Summer Coaster Tour - Day 03 - Carowinds Pt2 - 2026/05/23

Let's continue the third day of our big roller coaster tour at Carowinds! 

Having done most of the coasters here, we started looking around to see what other rides they had. This spinning ride, Air Racers got a 5 out of 5 for thrill level. We'll have to go see what that's all about. 

It looks like a regular spinner at first glance...

But with those over the shoulder harnesses, we knew we were in for something more. 

It started spinning around with speed, but also started going upside down! And when it hung us upside down and spun us for seconds at a time, it was so much fun! I haven't heard Jacob laughing like that in a while. 

And when we finished, we knew we had to go around and hop in line again. This time Jacob and I swapped with the kids to ride in the front. 

Loved it! 

What other big rides are here? How about the spinning swing skytower? 

The WindSeeker takes us up 301 feet into the air and spins us around at 30mph. It was pretty chilly that high up. 

Gotta get another coaster for our list. 

Kiddy Hawk is supposed to be a transition coaster for kids who are over the small coaster in Snoopy Land, but not quite ready for the big coasters. We found it pretty rough and a bit of an ear banger. 

More free Icee! This was Fanta Orange flavored. 

Ian has read through pretty much all the Peanuts books, so he's a big fan of Snoopy. Gotta get a picture with him. 

Alli too. 

Another one of Carowinds' original opening day attractions, the Carolina Skytower takes you 262 feet into the air and rotates you 360 degrees to get a view of the Charlotte skyline. And it's a ride that Theresa can do! So far she's done 1 ride at Six Flags Over Georgia (Battle Metropolis), and this is her one ride here. 

Up in the air, we must not have thought the view was that impressive, because I don't have a single picture from it. 

We did take some family pictures though, so at least there's that. 

Before we finish our day, How about a few more times on our favorite ride here. Fury 325. 

I think that puts us at something like 9 trips on Fury 325 today. Awesome. 

Time for dinner. 

Looking at youtube reviews of the park ahead of time, we heard lots of good things about Chickie's & Pete's. 

Jacob and I both got cheesesteak sandwiches, which were good but not amazing. Ian got chicken tenders which were old and overcooked. Bleh. At least the seasoned crab fries (no crab, just seasoning) were tasty, though we were a little disappointed the meal plan didn't come with the signature white cream cheese sauce. 

Theresa and Alli happened upon the mexican restaurant inside the park and got some tasty burritos filled with all tasty ingredients. 

It's only 5:30pm, but we've got a few more things we want to do while we're here in Charlotte. We're coming back tomorrow anyhow. On the way out, I stopped by the Funpix booth at the front to make sure I could get all my pictures. It's a bit of a bummer that it wasn't working on so many rides (just 2). If I had paid for the daily photo pass, I would be disappointed. 

Stopping by the Coke Refresh Station at the front of the park for a top-off before we go. 

It was a fun day at Carowinds! The forecast showed rain most of the day, but that didn't happen. We were only drizzled on for maybe 30 minutes and we spent that time eating lunch. It also kept the crowds away which was awesome seeing that it's Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Jacob and I both remarked about how volatile the theme park business is. Surely Carowinds was planning for a big weekend with lots of customers, but the rain kept so many away. 

I haven't written up our trip to London and Paris from 2025, but one of the big highlights for Theresa was finding the Lidl grocery store. They had tasty gummy candies, veggies, and fruits. 

And at the front of the store, a fresh bakery case with reasonably priced treats. 

We made sure to get some treats for later. 

Their candy section sadly didn't have all the different treats that the foreign ones did. It's all local candies we could get anywhere. 

One more stop today before we head back to the hotel. 

Chuck E Cheese! 

Now this is another place we were expecting to be packed on a holiday weekend, and this time we weren't wrong. 

One happy surprise though was this full stage with all the old animatronic friends! They were singing all the new songs, so someone is keeping the programming updated. 

And when the walk-around Chuck E Cheese goes in the back, the last curtain opens and we see the whole Chuck E Cheese gang! There's some happy nostalgia going on in my heart right now. 

The closest I'd previously see to this was a stage at a now-closed Hawaii location where they had Helen Henny, Munch, Jasper, and Pasqually. Looking online, this is the only 3 stage Chuck E Cheese location left! There used to be over 150!   

Hi Chuck E! 

And Helen, Munch, and Jasper. 

And of course Pasqually on the drums. 

It's not just the main characters that are here either. Looking more closely we see a few more friends. 

Like Munch Jr who pops out of this little bucket. 

Also just behind Helen Henny is this building that slides up into place. 

And then a moon behind Jasper. 

There's one more guy over by Pasqually called Pizzacam. 

They even have the "In Pizza We Trust" sign in front of the stage that winks every so often. 

I came to find out later that this Chuck E Cheese in Pinewood North Carolina is what is known as a Legacy store. So many people complained about the newer "screen only" stores that corporate has left 6 different "legacy stores" all with different stage types, throughout the United States and Canada. 

They also have a section of the store dedicated to some early history and mementos from earlier times. 

Tokens through the years. Now that we've gone to playcards, tokens are a thing of the past. There's still some games that dispense a token that you use to play, but even those are starting to disappear. 

The store was pretty amazing, but what about the games? 

They had a few, but nothing that particularly stood out. No games that paid out big tickets that we could find. 

I like how this game displays a lot like a hologram. 

We watched a few guys play basketball and put up some decent scores. Then it was Alli's turn... 

Even though this is the longer shot basketball, compared to the short shot that's easier, she's still a rockstar. My girl put up a massive 161 point high score and was definitely attracting some attention. I heard some other kids say "How did she get so good?" Another mom asked if she plays basketball at school. Nope! She's just a student of Chuck E Cheese! 

It looks like there's no big bonus for beating the high score. Instead, like most others we've seen, it pays out 1 ticket for every 10 points you score. 

After Alli had a few turns, I gave it a shot. I put up a decent 203, but I can certainly do better. 

I got onto a really good run while Alli watched the score keep going up and up. I took it into the 250s (verified by Alli) but when I looked the score read 00 and the high score didn't update. I still got paid out 26 tickets though. My best guess is that I really did score somewhere in the 260s, but the counter in the machine could only do 256. I played again and got somewhere in the 240s and the high score did update, so it has something to do with that higher score. 

The kids can run through quite a few credits on Harpoon Lagoon. I'll have to get a video of their celebration dance when they unlock the snag the bonus jellyfish that only comes out after playing a long time. 

We ended up not spending all of our 250 credits before deciding to leave. Back to the hotel until tomorrow when we'll head back to Carowinds tomorrow for even more rides!