Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
As I've said before, those trips happen. You know what I'm talking about. Trips where this happened. And that happened. And maybe some coasters were ridden but nobody cares because the various shenanigans that surrounded the coaster riding are absolutely legendary. You'll be an 80 year-old ACE/ECC member laughing about it with your buddies decades down the road. This was one of those trips.
While I'm still very much loyal to RMC as my favorite ride manufacturer, there's been another coaster company that's been interesting me more and more over the years: Mack Rides. It's not like I have yet to experience one of their creations; I've ridden several Mack wild mice and a Mack spinner, and they're a lot of fun for what they are. But roughly around the time I got into coasters, they started pushing the envelope and getting into the market of bigger, white-knuckle, high-thrill E-ticket coasters, mostly in Europe and Asia where I've not been yet. But after hearing several good things about their coasters, from Helix's ejector/terrain combination to DC Rivals's insane backwards-facing seat, I knew I had to get on one. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to wait to get overseas in the name of coasters as one popped up close to home! Carowinds, a park that's been in my life since 2005, announced their new addition for 2019, moonshining-themed Copperhead Strike! And just like that, this Mack double launch coaster became for 2019 what Cheetah Hunt was to 2011 or Banshee to 2014! There was construction update stalking, a Planet Coaster ride inspired by it, and priority for 2019 travel given to Carowinds. Finally, the day to ride it came and I headed out there!
Day 1
The long, crazy trek to ride Copperhead Strike actually began Thursday when we picked up the rental car. Hertz had done it again and lost my rental, so the man at the counter told me he could just get me the same AAA rate I had booked online. Well we get the bill and he charged us for that stupid coverage you can get. When I asked about why, I was told you had to have it with the AAA rate, something I was almost certain was false as I was paying $250 for three days of a rental car with no underage fee, but didn't question it, not wanting to argue. Anyway, I got off work Friday, drove back home to pick up Kaylee, we got in the car, and headed off.
The drive east out of Ohio going basically anywhere south of Pennsylvania sucks. It's a virtual rust belt wasteland consisting of nothing but trees, farmland, and farming equipment all the way to Point Pleasant. Once we were there...the drive still didn't get much better as it's still West Virginia. We breezed right through my least favorite US state all the way to Charleston, and that's where stuff got interesting.
Just past Charleston, the rain picked up. A LOT. The front end collision detection feature in the Nissan Sentra we had rented was unable to keep working due to the torrential downpour soaking the winding mountain roads. Suddenly we hit traffic, which I assumed was the toll plaza that's right there on that drive. Man I wish that was what it was! Just 350 feet ahead according to Waze, we could look and barely make out a smashed up double semi truck flipped on its side. It blocked both lanes and the shoulder, bringing traffic southbound to a complete standstill. So Kaylee and I sat in a turned off car, rain pounding the windshield, for a solid hour and a half. Eventually the rain stopped and a guy that had gone to check out the accident was walking by, so I rolled down the window and asked him what was up. He said he worked as a firefighter and could tell it would at least be another hour, possibly more if there were other cars involved. Nope! Fifteen minutes later they righted the truck (with a front end loader of all things?) and let traffic drive past the smashed up truck and onto the toll plaza! And best of all, from what we could tell nobody was seriously hurt! We continued the last 45 minutes to our hotel in Beckley, passed another tipped truck/standstill traffic situation in the northbound lane, and got to our hotel and just blacked right out.
Day 2
Well the plan was to get up at 5 and get going, which was no problem for me, but Kaylee didn't want to get out of bed.
Eventually she got ready and we hit the road around 7. She slept most of the time but woke up just as we rolled over the state line into North Carolina, we were almost there! The twisty Blue Ridge highways dotted with wildflowers gradually flattened out into the piney forests of the Piedmont and before we knew it, we were in Charlotte! But as we rolled south of town and Fury crept over the horizon...we hit more traffic. This time to get into the park. The wait to get off the highway and into the park had slowed to a bumper to bumper crawl. Karens argued with parking attendants and people scuffled around their pants for season passes as the traffic slowly bottlenecked into the parking lot. Finally, we found a spot, got out, threw some sunscreen on, saw Fury lift stop at the top to confiscate a phone, and went in!
