Pufferfish

^ I can completely confirm that we were very busy last weekend. We were originally closing at midnight on Saturday, but we decided to stay open until 1, if that gives you an idea how bad it was. Afterburn's line was 1 and a half to 2 hours long all night. This friday, I of course can't tell the future, but i'm pretty sure we will be very busy. We are staying open until 1:00am, which is the good thing, the bad thing is that CMS has no school on Friday due to a teacher work day. Crowds will be very heavy, probably close to the ammount we saw last Saturday. We open the gates at 6:30 to avoid overcrowding at the gates, be sure to get here as soon as possible. After you are in, do The Asylum first and then immediately run over to Cornstalkers. These are the two most popular mazes and can have 30 minute to 1 hour waits on even the lightest of days. Ride wise, I'd reccomend you to stay away from the rides unless the lines are actually fully contained in the standard queue line. If it's spilling out, it's probably got atleast an hour long wait. To get the most out of your night, I really strongly recommend doing the Prehaunt VIP tour. It gives you a meal and early access to one of the more popular mazes before the park even opens. That's all I have to say really other than, I hope crowds aren't too bad, and have fun. Be sure to come up to Afterburn and say Hi to me while I'm working.

You have done a very impressive job covering this park. Your photos are great, and I'm glad you had a great time, sorry I couldn't join. You have made me very happy with the collection of Thunderhead pictures. It is my favorite wooden, and you took a lot of excellent pictures of it. Great job! I am now patiently awaiting the next group of photos...

This is one of the best polls this site has ever seen. Babe 10 for the win!

Hooray! I have just sent in my initial payment. I will see you all on the IntimidaTour, I'm so excited.

Guy, if it makes you feel any better, I might come up for some snotsickle rides on Thunderhead. I haven't done their Christmas event before, so it would be something new.

Fallout3, I have spent over 100 hours playing it. I'm still not fully done with it either, I'm just taking a break for now. I will be trying to get all achievements for it though, so I'm probably going to spend another 100 hours on it. Second to that, old horror films. I'm adicted to horror films from the 70s and 80s. Nothing now-a-days matches the same awesome feeling that was provided in these great classics. I find myself when I'm bored randomly picking an old horror film and popping it in my DVD player. In fact my 2009 Halloween Horror Movie Marathon is nothing but classic horror films. If you want to see the itinerary of films for inspiration for your own marathon, I will attach the file for download. 2009 Halloween Horror Movie Marathon itinerary.txt This is what will have me up until 3 in the morning.

^^^The funny thing about your statement is, I love Blair Witch, but I personally think Paranormal is only good enough for 1 watch. Anyways, I've got some reviews to bust out. I posted the first two of these a while back, but it was during the hacking and they didn't get posted right or something. Some of you might have already read my thoughts on these, so I'll keep the first 2 short. Where The Wild Things Are: A movie that doesn't underestimate your kids. A very dark setting and storyline feeds to a good sense of realism and takes you back to the time your imagination worked like this. If you go see it, remember to bring a box of kleenex, it doesn't end happy. 8/10 Law Abiding Citizen: Possible candidate for best movie of the year. Excellently written, and even better acted. The characters are completely ambiguous letting you decide who to root for and making it seem like these could be real people. It's the American version of V for Vendetta. 10/10 Now it's time for the newest one I've seen. Saw VI: First I say they should have ended with the first one, then the second one, and then they definitely should have ended it with the 5th one. This is actually my least favorite in the entire franchise. They upped the gore a little, but the storyline just feeds off of what we already know. The only twist in the plot they tried to pull off was obvious and predictable from the start. It could have been better, but truly, I think it's time for this franchise to die. 3/10

I'd love to meet up, but work still has me occupied. Crowds on a Sunday shouldn't be too bad. You never have to worry about lines for the rides anyways. The longest line i've ever waited for there was 30 minutes for Mystery Mine on a Saturday in the middle of Fall Break, in other words, you have nothing really to worry about as far as the rides are concerned. If the crowds for the shows are looking like they might be a little big, you might want to consider picking up their very cheap and very worth it Q-Bot. Not much else to say other than, have fun, and yes you picked the most beautiful time of the year to go. Autumn in the smokies is like nothing else, although you might be just a tad bit early for most of the color changing. Your camera will still have a lot of fun though. Don't forget, you have to go to the Grist Mill. The cinnamon bread might just be better than any of the coasters.

