, and dives underground.

Great short report!

I love Afterburn.... such a great ride!

I also really enjoy this park and will be going there in a month!

Wish I had seen this earlier....really hope you rode the interactive - very cool version!

Thunder Road, like the other racer/duelers, should ALWAYS sync up trains...just adds so much to the ride experience.

Definitely hit the dark ride tomorrow and ride Intimidator in the first and fourth rows. Much better than the back.

I went to Carowinds last year for the first time and LOVED it. I could have ridden nothing but the two Beemers all day and had a great time; as it was we got multiple rides on pretty much everything we wanted to and had a great day. I'll be going again in July.

I had an interesting ride on the mine train opening day last year. They never bothered to check the lap bars on the front car that we were in. We rode it with the lap bars locked in the up position.

Sound terrifying, Dave. For the first half of the ride, I'd be a little concerned, then when the ride gets crazy, I'd pray that it wasn't my last coaster ride of my life.

Isn't that how that disabled man died on Superman at SFNE many years ago?

Adults would have to make an effort to actually fall out even with the bar up (at 6'2" my legs are wedged in those things tight!) but little children would certainly have issues.

I agree with the general sentiment of this thread, the Carolina Goldrusher is an awesome ride. During Scarowinds the strobe lights in the tunnel and red lights in the below ground helix are really fun.

I found Intimidator to be pretty much as sweet in the middle as it was anywhere else. I rode in the front, back, and middle, and I found the back to be the most disappointing location of them all. Keep in mind, that's the "most disappointing" seat on what is arguably my favorite coaster.

DaveStroem said:
I had an interesting ride on the mine train opening day last year. They never bothered to check the lap bars on the front car that we were in. We rode it with the lap bars locked in the up position.

That's crazy! I do remember in the 80's (before the Lightning Loops death at SFGreat Adventure) at many parks/coasters, lap bars and harnesses were NOT checked. It was a quick visual look and off ya go.

I like the idea of computerized detection to make sure lap bars are low enough and locked - aren't Timberliners using this? That's one change I'm all for. May help eliminate the extra seat belts, slow dispatching, etc., and improve hourly capacities.

I was a Carowinds a few weeks ago and the same thing happened to me on the minetrain. My wife gave them the thumbs down before dispatch and the ride op walked over and said "I'm sorry" kicked the pedal and off we went..
2 occurrences on the same ride, I think CoasterDemon has a point!