Paramount's Carowinds Opening Day

Well, we have been Assimilated and the Borg took over for the day seemingly assimilating everything. I'll explain:

Top Gun the Jet Coaster...New seats and restraints. Today is the fastest run I've experienced. The elements were intense and you could feel the Gs down in your toes. When we exited the Batwing all I could say is Damn!! Top Gun was in awesome form.

Thunder Road...A lot of re-tracking and new lumber in place along with seat belts added for your protection. The backwards side was smooth from exit to entrance. Did not ride the forward side today, will do that tomorrow.

Drop Zone...New paint from bottom to top including the seats and surroundings. The ride was sweet as usual.

Hurler...This was still being assimilated as it did run but never when I went to it.

Vortex...New paint from the rails, track, supports, trains along with new seats and restraints. This is a great looking ride and a fantastic standup. The ride was more intense today than in years past but the smoothness was still there except for the B&M corkscrew (just a not to keep your head out from the restraints).

Scooby Doo ...Ok, it's a jr. coaster but still a great woody. This was offered in the ERT so we took advantage of it and enjoyed the warm up to bigger things.

Carolina Cyclone...They removed the top of the tunneled helix for some reason but did repaint the trains and added new restraints. The ride is as cool as a corker gets. One thing for WeeWeeSlap to take note of though is all the tracks I downloaded from him I kept talking about the crazy banking before a couple of his elements. Well, this coaster has the same style!! As you start your turn around and into the corks the track dips down and angles you to the right then it goes up into the corks.

Borg Assimilator... Stealth? Yes, but no longer!!! With the paint job it received and the landscaping along with the enormous Sphere and sound effects this is one sweet arse ride. Yes, it did break down from time to time and they had signs up warning that they were still tweaking the new system and there may be delays. The ride itself was extremely smooth and high G machine from the loop untill the end. I waited about 45 minutes to ride it and got to take in all that they have done. Carowinds even has an elevator for the wheelchair patrons. No money was spared to re-create this coaster. One thing I am not sure of are the shoulder restraints. Were they kind of rubbery and stretchy when it was Stealth?

The overall Park has repainted and cleaned up very nice. So nice in fact you think it was a grand opening. The bathrooms were spotless with new advertising on the walls to read while doing your business. We now have a full time Chick-Fil-A and a soon to be opened CBS cafe. In the Nicktoons Cafe they installed flat screen monitors for their menu board (interesting choice and great to see). We now have a preferred parking area complete with guard to check your pass. There were security guards inside the park that checked your pass and if you did not have a Platinum Pass you got stopped and had to wait until 10am to go any further. There is a lot to say for what our park has done with the off season. With the few management changes that were made and acquiring Stealth they put in a ton of hard work getting it up to standards. Last year I, and many more guests, were so fed up with the park and its cleanliness we almost did not get passes but once I heard Stealth was coming here I decided to give it another year. That is one of the best choices I made towards a park.
With all the breakdowns today it was a little startling but Carowinds has always been great for getting the kinks worked out and making things work smooth for us. Borg did have glitches from time to time but so did ALL the other coasters which was unexpected but in a week or two they will have all the bugs worked out.

If you plan on coming to the Carolinas then I would strongly urge you to drop in for a visit, even if for one day, as Carowinds is a beautiful park once again.

wow, sounds like they did alot this off season, hope it stays this way.

(p.s, my 200th post[:D])

yea, they sure did a lot. It sounds like the park well feel fresh.

On my second visit today I was told that they have a long list of things to do at the park and they are still working on them and will be pretty much non stop improvements. Very good news for me!

http://www.carowindsconnection.com/feat ... rgopening/

http://www.pbase.com/jamminj/20040320

if you want to see pics of Borg up and running click one of the links above.
We were told today that the reason it is only running one train is the second train is not finished yet but should be a 2 train operation by next weekend.

I went today Well,first thing I did was get my picture taken for my pass then I went right over to ole Borgy (I got the front) It was very good you could really feel the G's on this ride especially on the loop overall it is still not better than my favorite,Top Gun.