We had obligations in Charlotte other than Carowinds that weekend and with that limiting our park time, we decided to only do the main points of the trip; Copperhead, Carowinds's other good coasters, and the two credits Kaylee needed. She isn't a fan of Intimidator and it's not one of my favorites in the park so we decided to skip it since they were clearly lagging behind on dispatches. Got some good photos from the parking lot though! But we had smaller things to conquer...
It was crowded and it was HOT. Kaylee doesn't like the heat so before we did anything we got her some ice water. She separated it out too, water went in her mouth and ice went on her face. 91 degrees, it was approaching Texas 2018 numbers.
From a distance, it's small. It can't be seen from outside the park, it doesn't draw your attention from miles away on the highway like Fury does. It wasn't intended to be the game-changing addition Fury was, it's just another new coaster. This being said, it's gorgeous when you get up to it. It looks exactly like a tangled mess of copper distillery pipe from the ground.
We saw how bad the line was, remembered our limited time at the park, and I broke down and got us Fast Lane. So no look at the queue theming today but at least we got to ride! And noticed a nitwit with a phone out that got off Scott-free!
Guys it's good! It's really good!
Ride kicks off with a jojo roll, not unlike the one I experienced on Hydra, but this one is so much better with just the lap bar. You literally fall out of your seat and this fairly narrow contact area with your thighs is about all that's keeping you in. From there it turns into a nice show scene with live-action footage of Granny noticing trespassers in her little moonshine shed. Two guys are sent to take care of them when the train is accelerated (I wouldn't even call it launched, the point of this track is to get the train up to speed for the ride and that's it) into a nice hangtimey loop, followed by an awesome ejector hill akin to Cheetah Hunt or Maverick's. From there it rolls right through this perfectly designed and fabricated corkscrew before hitting a series of short, brisk, high-speed turns. Next up is the second launch, which the train again, more accelerates over than launches, but that hill-shaped profile that I was so excited about does add some floater, think driving a car over a hilly country road and getting a pop of airtime. Next up is the inverted top hat which leaves you dangling from your restraint once more. After that there's a really quick high-speed jerk to the side before another loop that's pretty identical to the first. Next up was my favorite part of the ride: a really good pop of airtime as the train twists into the Stengel dive through the loop, followed by a nice, snappy, elevation-changing transition that's also got some good airtime. After this it's just a mess of high-speed turns that isn't as interesting as the rest of the ride, but still fun enough to keep one engaged unlike Intimidator 305 or Maverick's first half. The ride ends with two violent pops of ejector and some garbled audio on the brake run we couldn't make out.
All in all, a very solid ride that's brought another thoosie into the Mack Rides fanboi club. The biggest thing with me and Copperhead is that I'm not usually an inversions guy. To me, inversions are usually just there to make a ride intimidating and give it a marketable statistic, maybe with some cool visuals occasionally. But while I don't see the point of inversions most of the time, Copperhead made me see the point of inversions. From the snappiness of that corkscrew to the insane hangtime on the others, it blends perfectly with the brisk, agile pace of the ride and the random ejector moments around the course. Add in possibly my new favorite steel coaster trains and I'm hooked! The only drawback to the actual machine itself is the middle part of the second half feeling sort of uninspired but the rest of the ride is incredible! Bring on Time Traveler later this year! And hopefully Helix soon as well!
After Copperhead, Kaylee and I were starving so we went to the new Blue Ridge restaurant over by Copperhead for some of Granny's home cooking. We both went with the sausage and mac and cheese and it was pretty solid. Also tried their Copperhead Strike hot sauce which I highly recommend, it was a little on the hot side for me but I'm a wuss with spicy food so I'm sure most people could handle it.
Oops we went back to Copperhead after for another spin.
With a shiny new B&M giga coming to our home park most likely next year, we were stoked to ride Fury again! When I first rode it in 2015 it was not only my new #1 but also the highlight of that season, so I was excited to see if I still liked it as much after more than doubling my credit count.
