It's day four of our big roller coaster trip and Day 2 of our time at Carowinds!
Jacob got up earlier than any of us and went to breakfast. When he said it was worth skipping, we decided to head straight to the park.
The drive and parking was easy. Getting into the park, it's definitely looking busier than yesterday. The forecast looks better and it's still a holiday weekend.
And for our first ride of the day, we got the very front row! Yes it's loud and windy, but it's so much fun. How many times should we try to ride this today? 11? That'll make it an even 20 for the number of times we go on it.
As we passed by the ride camera we noticed that the flash didn't go off. Hmm. Exiting the ride through the gift shop, sure enough, no photos. Bummer.
We ended up going on the ride 6 more times since the line was so short and the station crew was really working to get trains out quickly.
On one of the rides, I noticed a wasp (hornet?) decided to land on the edge of the train right in front of me just as we left the staton and were going up the lift hill. I pointed it out to Alli who was excited to see that this ride's mascot (you can see it in the logo above) was joining us for a ride.
I thought the would fly away soon, or get blown away, but as we sped down the 320 foot drop, it was still clinging on. As we reached 95mph and slalomed back and forth around the turns, its wings were being blown every which way, but it was still there. As we made our way back to the station, we were cheering for it, and it was still there! As we were getting off, I took a photo (no phones allowed out on the ride). The kids named him Furry (despite being a wasp with no fur), because it was Fury 325.
I thought that might be the last we saw of Furry today, but a couple rides later he was back! This time landing right in Jacob's lap on his restraint. Jacob didn't not appreciate him there though, so I shooed him away as we went up the lift hill. Catch the next coaster Furry.
Before it gets too late we decided to do lunch. The Mexican plate was so good yesterday for dinner, we decided to go there again for lunch.
No ride photos here sadly.
Icee stop on the way to the next ride? Definitely!
Definitely making use of this drink pass.
Yesterday we had a lot of fun on Afterburn. I wasn't surprised to learn that it was originally themed after the movie Top Gun.
It was a lot of fun the second time too. Still not able to get that front row seat though.
There was no one in our row when we pulled back into the station, so we got to stay on and take another trip into the Danger Zone.
Over to the orange plane this time!
And yes! It was different! We hung upside down for several more seconds! Loved it!
Gotta try the blue next right?
For us, it felt like the blue was similar to the yellow from yesterday. But we should probably go on the yellow again just to be sure.
We loved that with our Fast Lane, we could exit the ride, hop back in line, and board the very next cycle. 
Expecting that we'd be boarding first, we were hoping we'd be in the outside row, which being furthest from the central point would be faster and more whippy. Boarding last, we were right next to the center, but it wouldn't have really matter. This ride is very tame.
And look at that! A functional ride photo! Hooray!
Since we're trying to build up coaster credits, we can't neglect the smaller rides in Snoopyland. They still count as a roller coaster, despite being little. Let's go on Snoopy's Racing Railway!
The wait time for the line showed 60 minutes! That's longer than Fury 325! Luckily we have Fast Lane and were able to bypass it and move right into the loading area. And wow, I can see why it takes a while. There is absolutely no rush in loading here. One train. Eight rows. No hurry to move people on or off. Chatting with people outside the exit. Yikes!
The ride was cute, and went around twice. Our job was to deliver pizza and root beer to the hungry campers, which happened to be a bunch of Woodstocks inside a building and they were hopping up and down.
I was surprised to see that there was a ride photo camera as we passed through the green building! I stopped by the photo booth on the way out to add the pictures to my account, only to be told that the flash wasn't working and that there were no photos. Sigh...
We loved our ride on Air Racers yesterday. So much that we rode it three times but, silly us, we rode them all in the same color airplane. I wonder if it's a different experience if you go in a different plane?
Yellow felt similar to blue and the same as yesterday. They were all fun though, so no worries whichever color you get.
Another ride in this area that we haven't done yet is The Airwalker.
There was no one in line as we were walking up (a plane had just loaded), but we went ahead into the Fast Lane anyway. The line started to fill up as we waited, and I'm not sure what this operator was doing but he took everyone from the regular line before us. I don't even think we would have made it on if the party he asked in the regular line wasn't 8 people and he only had 1 row left for 4.
Copperhead Strike is nearby, so how about a ride on that! Jacob and his thighs didn't want a repeat of yesterday, so I took the kids myself.
You'll forgive the quick photoshop I did to get Ian from one picture and Alli and I from a separate picture squeezed into one.
