Carowinds

I am a prestige season pass holder with the meal plan fast lane, and all-you-can-drink passholder and have been for a few years. Since this merger, there has been numerous incompetence diminishing quality across the board with Carowinds.

Back in late March and early April, they made an abrupt change with the drink policy and the icee, and of course I complained, and the food quality has diminished of late, getting rid of shrimp and grits and the collard greens in the Country Kitchen. The times I've had the smoked baked chicken, it has not been done. I got some ribs; they have not been really done, and on occasion, the brisket has been half fat. Elements of some of the rides don't work, and load and unload times for rides that used to move right along fast have diminished.

Today I went to the park for a few hours. I got my prestige check-in through the parking, although they changed not having the ticket for the VIP parking, but then I got my fast pass. I went to get something to drink, or basically an icee, rode a little bit, then went to the water park to get something to eat and something to drink again. Then I rode a little bit more rides and decided to go into Leonardos to get something to drink and was told my pass was not valid.

I had them check it again, and it still was not valid. Then I went back to the place where I had gotten my icee, figuring maybe it was just a glitch with that Leonardos machine, and was told again my pass was not valid after calling customer service and being made to wait for a while. I got a young lady who went to check because she saw my pass was valid, and when she came back, she told me that some of the people were not trained properly and didn't scan my ticket correctly, which I am just calling a bunch of bunk because I was able to use it twice before after getting into the park, and it never said my pass was invalid. I am so tired of the same old 'sorry for the inconvenience' from Carowinds; that's all they seem to know.

Mind you, several years ago, it was the same thing when I got hurt on Copperhead Strike. It took them three weeks to respond back to me, and it was the same thing: 'Sorry for the inconvenience.' Now it looks as though they're gonna start charging extra for the mazes for Scarowinds after initially indicating people with season passes would be able to get into those mazes. The operations and the park are going downhill on so many levels.

Even though they make a few little improvements here and there, everything else is on the downturn. The show in the theater was definitely a step or two below what they've had before.