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Carowinds Discussion Thread

P. 417 - Fury back open now with 100% less crack!

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Dinosaurs Alive is leaving at the end of this season as well... 2 nice big plots of land where something can go.

Don't count the rapids out just yet however...We'll see about that later on.

 

As far as a new coaster next year? Don't count on it...lol

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Rip out Vortex and you have a neat transition between it and the RRR area. A chance to go over the walkway twice.

 

Maybe a wing coaster with an almost-upside-down element over the walkway - once with the left side getting the big "swing", and once with the right side.

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Rapids is a goner. There's nothing mechanically wrong with it. It is a simple concrete slide with a simple pump system. The real problem is having a capacity worse than Nighthawk. I'm glad to see it go.

 

Now, a Valravn and Steve one-two punch would mean a new coaster opening 2021, not next year. Math is hard.

 

Vortex isn't worth converting to floorless anymore. It sucks and no one who has ridden it before, rides it again. Bye bye. Does it HAVE to be removed for a new RMC? No. But it would make another great front gate statement and provide great midway interaction. If vortex was removed for this, the gentle slope from where the ride sits down to Fury would make awesome terrain for a woodie.

 

Another option is removing screamweaver and having midway interaction over there. Everyone knows that's the worst looking section of midway in the entire park. An RMC stall placed over top would make it the best looking section.

Edited by Cavan
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Vortex isn't worth converting to floorless anymore. It sucks and no one who has ridden it before, rides it again. Bye bye. .

 

Based on?

 

I love that you can look things up now so you don't have to rely on anecdotal crap.

 

The ride has bad capacity but it usually has comparable wait times to Intimidator. That ride is a capacity whore and Vortex is a capacity disaster (assuming it's been running one train which it probably has, if it's running two then it's still bad but slightly less awful) so I'm not implying that it's a more popular ride but people prove almost daily that they'd happily wait 20-40 minutes for it.

 

I get that you personally don't like it but don't try to apply your opinion to the rest of the world. If they did anything to this ride they would probably just convert it to a floorless coaster since they've done it twice before, though I wouldn't care if they just left it alone either.

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[Vortex] has bad capacity but it usually has comparable wait times to Intimidator. That ride is a capacity whore and Vortex is a capacity disaster (assuming it's been running one train which it probably has, if it's running two then it's still bad but slightly less awful) so I'm not implying that it's a more popular ride but people prove almost daily that they'd happily wait 20-40 minutes for it.

 

I've been at the park almost every operating day so far this year. I've ridden (checks his logs) Intimidator 4 times and Vortex twice and walked by both numerous times. In my personal experience, Vortex has been running two trains, with very little queue. If there's a 20-minute wait, it's because you're at the bottom of the stairs and they have horribly-slow dispatch times. Even with that, it's not at a constant 20-minute, and certainly not a 40-minute.

 

I've never seen queue-times. How do they determine those wait times? Cause I'm going to assume it's by people reporting their wait times. And that's just as anecdotal as our own experience.

 

Rip out Vortex

 

Why would they do that?

 

Because the ride is too short (which was a complaint in 1992) and I don't think adding a different train type will build enough demand to be worth it. Take it out and couple it with a new ride that takes over RRR. It'll bring much higher demand, and the look of a ride "interacting" with that walkway will be much more pleasing than a ride essentially hidden by the shops, bathroom, and ivy-covered tunnel.

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How do they determine those wait times? Cause I'm going to assume it's by people reporting their wait times. And that's just as anecdotal as our own experience.

 

The wait time is pulled from the park's app automatically. While not 100% accurate it's much more accurate than anything else we can go by. The fact that the park is running 2 trains actually makes my point even stronger.

 

It's not the most popular ride in the world and I already stated that it's capacity clearly sucks and plays a major role in it's wait times but the ride seems popular enough if people will routinely wait between 20-45 minutes for it (albeit usually on the lower end, it looks like the park was slammed Thursday and Saturday when it hit 45).