This comment might make some people Furyous, but it's no longer my favorite in the park. It rode just as I remembered it, I had a great time on it, but Copperhead is just so much better. But still, Fury rocks! Feels way oversped for a B&M and there's some killer airtime at the end! I unfortunately got stapled on my first ride but my second ride I absolutely flew up into my restraint over those hills! She's still an incredible machine but Copperhead's even more incredible.
Though back at home I prefer the giga over the blitz, Fury and Copperhead are definitely the Millennium and Maverick of the south.
Just two coaster nerds having fun...
Since we had Fast Lane, we decided to try out Hurler's retracking. Sorry not sorry for this one, but it didn't help the ride at all. I mean it made it smoother, yes, but it's still a mess of airtime-less hills and uninspired turns that beat the hell out of you. #RMCitorWreckit, seriously. I know it can't be exactly like Twisted Timbers, but I'm sure they could work something out. RMC this, put a GCI where Dinos is, and put a Gerst dive where Nighthawk is when its limited time is up. There could be awesome things for this park coming but I'm not sure how much longer I see them keeping this around, it wasn't particularly crowded either.
Kaylee wasn't doing too well in the heat after so we took another break. We found a bench under one of those shaded foliage walkway things and she sat down while I went to fetch her some water. We were about to call it done at that point but that's not how things went...
Had to get my money's worth with those Fast Lanes so we ended up on Copperhead again. #whoops
It actually went down right before we were supposed to load and we were about to walk away but just as we decided to, they cycled trains and opened it back up! Got a middle seat that time, airtime magnitude isn't as good but the hangtime is better here. And that's to be expected because, well, physics.
After that we got back to the car, blasted the A/C, and headed to Kaylee's sister's house where we were staying. We were treated to a wonderful dinner of Greek shrimp, bread, salad, and brownies!
And Kaylee also got to see her sister's dog Wonder again!
Day 2
We woke up at a pretty reasonable time and got going to Carowinds to gate crash Copperhead one last time!
Copperhead got a pretty good gate crash crowd but we were towards the front. Security even handled it really well, refusing to let anyone on if they got to the ride before the escort did. We didn't get first train of the day because we had to lock up our cameras, but we still beat the morning rush for the most part! Sadly, this was probably the one decent thing Carowinds did to control guest behavior that day...
Blue Ridge Junction is really nicely put together. It honestly looks like something straight out of Dollywood in terms of the product they've created. However, my only gripe is that for an area themed to the backwoods of the Carolina mountains, it lacks shade. Obviously the trees are going to need some time to grow in but it didn't look like many were planted. It's a small gripe to have about such a nice area but it is fairly noticeable on hot days.
Speaking of the heat, Copperhead has a drinking fountain in line for it. But what I found odd is that it has a water bottle attachment on it to fill bottles...you aren't allowed to bring water bottles in like with you. It's definitely a warm climate specific concern but this is a loose article problem parks could potentially solve with Six Flags cupholders. Because I'm sure there are people out there that couldn't handle a two hour wait on just a sip of water out of the fountain halfway through.
Copperhead Strike might be the best themed ride built by Cedar Fair. They seriously went all out with it, actually constructing buildings and setting the stage properly. They even got the little details right, such as the flowers in the window boxes on Granny Byrd's mountain cottage, the presence of corn around the property (used to make mash that's distilled into moonshine), and even the occasional clucking of chickens.
Good morning from Copperhead Strike!
Cedar Fair seems to have a thing with old vehicles as theming. Mystic just has the one truck but both Copperhead and Twisted Timbers are littered with old rusty farm equipment.
Good thing we didn't smash up this beautiful '57 Chevy! We'd have been getting Grandpa's brass knuckles for that! /insidejoke
They even went as far as to include a little Rise N Shine logo on this one!
