We woke up to cheerleading practice this morning! 🙂 It had to be 5am when it started. Oh well.
The girls woke up about 8am for the day and we started to get ready for our planned day at Carowinds. Joseph got himself dressed — all in red and I got the girls ready, Emily in stripes and Abby in solids, just to be sure Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t get them mixed up!
Here they are lounging around waiting for Mommy and Daddy to get ready!
The four of us (without Daddy) went down to breakfast together too. Yes, I braved going with the two girls. But, it worked out ok. Got lots of stares, and questions, but that’s to be expected from a woman and her son walking around with two infant carriers! Joseph and I enjoyed waffles, milk, eggs and sausage (and the girls enjoyed that later in the day!).
We went back upstairs to our room and Grandma, Grandpa and Stephie showed up shortly after!
Carowinds opened at 10 am, but we didn’t get there until about 11am. Everything just took longer than expected. This was a sad premotion to our day.
To start, Carowinds is all “dressed up” for Halloween. So, Joseph wanted his picture taken with as many skeletons, ghosts, crypts, monsters, etc. during the day.
The first stop for any Carowinds day is the space needle (or whatever it is called). Grandpa played the Russ-bus, pushing the then sleeping girls around in the stroller while the rest of us went up and got a birds eye view of the park.
We headed out to Thunder Road then, because as Joseph put it, “I’m not riding that one after I eat, because I’ll throw up.” We didn’t, he didn’t and all was well. This is the 2nd time he’s ridden this ride now — the first was last year. He rode with Steph and once again was scared, but got through it! Once was enough though… Ron and I tried again at the end of the day, but that’s another story all by itself.
We hit the bumper cars next (with Grandma!) and then went in for lunch at the Country Kitchen. The girls ate, we all ate and out we went again.
We needed something gentle to ride after our lunch of BBQ sandwiches, fried chicken, and other greasy food. First, Joseph went with Grandma to play some games (her treat since I won’t buy games at a place I already spend a ton just to get into). While in that area, with the girls in their snuglis, we watched Top Gun the Jet Coaster as it hurled it’s riders around and around. The line was WAY TO LONG for us to wait to ride.
We decided to make our way over to the Scooby Doo ride (too long line)…
…so, on to the Carousel we went. Steph video taped this for us (will add video soon!). The girls didn’t seem to care one way or the other for it. They just hung out in their snuglis with Grandma and me.
We tried to go the the little cars that the kids drive, but it wasn’t running (big bummer… and again the story of our day at the park this trip). After a break to feed the girls again, Grandma, Stephie and Joseph headed to the Wild Thornberry’s River Adventure log flume and Ron and I headed to the Hurler and Scream Weaver (aka Meteorite) while Grandpa became the Russ bus again with the girls.
My super-hungry girls couldn’t wait for me, so out came a bottle compliments of Grandpa! We tried for the Kaleidoscope (too busy) and opted instead for Dipping Dots and Lemonde (of which they were out) and a funnel cake.
On our way back toward Top Gun, the next stopping point, we stopped in a nice shady spot near the first aid center and let the girls stretch out for a bit. Ron, Joseph and Steph went on GoldRusher (normally a 5 minutes wait took 35 minutes!) so the girls got some nice stretch time.
And, afterward, we finally got that funnel cake (15+ minute wait in line for that alone, but well worth it!) and found that Top Gun was just too long a line with only 35 minutes left in the day. So, Ron and I opted for Thunder Road again which was a big mistake. 4 cycles from the end a woman got “sick” on the ride (sick with seizures, fainting or something) and they closed the ride with only a “I’m sorry”.
The park was closing, so we made our way out (planning to be at Olive Garden by 6:30pm for dinner with our Charlotte based family) and wouldn’t you know it? Their parking people suck, too! It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to exit the parking lot. I don’t know if they were just ill-prepared or if something happened, but traffic was just not moving.
Despite it all, dinner was wonderful (as was the company) except that the meal itself was slow to arrive. We parted ways around 9:30pm and hit traffic in Raleigh (on I-40) just miles before our exit, getting us home around 1am.
That… was a long day.
And, let’s just say that I gave Carowinds an “earful” in their comments and guest satisfaction survey, on all accounts – the service, the rides, the speed, the parking. Everything.
It was great to be with family though!