Carowinds Discussion Thread

[DoinItForTheFame]

A non photoshopped version lol...

YES!!! So glad this was added!!! It looks great!!

[A.J.]

Check out the full-length real on-ride video of Fury 325!

 

 

On a personal note, it looks very graceful, which makes it [one of] my kind of coaster.

Edited March 25, 2015 by A.J.

[theredskull84]

I totally just now realized that it's been 15 years since MF opened, and Cedar Fair is opening a new giga that is 15ft taller.

[coasterbill]

I'm glad the barrier right over the tunnel is glass but I'm still worried that someone will throw something from that bridge one day just because people suck and ruin everything.

[ernierocker]

Ellen is excited about Fury 325!

New entrance plaza.

[DJeXeL]

^Looking good! Excited to hear the reviews!

[Ape]

I just watched the first train of riders go through today. I can't wait to read some reviews.

[ThemeParkJunkie51290]

Fury 325 trains waste no time going up that lift hill. It's pretty quick!

[robbalvey]

TPR is at the Fury 325 media day! Be sure to re-tweet ALL of our tweets today as we will be giving away Fury 325 stuff!

 

 

 

TPR is @CarowindsPark for the opening of #Fury325! World's Largest Giga Roller Coaster! Stay tuned for more updates!

 

OMG! #Fury325 looks AWESOME at night!!! RT if you want to ride! @CarowindsPark

 

TPR walking across the new entrance to @CarowindsPark with #Fury325 above! Beautiful!

 

#Fury325 looks absolutely amazing! RT to say CONGRATS to @CarowindsPark!

 

Awesome pano shot of @CarowindsPark new entrance with #Fury325! RT if you want to ride!

 

Some #Fury325 stats for you! @CarowindsPark

 

Ha! The #Fury325 shop is called "The Hive!" Love it! Awesome merch, too! @CarowindsPark

 

#Fury325 official opening ceremony is underway! @CarowindsPark

 

Over $18,000 raised in the #Fury325 first rider auction @CarowindsPark! Congrats Carowinds & Cam Newton Foundation!

 

#Fury325 @CarowindsPark is officially OPEN! (Media and invited guests today only.) RT if you want to ride!

 

There goes the very first #Fury325 riders! RT if you wish you were on that train! @CarowindsPark #FuryFever

 

First #Fury325 review in from TPR Member Rick: "Fury 325 delivers on speed but not so much on airtime" @CarowindsPark

 

EDIT: Derek & Eric's comments on Fury 325:

 

I'll let Derek & Eric expand on this more when they get back from the event, but here are some of their thoughts they communicated to me for Twitter:

 

"It's fast and curvy"

 

"Fast, fun, and curvy with floater air."

 

"It's better than Leviathan."

 

"It's semi-thrilling."

 

"The extra track delivers more thrills and add airtime that leviathan lacks."

 

"Floater first drop then just lots ofcurves and a few floater airtime thrown in at the end"

 

"GP will love it and it's good for park to attract new visitors."

 

"Overall, great ride! Fury 325 will thrill the pants off day guests, but may not totally wow seasoned riders as much."

 

Eric's full review:

 

This was my first time to the park, so I had no previous reference of what the park skyline looked like before, but I have to say with Fury 325, the park looks stunning from all over the area! As soon as you get on I-77 from the loop, Fury 325 is already visible.

 

Once again, since this was my first visit, I never saw the original entrance, but I was very impressed with the new entrance. Carowinds definitely achieved making a marquee entrance that will thrill and excite guests for years to come.

 

Now onto the new ride. I thought it was a lot of fun. The first drop will take your breath away and the speed up the 2nd hill is wonderful. At this point as you soar over the entrance plaza and out to the turnaround, the ride seems to go through the emotions a bit. It is still fast of course and there are some forces to be had, but the main purpose of this section of the ride, in my opinion, is to look nice and pretty for the front of the park. Now with that said, as soon as you drop out of the turnaround and down into the tunnel, the ride picks right back up! The drop into the tunnel takes your breath away and the first airtime hill has strong floater airtime. The ride hauls to the brake run and really seems to utilize the speed it has built up well for the finale.