THIS is where the trouble started. On the station stairs, some RUDE FRICKING IDIOT decides to just brush past the line and get back with his family. So not wanting to get line jumped, Kaylee and I told the station grouper, who asked us in turn to let him know if we saw them. So we see this moron in row two of the train sitting on the brake run while we're about to board. Kaylee flags down the grouper and we tell him, "row two on the train behind us." Well our dispatch takes a while and the ride ops start gathering in the back of the station as an argument takes place. We looked...they're yelling at the wrong family! Told him the dude had a pink-ish shirt with a shaved head, he's yelling at an entire family of four with a dad that happened to be wearing a red Ron Jon Surf Shop sleeveless tee. Kaylee and I shouted back at them that they had the wrong people and they kind of apologized, got confirmation on where they jumper really was, and sent the train. So we rode it, had a great time...and then coming back we see that they just kind of gave the guy a talking to and he got right back in line. No banning from the ride, no ejection from the park, nothing. They were super, super nasty to the family they thought was responsible, and I get that because line jumpers are awful people. But what upset me is that they not only barely apologized over it (I'd have been throwing free meal vouchers and stuff at them if that were me), but when they got the right guy he didn't get half the heat the wrong people did. Sadly, this would not be the only time we encountered uncontrolled line jumping today...
We Afterburned it next, stopping for a few photos in the process. It's still one of my favorite B&M inverts even from childhood, and my first one ever! Sadly though, it was dead even for a fairly busy day. This whole south entrance area needs a bit of a revamp, which I think a GCI replacing Dinos could easily do.
Suffering from a case of the munchies, we decided to do an early lunch next and headed for Harmony Hall! I had their pulled pork and mac and cheese, which was awesome as always.
Oh yeah, and this momma goose with babies felt the need to hiss at me for taking their picture.
Having ridden all we wanted to, last order of business was to get the two credits Kaylee still needed: Ricochet and Carolina Goldrusher. Ricochet was first, and the line wasn't that bad. However, they had to stop the ride for the best loose article situation ever: someone dropped their cane into a low zone. I'm totally cool with someone bringing a cane to a park if they need it to get around, why do you need it on the ride? The ride ops should have both caught that and not let this person ride with it, but because it was a medically necessary item, they stopped operation to go in after it. Furthermore, while it was stopped, the team lead was on his stomach picking trash out of the station brakes, turns out some moron also dropped their iPhone onto the tracks and it had been chilling in the brake hardware all morning, he was just being opportunistic and grabbed it. So we rode it and it was a good ride as Ricochet usually is, and headed to Goldrusher!
I don't even have photos outlining this experience, but it was the perfect icing on the cake to everything that's wrong with Carowinds guest conduct. We went to Goldrusher to grab the cred and go to be treated to two train ops taking forever just because of slow dispatch speed. Okay, I can forgive that, it's not exactly Fury. We were next to get on when the station gate and some older lady with a school group slips under the queue rail with a child and declares, "CAN I GO IN FRONT OF YOU I'M CHAPERONING!!!" We basically had to let her because we didn't want things getting ugly and confusing on the platform with kids and open station gates but it threw off another family that we had played musical rows with so they could ride together. Happened right in front of a ride op and of course, nothing was done. So then that train goes and after our sluggish dispatch...some idiot is holding a GoPro high above his head filming the ride. It was clearly on his wrist, it's clearly against policy, it was very obvious what this man was doing. So we ride the ride, it's not the greatest but I do see similarities with Runaway Mine Train now that I've ridden both. We get back to the station, tell a ride op so he can make the guy delete the footage and ensure it doesn't encourage more bad behavior. And guess what? Nothing was done. So we left Goldrusher, snagged a few Copperhead things on the way out, and drove off into the sunset back to Dayton, getting a much smoother return trip than we did coming out.
I'm not going to sit here and complain that my girlfriend and I went to a major park out of state for the weekend. We had a great time, honestly. The coasters there were incredible and Carowinds is a really nice park. Getting to meet Kaylee's sister was really nice as well. However, I do think Carowinds has some guest conduct issues that need addressed. We counted a total of four phones out, two loose articles dropped, and two line jumping situations that were almost to completely ignored. I love the place, I grew up with it in a way, I saw it go from a smaller regional park to a destination that's getting its own on-site hotel. It's a wonderful park that's going wonderful places, they just need to rise to the occasion a bit more to deal with the bigger crowds that are now coming in. At Cedar Point you wouldn't see phones or line jumping tolerated in the slightest, Carowinds should be doing the same. But despite flipped trucks and idiot park guests, we had an incredible weekend and I can't see what the future holds for this park!
