text: Carowinds straddles the border of North and South Carolina and is an allday drive from the DC area but it was well worth the tripnnI visited the park on the th of July weekend and despite the fact that there were lots of people there it did not feel like the park was overly crowded Most of the rides only took about minutes to board with the exception of NighthawknnThere are plenty of coasters to ride but there is also a number of more sedate rides and kiddie rides as well to balance it out for those who are not into flying all over the place I did not try the onsite water park this time around but that is on my list for next timennThis is another park that has cubbies to store your stuff when you go on the ride and they did not object to me carrying a Camelbak into the park so I was able to just drink my water all day If you want to eat at the park you have a variety of choices including a few chain restaurants such as ChikFilA and Panda Express along with the usual pizza and burger joints There is also an allyoucaneat lunch with a different menu each day of the week for about a person However if you want to save some cash pack a lunch in the cooler and step out to your car to eatnnThe one issue I do have with Carowinds is that there is only one real road to leave the park All traffic from all parking lots merge onto a twolane road so it can become a major headache when trying to leave towards the end of the day when everyone else is trying to leave I stayed at the park to watch their th of July fireworks and it took about minutes before I could even leave the parking lot and that was only after they opened up the employee access road to let people leave I hope this can be fixed in the futurennThe roller coasters worth riding are Afterburn a personal favorite Carolina Cyclone Thunder Road and Nighthawk if you are willing to wait Carolina Goldrusher is good for those who are not into high thrill coasters Vortex is also fun but guys be warned it is a standup coaster and the bottom part of the restraint is not so fun on the groin The Rugrats Runaway Reptar Fairly Odd Coaster and Ricochet are more for the kids If you are going to do Carolina Cobra do it when the park opens because by design there is only one car so it will take longer than most other coasters that have cars