I'm glad I got to ride it this year. It was actually one of the best non-coaster rides at CP, and it never had a line, which was one of the best things about it. It will definitely be missed. This just leaves me wondering, what are they going to be able to put in its place? Demon Drop doesn't really have too large of a foot print.

I would do it for boobs riding an aquatrax on the moon. Seriously though, this isn't a big deal. I know several people who are at Carowinds pretty much every single day during the season, and most of them will come ride the same ride once or more each time they are there. This is very plausible and actually a semi-normal occurrence.

Bravo bravo sir. The theming is superb and I am baffled at how you got the slides to work. This is one park I'm going to be following all the way. Keep up the good work.

I found what might be the best food item, second only to Double Decker bars and Flan. TGI Fridays Buffalo sticks. They are buffalo flavoured cheese puffs! They are so good!

Okay, let me start off by saying, this is now my favorite haunt ever. Out of all of the ones I have been to, then one takes the cake. It features 13 mazes and a haunted hayride. This is THE best haunt in the Carolinas. The place itself is located in the middle of the woods outside of downtown Greensboro. They have a really nice entry plaza with a live DJ, a couple carnival games, two food places, a gift shop, and a really cool horror museum. The horror museum was full of movie posters and production photos from several movies, all autographed. They also had several actual props from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Aside from that they also have a stage show, which sadly wasn't performed while I was there, Thursday, October 15th. They also have a special opening ceremony each night where they parade out all of the actors and then they have a group of people sing the national anthem in acapella. After the national anthem stops, the actors then turn around and start chasing people in the audience before walking back to get ready for everyone to walk through. Now, onto the main attraction. Each of the mazes were all strung together and you walk through each of them with the group you are sent in with. You are sent in in groups of 4 to 8 people depending on how large each party is. Elements of Terror: There's not much to say about this one. It has a couple nice props and effects including snakes, an airbag hallway, and a tilting floor. One warning, watch out for the toilet, it's not too pretty and your face will be right next to it. This maze is basically just to wet your appetite. 7/10 Nightstalkers: This is your standard corn maze elevated to a new extreme. This maze makes Cornstalkers at Scarowinds look bad. They use real corn! The usage of the props in here are really good, my favorite being the two school busses. This maze is actually very reminiscent of Jeepers Creepers. 9/10 Heavy Metal Nightmare: Nothing's cooler than listening to Slipknot while being chased by rockers carrying bats and guitars. Oh, and did I mention it's in 3-D? 8/10 Clown Town: Nothing much to say here. This is probably the second worst maze. It's just your standard clown maze. If you aren't scared of clowns, then this one won't bother you at all. The best thing about it is, this maze is in 3-D as well. 5/10 The Third Dimension: This isn't really a maze, but it's still a really nice attraction. It is basically a display of really cool airbrushed 3-D artwork. Its just very cool. 6/10 The Vortex: OMG, this is THE best spinning tunnel I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It is all lit in black light, it's extremely long, it's covered in random fluorescent paint spots, and it's in 3-D! This alone would have been worth the $15. 9/10 The Blood House: This is my least favorite here. The props and the settings were great, but other than that, it was severely lacking in length and good scares. 4/10 The Awakening: Classic haunted cemetery. The actors in here were some of the best in the entire haunt. They took their parts very seriously and weren't afraid to do anything to get a scare. 8/10 Horrorwood Cinema: They went all out with this one including realistic sets representing several large names in horror, including a replica of the Myers house. It starts out with one of the most realistic opening areas of any movie cinema themed maze I've been in, including a full working cinema showing clips from several horror movies on the screen. You then proceed to walk through all the really good sets based off of the movies including a section themed after Camp Crystal Lake, aka my favorite part of any maze here. Also, I just want to give a shout out to the guy who was playing Micheal Myers, he was the coolest actor there. 10/10 Black Beard's Revenge: The sets were very elaborate and the cast was the best in the haunt. Each one of the actors would go out of their way to talk to you. They took their parts very seriously and weren't afraid to crack a good joke or two. Also Blackbeard himself was very cool including being able to point a gun at people. This maze also had my second favorite set, the pirate ship. The ship is set up as a seesaw of sorts where it rocks back and forth depending on the balance of weight. 10/10 Miner's Massacre: A long tunnel filled with several great hiding spots including ones over your head. They made this place feel like a real mine with perfect lighting. Overtime fog was getting trapped in the maze and was just increasing in density so it just kept getting creepier as you progressed through. Overall this maze was done really well and ranks up as one of the best there. It is themed to My Bloody Valentine. 8/10 The Slaughter House: Fans of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre rejoice as soon as they get near this one. Just like the Myers house, they have made a replica of this house too. This is probably the best TCM maze I've been in. The sets are perfect and so are the actors. The only problem is that Leatherface doesn't really do much other than stand there and rev his chainsaw. I didn't see him once chase somebody. 7/10 Virus: Zombies in a junkyard, that's all I have to say. 6/10 And now the piece de resistance, The Imbred Redneck Hayride! I have never laughed this hard during a haunt attraction. This ride is like a PG13 jungle cruise through a trailer park. The actors here are THE best I've encountered, probably because most of them are just doing what comes natural (I can say that since I'm a southerner. Don't say anything like this near a true redneck unless you want a fight). The humor actually got R rated at times. This is not an attraction for your kids, but for anyone else, this is one of the funniest things you will ever do. 10/10 Now to wrap up, this place is just too awesome. The actors, even though they aren't really supposed to, will probably end up touching you. The actors here seem professionally trained and very natural in their positions in each maze. The price is totally worth its price. I recommend everyone anywhere near this place to check it out. It's a 2 hour drive for me, but I know I'm going to visit this place every year from here on out. If you would like to check this place out, here's the website.