While I'm still very much loyal to RMC as my favorite ride manufacturer, there's been another coaster company that's been interesting me more and more over the years: Mack Rides. It's not like I have yet to experience one of their creations; I've ridden several Mack wild mice and a Mack spinner, and they're a lot of fun for what they are. But roughly around the time I got into coasters, they started pushing the envelope and getting into the market of bigger, white-knuckle, high-thrill E-ticket coasters, mostly in Europe and Asia where I've not been yet. But after hearing several good things about their coasters, from Helix's ejector/terrain combination to DC Rivals's insane backwards-facing seat, I knew I had to get on one. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to wait to get overseas in the name of coasters as one popped up close to home! Carowinds, a park that's been in my life since 2005, announced their new addition for 2019, moonshining-themed Copperhead Strike! And just like that, this Mack double launch coaster became for 2019 what Cheetah Hunt was to 2011 or Banshee to 2014! There was construction update stalking, a Planet Coaster ride inspired by it, and priority for 2019 travel given to Carowinds. Finally, the day to ride it came and I headed out there!
Day 1
The long, crazy trek to ride Copperhead Strike actually began Thursday when we picked up the rental car. Hertz had done it again and lost my rental, so the man at the counter told me he could just get me the same AAA rate I had booked online. Well we get the bill and he charged us for that stupid coverage you can get. When I asked about why, I was told you had to have it with the AAA rate, something I was almost certain was false as I was paying $250 for three days of a rental car with no underage fee, but didn't question it, not wanting to argue. Anyway, I got off work Friday, drove back home to pick up Kaylee, we got in the car, and headed off.
The drive east out of Ohio going basically anywhere south of Pennsylvania sucks. It's a virtual rust belt wasteland consisting of nothing but trees, farmland, and farming equipment all the way to Point Pleasant. Once we were there...the drive still didn't get much better as it's still West Virginia. We breezed right through my least favorite US state all the way to Charleston, and that's where stuff got interesting.
Just past Charleston, the rain picked up. A LOT. The front end collision detection feature in the Nissan Sentra we had rented was unable to keep working due to the torrential downpour soaking the winding mountain roads. Suddenly we hit traffic, which I assumed was the toll plaza that's right there on that drive. Man I wish that was what it was! Just 350 feet ahead according to Waze, we could look and barely make out a smashed up double semi truck flipped on its side. It blocked both lanes and the shoulder, bringing traffic southbound to a complete standstill. So Kaylee and I sat in a turned off car, rain pounding the windshield, for a solid hour and a half. Eventually the rain stopped and a guy that had gone to check out the accident was walking by, so I rolled down the window and asked him what was up. He said he worked as a firefighter and could tell it would at least be another hour, possibly more if there were other cars involved. Nope! Fifteen minutes later they righted the truck (with a front end loader of all things?) and let traffic drive past the smashed up truck and onto the toll plaza! And best of all, from what we could tell nobody was seriously hurt! We continued the last 45 minutes to our hotel in Beckley, passed another tipped truck/standstill traffic situation in the northbound lane, and got to our hotel and just blacked right out.
Day 2
Well the plan was to get up at 5 and get going, which was no problem for me, but Kaylee didn't want to get out of bed.
Eventually she got ready and we hit the road around 7. She slept most of the time but woke up just as we rolled over the state line into North Carolina, we were almost there! The twisty Blue Ridge highways dotted with wildflowers gradually flattened out into the piney forests of the Piedmont and before we knew it, we were in Charlotte! But as we rolled south of town and Fury crept over the horizon...we hit more traffic. This time to get into the park. The wait to get off the highway and into the park had slowed to a bumper to bumper crawl. Karens argued with parking attendants and people scuffled around their pants for season passes as the traffic slowly bottlenecked into the parking lot. Finally, we found a spot, got out, threw some sunscreen on, saw Fury lift stop at the top to confiscate a phone, and went in!