They rang Jacob up at the counter. Three servings of cobbler would have cost $22 had he not had the dining plan.
It does look like a decent portion though.
Enough to feed the 5 of us! It was steaming hot too. Jacob mentioned that it would be perfect with a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream. I don't disagree.
As we were exiting, the kids saw an empty row for two available. I sent them through for another round and waited for them at the exit.
Ian still thinks it's his second favorite roller coaster here.
What should we do with that extra meal that Jacob has. Hmm. I know at Six Flags Over Georgia you can at the Firehouse BBQ you can forego the meat portion of your meal and just get 3 sides. Can you do that here? Despite not seeing it on the sign, the worker here assured us that we could! And we finally figured out a way to get something sweet with our dining credit! (Last year you could use your dining meal credits on snacks. This year you can't.)
With so many rides completed, we opted to take a break in the day to head to a Lidl to look for some treats and do some other fun things in the city.
From the looks of the parking lot, it's going to be a busy day at Chuck E Cheese. It is a Sunday of a holiday weekend, we were not surprised.
What was surprising was the very small games section, and lack of many skill games.
Basketball high score is only 67? I'm pretty good at basketball. Maybe I can beat that.
Well, I am pretty good at basketball, but with the shot clock here combined with a sensor that doesn't register consistently when you make a shot, I couldn't get close to the 90 points needed to win 50 tickets.
After a quick check with everyone else, we decided to leave this Chuck E Cheese and try another further south. I think we only spent 15 credits or so out of the 250 the five of us have.
Over to the next CEC!
Oh yeah, forgot the headphones. It's always loud in here.
They did have a few more skill games that we enjoy. Milk Jug toss was only 50 tickets for 5 jugs, but at least the signs told you correctly.
2 Minute Drill was easily winnable here. Lots of footballs and the targets are large (in some locations they change the size of the rings to be a small diameter). I won it a few times, Stepping up the score and earning 25 tickets each time.
Before we go, I need to see what I can do on basketball. 134. Nice.
Alli saw the high score on basketball was only 81 points and said "I can beat that".
She sure did too! She beat it with 15 seconds to spare, and I encouraged her to go BIG! Put up a really high score since you only get 25 for beating it. Theresa was telling her to stop though and Alli listened to her. 84 points. Not bad. Let's see if you really get those 25 tickets.
Watching it count up, yes! That's 25 tickets! Oh, it's still going? We'll take a glitch in our favor for once. Past 100 and still counting? Wow. Over 250 ticket? We thought maybe someone added an extra 0 at the end, but it's still counting up.
Over 1000! Over 2000!
Yeah, I have a feeling we're not really going to get these tickets anymore. We left when it was over 5000 tickets, and it's still not letting anyone else play while it's counting up. Everyone played on the machine to the right a few times while we waited.
Hiya Chuck E!
It's fun here, but we're going to finish our night back at Carowinds.
It was an easy drive to get back to the park.
For dinner, everyone chose Panda Express, except for Ian who wanted drumsticks. Theresa found a non-fried option, but wasn't very happy with her broccoli beef. She's particular about the fatty and tough bits of meat, and Panda isn't using the highest quality stuff. We were also a bit disappointed with the fried rice, finding many hard and undercooked pieces mixed in with everything else. For looking forward to it so much, Panda Express at Carowinds really did turn out to be a bust.
Ian ran off to get an Icee and came back with this very photogenic Cherry Coke Icee.
Time to claim 2 more coaster credits before we leave!
With no Fast Lane available, the lines for the Woodstock Express was more than we wanted to wait, but now that it's 7pm it's a walk-on! And they have on-ride photos!
It's been fun Carowinds! We loved a lot of the big coasters here. With Six Flags Georgia being 6:40 from home in Florida and being 8:00 hours, we might just come to Carowinds a little more often.
Back to the hotel in North Carolina! It's been fun here!
Which are broken. Obviously. Why wouldn't they be.
For our last coaster credit, it was over to Snoopy's Wilderness Run. One more kid coaster and one more on-ride photo.
Which wasn't working.
If you're keeping track along with me today, that is just one singular ride today with a functional on-ride photo system. I was not happy about that.
As we walked out, Ian took a spin on the Do-Si-Do which the rest of us filled up drinks and Icees.
Tomorrow we've got a long drive ahead of us to get to our next stop.
I thought it might be fun to make a map with legends of all the different places we're stopping on this journey. It's definitely not to scale because you wouldn't be able to see the different places, but it'll give an idea of our stops.
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