Wow, that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen anyone do in RCT2. Having this amount of realism in the parking lot alone tells me, this water park is going to be straight up breath taking. After you're done with the park you should record a tutorial on how to do the parking lot, and of course the fully operational water slides. Anyways, great job with this and keep up the amazing work!

I love to run, but recently I haven't found hardly any time for it. I basically have stopped running since High School, but I'm wanting so much to get back into it. I just hate running alone and I can never find a running partner. I'm proud to say that back when I was doing XC my best time for the 5K was 23 minutes. My legs are still in the perfect shape they were in while I was running, but the rest of my physique is starting to leave. If anyone lives near me and likes running, I'd be more than happy to get a running partner.

My gt is Vibe9. I've been most recently playing RB2/Beatles and Left 4 Dead. I'll be getting COD6 when it comes out this November, so if you are getting it, add me and we'll play.

I just got back from watching Paranormal Activity, and let me tell you, DON'T LISTEN TO THE HYPE! This movie is no where near being one of the best horror films. In fact, I find it hard to give it a rating higher than maybe 6/10. There was hardly a story line, an excessive amount of unnecessary chatter, and most of the scenes were beyond predictable. This movie was nothing but 90 minutes of jump scares, most of which being nothing more than sound effects or changes in lighting. Another negative about this film is, it's very hard to take seriously. Most of the lines the actors would say would have the audience laughing. Now that I have said the negatives about this film, there are some positives I feel I need to share. The last 20 minutes or so of the movie is where it actually gets good. The special effects, what little there are, are done very well. Most of the special effects is comprised of some of the best stop-motion sequences I've seen in a while, the foot prints being my favorite. I also have to give credit to the actors for being very good at keeping perfectly still. The sound effects used in the movie are pretty good too. I liked how whenever something was going to happen, a loud hum would play leading up to what ever was going to happen. Sometimes though the sounds would be slightly out of sinc with the current action, but it's hardly noticeable. They over used one of the most unrealistic footstep sounds though. It seriously sounds more like someone punching a wall than someone just walking across the floor. Overall, the movie only caters to those who are easily scared. If you have a high tolerance over jump scares, then you will probably be very bored in this movie. I recommend anyone who thinks they may like this movie to go see it once. After the first viewing though, the film looses the only suspense it has and is then very boring. So go see it once, but then don't even bother watching it again unless you aren't paying for it.

Great trip report. It seems like CGA has a pretty nice haunt. Since you put up pictures of CGA's freakshow, it now reminds me how much I miss the one we had here at Scarowinds a couple years ago. Now that CGA has Dole whip, does that mean the rest of the CF parks will start carrying it? I really hope so, that is some of the best stuff ever made.