 

Could the ride have done more with the height of the lift hill? Sure. As an enthusiast, I am a little jaded when it comes to what I expect in an extreme coaster. With that said, the ride is absolutely re-rideable and the General public is going to eat of up! Carowinds accomplished what it intended in building a marquee attraction that not only looks wonderful but is a lot of fun!

 

Now, for the media day itself. The park looked great and everywhere you turned you saw excited employees and special entertainment from the event. The opening presentation was well done. It was the perfect length and entertaining. After the presentation everyone lined up for that ride. Here is where my only real complaint about the day occurred. The park set up a separate line for media who wanted to get custom rider POV. The park had set up the 2nd row of two ofthe trains with a Go Pro, and The major problem here was that half of the people in line didn't know they were only waiting for one row. So not only did it take an hour plus to get to ride, but as we got go to the top we witnessed constant confusion by the media and the employees that were sorting the whole thing. The whole deal would of worked better at a separate time than the grand opening event. There was just too many people to try and satisfy all the media that wanted the Go Pro footage.

 

Enough about that and back to the positives...the park was kind enough to open Intimidator and the new, Slingshot for the event. This was much appreciated! And now, the food. The park showcased a lot of the new cuisine coming in 2015 and it did not disappoint. There was shrimp, oysters, duck meat, gelato, and a TON more. The food more than made up for the long wait for the rider footage.

 

To conclude, the park looks great, Fury is a great ride, and you should definitely check it out!

 

Derek's Review:

Time for my review of Fury 325 after 3 rides today!

 

Fury 325 was my 945th different coaster ridden and definitely changes the skyline of Carowinds forever. The new entrance right now seems very Cedar Fair-ish, lots of white cement and open spaces with no shade, but a giant hulking roller coaster all up in your face from the moment you park your car and walk in. So now Carowinds not only greets you at the south entrance with a B&M, they also do so at the north entrance.

 

The ride itself sits back where the skycoaster used to be, near Hurler and the diner. Fastlane and regular entrances exist, and no loose articles are permitted on the ride and there were no bins present in the station, all things must be secured in zippered pockets or in the fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo just outside the ride next to The Hive gift shop at the ride exit. No additional queue exits for guests wishing to wait for the front row.

 

The lift seems to move fairly well until the train reaches the top, offering ample time to check out the views of the park, planes taking off from the airport, and downtown Charlotte in the distance. The first drop is nice and long, though I felt it was a bit weaker than even other B&Ms like Apollo's Chariot or Nitro. The next sequence of turns, curves, and dips set up the sensation of speed you'd expect. To me, the banked turn over the park's entry didn't really do much and I really think they should have gone with an overbank or something. The far turn and dive below the entry plaza is great, and provides that extra push of speed before heading on to the bunny hills...until the trim grabs the train, more felt in the back. I wouldn't classify the airtime as normal floater, nor is it ejector, it's more like sustained floater, but it's good and gives the ride something else beside the speed and a bunch of turns. The helix doesn't really have much in terms of positive G's, but is a nice way to kill some of the speed instead of just slamming into the brakes. The final hills offer the same sustained floater air and make the ride seem more complete than Leviathan. It's a decent, fun coaster that is easy to enjoy, but it may not scratch all of your adrenaline itch.

 

I would rank it somewhere around 90-100 in my rankings, which would still put it in the B range of rides. It's better than Leviathan, but I prefer the other Gigacoasters to this, as well as several B&M hypers. I wasn't disappointed in my 600 mile drive to ride it, nor was I blown away to the point of planning to do the drive on a monthly basis or move to Charlotte or get a timeshare or something like that. It's a ride that the seasoned rider could expect B&M to make these days just by looking at the computer animations and POVs, more of the same old cold and calculated B&M that doesn't do anything really unique and different, but it's also something that the general public can eat up, tolerate, and reride. In the long run, that's really all we can hope the ride does, attract the masses and raise their levels so we can get crazier coasters for years to come.