 

In addition they probably have tons of free spare parts for the trains thanks to California's Great America and it doesn't seem to have any chronic or expensive mechanical problems (maybe it does but it's a B&M and it usually seems to be operating so there's no reason to think this). There's also no shortage of expansion space... there's just no reason to remove this ride. It's not an enthusiast favorite but clearly enough people like it.

 

People just want it removed because they personally don't like it.

Edited by coasterbill
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It's not the most popular ride in the world and I already stated that it's capacity clearly sucks and plays a major role in it's wait times but the ride seems popular enough if people will routinely wait between 20-40 minutes for it. In addition they probably have tons of free spare parts for the trains thanks to California's Great America and it doesn't seem to have any chronic or expensive mechanical problems and there's no shortage of expansion space... there's just no reason to remove this ride. It's not an enthusiast favorite but clearly enough people like it.

 

But people aren't waiting 20-40 minutes for it. You'd be lucky to see a 20-minute wait. Trusting the Carowinds app for wait times isn't any more accurate than my own eyes, though I do understand the website probably considers it the most accurate source. I'm not even sure how the app determines wait times.

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At most parks the ride ops call in the wait times. Nobody is claiming that any park's wait time app is gospel but it's also much better than estimates by coaster enthusiasts who walk by the ride occasionally throughout the day.

 

Ride ops don't generally call in and report ridiculous wait times just for kicks though, I guarantee that it hit about 45 minutes at some point on those two days because the number came from somewhere. Usually when wait times are wrong it's because the wait time was right when they reported it but then it dropped dramatically and they took their time updating it again because it's not exactly their #1 priority (for example, they reported that the ride had a 15 minute wait time at 10pm last Wednesday and I would bet anything that it was a walk-on by that point, I also have a strange suspicion that the reason it went to 45 minutes for the first time all day at 6pm on Thursday was because it went down to 1 train briefly because nothing else would really explain that).

 

I wasn't there obviously, but you can sort of read the tea leaves with a little common sense.

 

... anyway, if people want to argue semantics on wait times being off by 10 minutes here or that it doesn't really change the overall point. The point is that there's no reason to get rid of Vortex. It's reasonably popular, they already have a ton of expansion space and they're likely sitting on a mountain of free spare parts.

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^ Seriously, with Dinos on the way out and the rapids already gone they have enough room for pretty much anything they could possibly want (they could easily build a massive coaster on each plot if they wanted to which they probably don't since they just built one). I don't know why people expect them to remove a reasonably-popular and reliable coaster that they probably have tons of spare parts for to free up a plot of land that's no larger than either of those and much more awkward. If this ride were at Knott's or something I could totally understand why everyone had the pitchforks out but it makes no sense at Carowinds.

Edited by coasterbill
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People just expect parks to build RMCs and Intamins all over the place full of ejector air versus literally anything else. The people who really want those particular exact type of rides is probably less than 1% of a parks annual attendance.

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Rapids is a goner. There's nothing mechanically wrong with it. It is a simple concrete slide with a simple pump system. The real problem is having a capacity worse than Nighthawk. I'm glad to see it go.

Sorry to say but that is not true. The ride, as it was explained to me, was getting to the point where it was difficult to replace parts since it was pretty much made in house. Coupled that with low ridership (not capacity) and you have a good excuse for getting rid of it. The park already has low capacity per guest go they wouldn't just go get rid of a ride because the capacity is low.

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I was also thinking about the Dinos Alive plot of land, except I was thinking it was already out until I checked the park map a minute ago and realized it's still there; however, before I scrapped my initial reply, I was thinking the Dinos Alive plot would be a much better fit than the Rapids plot for a new coaster (because again, at the time I was under the misconception the land was already empty). Still, between the prospects of the two plots of land, I'd much rather see something built on the Dinos Alive plot to balance out the park a little bit. Dinos Alive has been going extinct all around the chain and I only expect to see it go very soon from Carowinds. This is possibly already a common observation (again, I haven't been following as much as I used to) but Dino's Alive has run a six year life at all the parks where it has closed (2011-2017 CP, 2012-2018 the rest) and with VF/WoF/Carowinds all having been the last built in 2013 I could see the rest of them closing at the end of this year.