We had obligations in Charlotte other than Carowinds that weekend and with that limiting our park time, we decided to only do the main points of the trip; Copperhead, Carowinds's other good coasters, and the two credits Kaylee needed. She isn't a fan of Intimidator and it's not one of my favorites in the park so we decided to skip it since they were clearly lagging behind on dispatches. Got some good photos from the parking lot though! But we had smaller things to conquer...
It was crowded and it was HOT. Kaylee doesn't like the heat so before we did anything we got her some ice water. She separated it out too, water went in her mouth and ice went on her face.
91 degrees, it was approaching Texas 2018 numbers.
From a distance, it's small. It can't be seen from outside the park, it doesn't draw your attention from miles away on the highway like Fury does. It wasn't intended to be the game-changing addition Fury was, it's just another new coaster. This being said, it's gorgeous when you get up to it. It looks exactly like a tangled mess of copper distillery pipe from the ground.
We saw how bad the line was, remembered our limited time at the park, and I broke down and got us Fast Lane. So no look at the queue theming today but at least we got to ride! And noticed a nitwit with a phone out that got off Scott-free!
Guys it's good! It's really good!
Ride kicks off with a jojo roll, not unlike the one I experienced on Hydra, but this one is so much better with just the lap bar. You literally fall out of your seat and this fairly narrow contact area with your thighs is about all that's keeping you in. From there it turns into a nice show scene with live-action footage of Granny noticing trespassers in her little moonshine shed. Two guys are sent to take care of them when the train is accelerated (I wouldn't even call it launched, the point of this track is to get the train up to speed for the ride and that's it) into a nice hangtimey loop, followed by an awesome ejector hill akin to Cheetah Hunt or Maverick's. From there it rolls right through this perfectly designed and fabricated corkscrew before hitting a series of short, brisk, high-speed turns. Next up is the second launch, which the train again, more accelerates over than launches, but that hill-shaped profile that I was so excited about does add some floater, think driving a car over a hilly country road and getting a pop of airtime. Next up is the inverted top hat which leaves you dangling from your restraint once more. After that there's a really quick high-speed jerk to the side before another loop that's pretty identical to the first. Next up was my favorite part of the ride: a really good pop of airtime as the train twists into the Stengel dive through the loop, followed by a nice, snappy, elevation-changing transition that's also got some good airtime. After this it's just a mess of high-speed turns that isn't as interesting as the rest of the ride, but still fun enough to keep one engaged unlike Intimidator 305 or Maverick's first half. The ride ends with two violent pops of ejector and some garbled audio on the brake run we couldn't make out.
All in all, a very solid ride that's brought another thoosie into the Mack Rides fanboi club. The biggest thing with me and Copperhead is that I'm not usually an inversions guy. To me, inversions are usually just there to make a ride intimidating and give it a marketable statistic, maybe with some cool visuals occasionally. But while I don't see the point of inversions most of the time, Copperhead made me see the point of inversions. From the snappiness of that corkscrew to the insane hangtime on the others, it blends perfectly with the brisk, agile pace of the ride and the random ejector moments around the course. Add in possibly my new favorite steel coaster trains and I'm hooked! The only drawback to the actual machine itself is the middle part of the second half feeling sort of uninspired but the rest of the ride is incredible! Bring on Time Traveler later this year! And hopefully Helix soon as well!
After Copperhead, Kaylee and I were starving so we went to the new Blue Ridge restaurant over by Copperhead for some of Granny's home cooking. We both went with the sausage and mac and cheese and it was pretty solid. Also tried their Copperhead Strike hot sauce which I highly recommend, it was a little on the hot side for me but I'm a wuss with spicy food so I'm sure most people could handle it.
Oops we went back to Copperhead after for another spin.
With a shiny new B&M giga coming to our home park most likely next year, we were stoked to ride Fury again! When I first rode it in 2015 it was not only my new #1 but also the highlight of that season, so I was excited to see if I still liked it as much after more than doubling my credit count.
This comment might make some people Furyous, but it's no longer my favorite in the park. It rode just as I remembered it, I had a great time on it, but Copperhead is just so much better. But still, Fury rocks! Feels way oversped for a B&M and there's some killer airtime at the end! I unfortunately got stapled on my first ride but my second ride I absolutely flew up into my restraint over those hills! She's still an incredible machine but Copperhead's even more incredible.
