OK Carowinds I'm tired of this crap

For the third straight year carowinds has removed a ride/attraction my kids could do.And for the second year they have put nothing in its place. First we lost the wave swinger for a pay per experience(more on that in a minute). Last year we lost the kiddie skytower and the kiddie rapids were placed in hibernation. This year the Powerstation play area has been removed. Instead of the 2 ot 3 rides that could be placed in its location we got.....PICNIC TABLES

I know we have got 2 new coasters and an interactive dark ride during this time but out of the 3 only one can be ridden by young children and this is at a park that charges 3 year olds admission and full priced season passes.

My suggestion is that the next time the park throws some decorations on an existing area and calls it a new themed area that they invest in a lot of kiddie rides, 3 I can think of that would be popular are Frog Hopper,Crazy Bus,and Convoy. All of these could fit in the location of the Powerstation.

Now that pay per ride that replaced the swings. I have never seen anyone on this. Last year I never saw any employees working it and this year it didn't even look like it was setup(I've only been once) Great investment there Carowinds.

Now for the enthusiasts ... Don't think for 1 second I don't want that Hyper,I do. I just think the park needs some of the rides they have lost replaced with rides and not pay per experience, dirt., or umbrella tables. It's not cheap going to this or any park. Give us something for our money besides re- themed stuff that's been there forever.

I'm posting this on Coasterbuzz because it is a respected site

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JOHN
RCT INSOMNIACS
KIMBERLY LAKE INC.

Simply put, get over it. Carowinds is a great family park with a target being young families. They make the additions they make every year keeping this in mind, following what has been profitable for their park. If you want more thrill rides, go to SFoG, otherwise, leave Carowinds alone, they know what they are doing.

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"Enjoy your record-breaking ride on Millennium Force"

I don't think he was talking about "more thrills"... I believe he was talking about family rides (rides that his kids can ride) being removed and replaced by a) upcharge attractions or b) nothing.

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Kind of hard to take a post as objective if a park or coaster name is part of the "user name"

You missed his point entirely. He said that they need more family rides, not more thrill rides. Read the post before you grill him.

Although I've never been to the park, I would agree with you, although perhaps management feels that these rides don't bring in the kind of cash that an upcharge would, or aren't worth the maintenance costs for the gate price (basically nothing for little kids) that they gain from them. File a complaint at the PR office though, you never know what a difference one voice can make (and make sure you bring up the full admission for 3-year-olds point - its a good one and a policy I find ridiculous.)

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"As soon as you design something that's idiot-proof, the world will go and design a better idiot." ... Thank you EchoVictor!
--Brett

Wow, MFX, did you even read the guy's post?

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Touchè, teacher, touchè.

Uh...it's a frum? People discuss amusement park related stuff here I think. It's OK to complain last I heard. Anyway, yah, you might want to mention it to the park.

I have a similar gripe with PGA. They removed the train. Gotta have a train! Oh well, they'll be seeing less of my money now.

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

This is a perfectly acceptable place to post this. Why don't you guys leave moderation to the moderators, eh?

As more and more of my friends start to build families, I see this as more of a problem at a lot of parks. Building insane thrill rides year after years is one thing, but neglecting the other end of the demographics is a mistake.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Yup, it's why I only go to Magic Mountain every other year, and Knott's/Disneyland/California Adventure once or twice a year. And I have a lot more money to spend than a 14-year old. ;)

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

I met a family from Dallas, Texas at PKI the other day and they said they came all the way out to the park here in Ohio just to experience the "Best Kids Area in the World". They said they could only dream that SFOT could have something half as good as PKI's areas, which really surprises me that PC's isn't great with adding many family attractions in the past few years. Families count big time and even with 4 kiddie coasters at PKI, I often see a full queue for Reptar and Beastie on busy days. If this keeps up, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw #5 in a few years.

-Danny
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Coaster Insomniacs

Well, using all-caps in your reply went a little bit beyond just giving advice wouldn't you say?

Also, saying "... there is no need to come here and complain." sounds like moderation to me...not that I'm complaining or anything. :)

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

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Coasterdave said:

... there is NOTHING we can do for you.

Well, my beef isn't about whether or not you were moderating, that was Jeff. I was basically defending John. I think that it is obvious that we can't do anything for him. This isn't a customer service site. It's is, however, a forum where topics like these are discussed. No need to tell someone they can't.