Name: Andrew Singleton Age:18 What is your roller coaster count? 84/ 88 counting traveling credits What is your home park? Carowinds What is the nearest big city? Charlotte, NC What is your occupation? Ride Operator About how many times a year do you visit a park (including your home park)? 25-50 About how many times a year do you travel to a park that is not your home park? 5-10 When you travel do you go primarily to amusement parks or do you also try and hit other sites? I'm a traveler, I like going anywhere new and doing anything I can there. What is the farthest you’ve traveled to go to an amusement park? 10 hour drive to Florida or to Ohio. Does roller coaster time get in the way of family time? (Do you choose to miss your children’s or family’s sporting events, holidays, birthdays, etc…) No. Do you have any other major hobbies? I'm also a writer and a gamer. Do you get feelings of sadness in the offseason? Do you even have an offseason? Do you travel during the offseason? I get bored during the offseason, but feelings of sadness, no. I do travel during the offseason for Thanksgiving and for New Years. Do you consider yourself friends with someone you met who works at an amusement park? (Or reverse it, if you work or worked and an amusement park have you made friends with enthusiasts?) I work at a park and yes i have made friends during my time working there. Would it bother you to go to an amusement park by yourself? No, I do it all the time. Have you gone to an amusement park by yourself? If so have you ever ran into another enthusiast and tagged along with them? Yes, and yes. Do you find it easy to make friends with other enthusiasts? Yes. How do you get your coaster news? TPR, Screamscape, and from parks' PR people. How many different forum sites do you regularly post on? 1. If there was a poll that asked a large pool of enthusiasts what their favorite roller coaster is, what do you think would be the top 3 responses be for wood? And for steel? Wood: 1.El Toro 2.The Voyage 3.Phoenix Steel: 1.Bizarro 2.Millenium Force 3.Expedition GeForce Same scenario but for amusement parks, what would be the top 3? 1.Cedar Point 2.One of the Disney Parks 3.IOA Have you ever “stole a kid” to get a credit on a kiddie coaster? No. Do you cut other categories out of your budget to make trips to parks? (Entertainment, fast food, holidays, tobacco or alcohol, etc…) No. Before you visit a new park do you research the park finding the best way to navigate the park, get the best deals, or what days to go? Yes. Do you feel the roller coaster enthusiast community is a warm and accepting community, or a negative and discouraging community? For the most part, very encouraging. There are some people in the community though, I have met some, mostly ACErs, that are straight up jerks. Do you like to talk about your hobby with people who are not roller coaster enthusiasts? Yes, it's more a feeling of sharing my knowledge, but only to people who seem actually interested in hearing about coasters. Mostly it's just to guests who visit while I'm working. I hope my answers helped.

Very good job with this. You did an excellent job on landscaping and support work. The layout itself was very unique and I was actually surprised by the part that went off into the woods. There is only one part that I see that might need a little adjusting. The banking transition on the track as it is leaving the turn over the pond creates a short pop of red laterals. Other than that, I can't find any other flaws with it. Good job! This is one of my favorite NL woodies now.

I love Wonderworks, it's a really awesome place and I personally believe that yes, it is worth the $20. The self propelled flat ride thing is a lot of fun, sorry it wasn't working for you, and most of the exhibits are really neat. Did you try their inverting motion simulator, or was it closed too? It gives a lot of really good hang time.

I'm all for it. I've loved Japan for a long time and I really want to get over there, so this would give me yet another good idea of what to expect. Also, just the appearance of some of the Japanese coasters alone tell me, this might be one of the best Raw DVDs ever.

^^I'm going to go see it in just a couple of hours. Toy Story has always been one of my all time favorite Disney movies, so of course I have to go see its re-release. Anyways, I'm excited and I'll give y'all a review when I get back. I CAN'T WAIT FOR TOY STORY 3!!! *end explosion*

I just got back from the midnight premier of Zombieland, and let me tell you. It's the funniest movie of the year! It is non-stop awesomeness and hilarity. Also for those coaster nerds out there, it has a pretty kick-a$$ scene on Wild Adventure's wild mouse. The park is presented really well in this movie and it wouldn't surprise me to see an increase in visitors the next couple of weeks. Anyways, bottom line is, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE! 10/10 That is all.

^ You make a good point, but I'm just saying to not discredit the idea yet. For all we know, they could have really liked Gwazi and just haven't thought to put in a new wooden anywhere else yet. They built Apollo's Chariot 10 years ago and love it, but you don't see another B&M hyper in any of their other parks. At this point anything is possible.