Though back at home I prefer the giga over the blitz, Fury and Copperhead are definitely the Millennium and Maverick of the south.
Just two coaster nerds having fun...
Since we had Fast Lane, we decided to try out Hurler's retracking. Sorry not sorry for this one, but it didn't help the ride at all. I mean it made it smoother, yes, but it's still a mess of airtime-less hills and uninspired turns that beat the hell out of you. #RMCitorWreckit, seriously. I know it can't be exactly like Twisted Timbers, but I'm sure they could work something out. RMC this, put a GCI where Dinos is, and put a Gerst dive where Nighthawk is when its limited time is up. There could be awesome things for this park coming but I'm not sure how much longer I see them keeping this around, it wasn't particularly crowded either.
Kaylee wasn't doing too well in the heat after so we took another break. We found a bench under one of those shaded foliage walkway things and she sat down while I went to fetch her some water. We were about to call it done at that point but that's not how things went...
Had to get my money's worth with those Fast Lanes so we ended up on Copperhead again. #whoops
It actually went down right before we were supposed to load and we were about to walk away but just as we decided to, they cycled trains and opened it back up! Got a middle seat that time, airtime magnitude isn't as good but the hangtime is better here. And that's to be expected because, well, physics.
After that we got back to the car, blasted the A/C, and headed to Kaylee's sister's house where we were staying. We were treated to a wonderful dinner of Greek shrimp, bread, salad, and brownies!
And Kaylee also got to see her sister's dog Wonder again!
Day 2
We woke up at a pretty reasonable time and got going to Carowinds to gate crash Copperhead one last time!
Copperhead got a pretty good gate crash crowd but we were towards the front. Security even handled it really well, refusing to let anyone on if they got to the ride before the escort did. We didn't get first train of the day because we had to lock up our cameras, but we still beat the morning rush for the most part! Sadly, this was probably the one decent thing Carowinds did to control guest behavior that day...
Blue Ridge Junction is really nicely put together. It honestly looks like something straight out of Dollywood in terms of the product they've created. However, my only gripe is that for an area themed to the backwoods of the Carolina mountains, it lacks shade. Obviously the trees are going to need some time to grow in but it didn't look like many were planted. It's a small gripe to have about such a nice area but it is fairly noticeable on hot days.
Speaking of the heat, Copperhead has a drinking fountain in line for it. But what I found odd is that it has a water bottle attachment on it to fill bottles...you aren't allowed to bring water bottles in like with you. It's definitely a warm climate specific concern but this is a loose article problem parks could potentially solve with Six Flags cupholders. Because I'm sure there are people out there that couldn't handle a two hour wait on just a sip of water out of the fountain halfway through.
Copperhead Strike might be the best themed ride built by Cedar Fair. They seriously went all out with it, actually constructing buildings and setting the stage properly. They even got the little details right, such as the flowers in the window boxes on Granny Byrd's mountain cottage, the presence of corn around the property (used to make mash that's distilled into moonshine), and even the occasional clucking of chickens.
Good morning from Copperhead Strike!
Cedar Fair seems to have a thing with old vehicles as theming. Mystic just has the one truck but both Copperhead and Twisted Timbers are littered with old rusty farm equipment.
Good thing we didn't smash up this beautiful '57 Chevy! We'd have been getting Grandpa's brass knuckles for that! /insidejoke
They even went as far as to include a little Rise N Shine logo on this one!