 

I don't want to say it because I feel it's too much speculation, but I think I (maybe?) remember reading something about how Dinos Alive was supposedly only a six-year contract for Cedar Fair, but I really wouldn't know anymore if I had read that somewhere reliable or if I'm just imagining it. Anyone know, just out of curiosity?

 

I'm a little disappointed Carowinds is removing their rapids ride as I'm a big fan of those rides, and initially was imaging there was enough space on that plot to build ride ala-Mystic TImbers over it, but realized this was unlikely after a look on Google Maps. I am at least excited to see what will come. Personally, I hope it's some sort of water attraction to help retain a balance of water rides in the park, especially one that can get so hot.

 

As for if a new wooden coaster comes to Carowinds, I hope it's a GCI. GCI may not make enthusiasts' ideal rides, but I've never gotten off one and not thought it was a lot of fun. Their recent work Cedar Fair has been particularly exceptional, however; if you have not gotten out to ride new Ghostrider or Mystic Timbers you should. They both felt surprisingly out of control and a lot more fast/intense than any other GCI and might even be two of my favorite traditional woodies ever. I hear Gold Striker is very good too, but I have not made it out there yet.

 

This is one of those rare cases where I'd even prefer a GCI to a ground-up RMC as I've always thought what makes Carowinds lineup feel incomplete is it's lack of a decent wooden coaster after Thunder Run left, especially in contrast to the other Cedar Fair parks (Canada's Wonderland is the same way; Cedar Point I make an exception). Considering the smaller parks got GCI's years ago, this bothers me. Carowinds still has that POS Hurler they can RMC in the future.

Edited by RollerManic
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Dinos Alive has been going extinct all around the chain and I only expect to see it go very soon from Carowinds. This is possibly already a common observation (again, I haven't been following as much as I used to) but Dino's Alive has run a six year life at all the parks where it has closed (2011-2017 CP, 2012-2018 the rest) and with VF/WoF/Carowinds all having been the last built in 2013 I could see the rest of them closing at the end of this year.

They definitely are gone. From what I understand, it was a contracted 6-year attraction, which is up at Carowinds this year.

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I don't know why people expect them to remove a reasonably-popular and reliable coaster that they probably have tons of spare parts for

My argument for removing it is that it's not a popular ride. And, spare parts won't help much if they convert to floorless.

 

With all of what I've said, I really couldn't care less what they do with Vortex. With the nearby rapids plot opening, it would allow some extra room for whatever goes in Rapids to have some space across the walkpath to play with. The wing coaster idea is simply a wish and my idea of making that section of the park work with the already-existing land to thrill both riders and people walking by - just as Fury does with its over-and-under at the entrance.

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I honestly wouldn't be shocked if they don't convert it (admittedly I wouldn't be shocked if they did either). Like you said, the other conversions didn't do much for ridership. Rougarou's ridership did improve after the conversion but only slightly. I'm sure they expected a much bigger bump. Honestly they might as well just leave it as-is.

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The reason that an old, clunky B&M would stick around for a time longer is the same reason why old and clunky Arrows have stuck around this long (and will continue to do so).

 

Love em' or hate em' - they're workhorses.

 

]
Rip out Vortex

 

Why would they do that?

 

Because the ride is too short (which was a complaint in 1992) and I don't think adding a different train type will build enough demand to be worth it.

 

But Patriot/Vortex is even shorter (by a little) and that didn't stop them from converting it to floorless.

 

Carowinds' Vortex might get converted some day it might not. Either way, I don't think its going bye bye anytime soon.

 

EDIT: And as a side note, I'm curious as to how much these floorless conversions cost. Any ideas?

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