 

Looks like Carowinds is already planning next year's investment, announcement coming in August and it will make a splash and keep Carowinds rolling along (or something like that). I'm calling Aquatrax!

Edited March 26, 2015 by robbalvey

[coasterbill]

The Hive at 325? I love it... just take my money.

[SFOGdude25]

LOL I just realized today is 3/25. Carowinds, you slick son of a gun.

Looks like Media Day is going great! Can't wait to see some reviews!

[hey...hey]

Everything looks spot on. Love the merch, especially the two shirts in the first store picture.

[aCoasterStory]

First #Fury325 review in from TPR Member Rick: "Fury 325 delivers on speed but not so much on airtime" @CarowindsPark

 

Well that's unfortunate.

[COASTER FREAK 11]

If that review surprises anyone, Im shocked.

[Mater]

Probably the best looking coaster that I've had absolutely no want or need to actually travel to and ride.

 

 

Pretty though!

[televisedconfession]

This will most definitely be a GP favorite. Good investment for Carowinds for sure.

Though from the (Now very clean and steady) POV, the front half looks pretty good, but the back half looks like a snooze fest.

Good job though over all. I golf clap it!

[michaellynn4]

If that review surprises anyone, Im shocked.

 

Ditto. Looks nice though! Love the new entrance.

[BlahBlahson]

It's a slightly bigger Millennium Force. GP will love it, so will the large majority of enthusiasts. How exciting!

[Shavethewhales]

I suspected all along that this ride was more about being a visual enticement for the park and less about delivering a notable ride experience itself. The drop and the low banked turn over the entrance bridge seem like definite highlights, but the oddly drawn out return hill, slow helix, and general lack of airtime on airtime hills are things you would expect them to avoid by now. Coaster design in general has been getting a lot better, but every once in awhile you can't help but point out when parks put visual marketing above all else. Definitely reminds me of when Silver Bullet debuted at Knotts and enthusiasts were dogging it. A decent ride for sure, but you know what they've left on the table because they designed it to look good for the GP and that was "good enough".

 

I'm still coming from half-way across the country to ride it this summer though.

[Mater]

That helix is seriously hilarious. What were they thinking?

[Derek_Zoolander]

Does Millennium Force distill down to an unremarkable piece of visual marketing/hype? I adore that coaster but it has not one lick of airtime, if Fury is any peer of Leviathan it'll have solid floater. No one was expecting ejector. Mounted POV looks great, I don't think the helix is ideal but it'll at least have headchoppers and some speed is held through the final hills. I'll be down for a Fury Floatfest 5000, I don't need every coaster to be like NTAG (literally) kicking me in the shins with air. Millennium demands an appreciate for height, speed and grace, and it's been a huge success for Cedar Fair. Why would they not emulate it?

[woolandmammoth]

Wow, it absolutely crawls back to the station. Looks like they really wanted this to be a trophy coaster like Gatekeeper. It looks magnificent, but perhaps prioritized aesthetics over everything else. I mean, that last helix is borderline pathetic for the worlds tallest and fastest non-launched coaster. Either way, I'm excited as all heck to ride (the first half) of this coaster in June.

[cfc]

I'm planning to head down to Charlotte this spring and check it out for myself. While I'm not anticipating a "life-changing experience," I'm sure that Fury 325 will be enjoyable.

[DrachenFire2]

First #Fury325 review in from TPR Member Rick: "Fury 325 delivers on speed but not so much on airtime" @CarowindsPark

 

Well that's unfortunate.

 

I figured it wouldn't be a coaster that was airtime inducted. Intimidator was the airtime giga. Fury 325 is the speed monster. I don't see a problem with it not being full of airtime at all. The speed of it is what's the thrill point. Granted, that last helix could've had more pop to it (would've been bad ass if it went into a inline twist, just my crazy thinking), but it's a nice "calming down" section to say the least, right?

Edited March 25, 2015 by DrachenFire2

[Ape]

Just like when people crapped all over Gatekeeper i'm sure i'll enjoy this ride too. I appreciate speed as much as i do airtime.