THIS is where the trouble started. On the station stairs, some RUDE FRICKING IDIOT decides to just brush past the line and get back with his family. So not wanting to get line jumped, Kaylee and I told the station grouper, who asked us in turn to let him know if we saw them. So we see this moron in row two of the train sitting on the brake run while we're about to board. Kaylee flags down the grouper and we tell him, "row two on the train behind us." Well our dispatch takes a while and the ride ops start gathering in the back of the station as an argument takes place. We looked...they're yelling at the wrong family! Told him the dude had a pink-ish shirt with a shaved head, he's yelling at an entire family of four with a dad that happened to be wearing a red Ron Jon Surf Shop sleeveless tee. Kaylee and I shouted back at them that they had the wrong people and they kind of apologized, got confirmation on where they jumper really was, and sent the train. So we rode it, had a great time...and then coming back we see that they just kind of gave the guy a talking to and he got right back in line. No banning from the ride, no ejection from the park, nothing. They were super, super nasty to the family they thought was responsible, and I get that because line jumpers are awful people. But what upset me is that they not only barely apologized over it (I'd have been throwing free meal vouchers and stuff at them if that were me), but when they got the right guy he didn't get half the heat the wrong people did. Sadly, this would not be the only time we encountered uncontrolled line jumping today...
We Afterburned it next, stopping for a few photos in the process. It's still one of my favorite B&M inverts even from childhood, and my first one ever! Sadly though, it was dead even for a fairly busy day. This whole south entrance area needs a bit of a revamp, which I think a GCI replacing Dinos could easily do.
Suffering from a case of the munchies, we decided to do an early lunch next and headed for Harmony Hall! I had their pulled pork and mac and cheese, which was awesome as always.
Oh yeah, and this momma goose with babies felt the need to hiss at me for taking their picture.
Having ridden all we wanted to, last order of business was to get the two credits Kaylee still needed: Ricochet and Carolina Goldrusher. Ricochet was first, and the line wasn't that bad. However, they had to stop the ride for the best loose article situation ever: someone dropped their cane into a low zone. I'm totally cool with someone bringing a cane to a park if they need it to get around, why do you need it on the ride? The ride ops should have both caught that and not let this person ride with it, but because it was a medically necessary item, they stopped operation to go in after it. Furthermore, while it was stopped, the team lead was on his stomach picking trash out of the station brakes, turns out some moron also dropped their iPhone onto the tracks and it had been chilling in the brake hardware all morning, he was just being opportunistic and grabbed it. So we rode it and it was a good ride as Ricochet usually is, and headed to Goldrusher!
I don't even have photos outlining this experience, but it was the perfect icing on the cake to everything that's wrong with Carowinds guest conduct. We went to Goldrusher to grab the cred and go to be treated to two train ops taking forever just because of slow dispatch speed. Okay, I can forgive that, it's not exactly Fury. We were next to get on when the station gate and some older lady with a school group slips under the queue rail with a child and declares, "CAN I GO IN FRONT OF YOU I'M CHAPERONING!!!" We basically had to let her because we didn't want things getting ugly and confusing on the platform with kids and open station gates but it threw off another family that we had played musical rows with so they could ride together. Happened right in front of a ride op and of course, nothing was done. So then that train goes and after our sluggish dispatch...some idiot is holding a GoPro high above his head filming the ride. It was clearly on his wrist, it's clearly against policy, it was very obvious what this man was doing. So we ride the ride, it's not the greatest but I do see similarities with Runaway Mine Train now that I've ridden both. We get back to the station, tell a ride op so he can make the guy delete the footage and ensure it doesn't encourage more bad behavior. And guess what? Nothing was done. So we left Goldrusher, snagged a few Copperhead things on the way out, and drove off into the sunset back to Dayton, getting a much smoother return trip than we did coming out.
I'm not going to sit here and complain that my girlfriend and I went to a major park out of state for the weekend. We had a great time, honestly. The coasters there were incredible and Carowinds is a really nice park. Getting to meet Kaylee's sister was really nice as well. However, I do think Carowinds has some guest conduct issues that need addressed. We counted a total of four phones out, two loose articles dropped, and two line jumping situations that were almost to completely ignored. I love the place, I grew up with it in a way, I saw it go from a smaller regional park to a destination that's getting its own on-site hotel. It's a wonderful park that's going wonderful places, they just need to rise to the occasion a bit more to deal with the bigger crowds that are now coming in. At Cedar Point you wouldn't see phones or line jumping tolerated in the slightest, Carowinds should be doing the same. But despite flipped trucks and idiot park guests, we had an incredible weekend and I can't see what the future holds for this park!