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

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*** This post was edited by janfrederick 6/13/2003 12:50:57 PM ***

Someone takes stuff to seriously in this post. Time all of us need to turn the computer off and go outside.

*** This post was edited by Coasterdave 6/13/2003 1:04:39 PM ***

And take a couple of deep breaths I might add. When ya come back, try to be nice... ;)
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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

Coasterdave, I mean no disrespect, but at least have the tact to not delete your posts--now everyone else's responses make no sense.

Anyway...

PKD also has an excellent kids' area. Hanna-Barbera Land was incredible when I was a kid, but aside from improvements (although I do miss some of the old characters and attractions, like Yogi's Cave) to that section, it has also expanded out into a much larger area of the park, and themed to Nickelodeon. It truly surprises me that Carowinds, being a Paramount park, has not expanded their kids' area, and rather has chosen to remove some attractions from it.

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-Mike B.
Son of Hulk

I agree with john in the sense that I too have seen parks sacrifice the younger generation for the teen/young adult market a little too much.

As a new parent I am looking forward to exposing my children to the various theme parks I have grown to love and I hope there is something for them to do when we get there. Ideas like baby-swap on rides is great but those kids still want to have fun too.

What? Me be nice? It would be no fun then.

Never been to PC but find it odd that this is happening at a Paramount park. PKI's kids area is superb and I would think other Paramount parks would be following suit since PKI's gets so much recognition.

Being a mother of a 4 yr old I understand where you are coming from. CP is one of our favorite parks, but it could stand a little help in the "kiddie" dept. Camp Snoopy is great but Kiddie Kingdom could use some updating and new rides.

CP has plenty of flats that kids can ride but coasters are a different story. Woodstock is a great ride with a 36" height requirement. The next height requirement is 46" for a coaster. That's a big jump and can take 3-5 yrs for a child to attain. Now I understand that not all kids are ready for something with a 42" height requirement like say Phoenix at Knoebel's, but there are plenty of kids out there that are ready for that step. And something with a 42" requirement doesn't have to be something quite like Phoenix either. I think a Beastie type woodie would be perfect for CP.

I never would've thought I'd hear myself say that CP or any park for that matter, needs to add a smaller family friendly coaster. This is just something I realized last year after a trip there with our daughter and I've been going to CP since I was a kid. It's not till you have a kid and visit parks with them till you realize little thing like this.

OK, I made a mistake and jumped to conclusions. I'm sorry I grilled ya. :)

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"Enjoy your record-breaking ride on Millennium Force"

Lori, agreed. Fortunately for me, SFEV as well as Silverwood are very family friendly. In fact, they might be too family friendly with that darn new Timberhawk (but I will stop here on that one). Silverwood's two CCI coasters have very short height requirements, and although my youngest daughter was only 8, and just 42", she was very happy that Tremors was her first "real" coaster. Heck, who wouldn't be? She still brags to this day that she rode it first.

Being a father definitely impressed upon me the need for parks to be family friendly. I have never attended CP with my kids, so honestly, I have paid attention to what might be missing. It seems that it has a fairly large selection of flats, though. Carowinds is another matter. Granted, it's been some time since I was last there, but I can't imagine they just stormed off and purchased a lot of stuff. Here's hoping some changes get made. Heck, they could always buy some of the flats from the Puyallup Fair. They have enough of 'em... ;)

Besides, who wouldn't want a Frog Hopper? They rock!
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Hair Metal? I think not. - Click it, or lose it. ;)

I think Carowinds is one of the most kid-friendly thrill parks I’ve seen. And when I say thrill, I mean those parks that don’t target kids (ala Disneyworld, Universal). Frankly, I’ve been sick of all the kids’ stuff Carowinds has been offering for the past 5 years. Call me a “whiny enthusiast”, but Carowinds has a whopping 11 coasters, and 6 of them have a more family-oriented target! Plus, there are two sections devoted to kids. It’s about one quarter of the park. And don’t forget all the other new kids’ flat rides that popped up within the last couple years (Scooby Doo’s Haunted Mansion, Rocket Power Air Time).

It’s pretty much the only park around here that us Carolinians can visit. I agree that it’s frustrating to see that Carowinds removes rides just to place in picnic tables, or nothing. But it’s amazing to me to see that someone is actually complaining that the park isn’t family-oriented enough. Even if a couple kids rides are knocked out, there’s still TONS of more stuff that kids can do.

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Tales for the L33t