This past Sunday I had family fun day at Carowinds Theme Park in Charlotte, NC. It was my first time visiting Carowinds and I loved every moment. The first thing I did upon entering the park was ask for a park map and one of the Park Services Associates playfully looked in my hand, saw my iPhone and said… “Why don’t you just download our mobile App!†Who uses paper anymore? I looked at him and busted out laughing. He was right! I have an iPhone 4S why didn’t I just download the App? So here I go, going paperless! I downloaded the Carowinds Mobile App and was really blown away by how helpful it was during our visit. I was able to navigate my way around the park with no problem, view which rides were family friendly and find Planet Snoopy for my preschooler. Instead of bothering a ride attendant and asking what each particular ride does all I had to do was go under “Things to Do†and look at the ride descriptions along with the picture and the height requirement.
One of the features I absolutely love with the Carowinds Mobile App is that you can enable GPS park map and use it a couple of different ways, the first way is you can use it to document where you’ve parked once you arrive at Carowinds and it will guide you back to your vehicle at the end of your visit. Carowinds has over 5,000 parking spaces and I would hate to lose my vehicle in that parking lot. The second way you can utilize the park GPS is the Friend Finder. You add your name(s) and get a temporary pin. You trade pins with your group and when you split up you are able to follow them on the park map. This particular feature would have come in handy when I gave my teen son & tween daughter specific instructions to meet me at a designated location once they got off a ride and they didn’t. My son’s cell phone was dead and we spent over an hour combing the park looking for them. I’ll make sure all phones are charged up next time and we use this feature! If you follow me on Twitter @JaelDesignsInc you got the play by play as I was tweeting and on Instagram the entire time.
The Carowinds Mobile App also tells you new attractions, event show times, the weather, it helps you locate lodging if you are staying overnight, dining, park hours, and you are able to purchase tickets as well. This Mobile App was well put together and is really helpful to a new visitor but, as I pointed out before, I’ll be visiting again and I’m definitely going to enable the friend finder and continue to use “Things To Do†to help me make the decision on whether I got on a ride or NOT! Overall my family had a great day, my son and daughter went on the Intimidator roller coaster three times, I spent most of the day in Planet Snoopy and the highlight of my day was getting on the Carolina Skytower. The Carolina Skytower is an air conditioned cabin that travels 262 feet into the air and you can view the entire theme park and downtown Charlotte. I was able to snap some really cool pictures from up there. The NEWEST ride attraction at Carowinds that they have is the WindSeeker and I wasn’t so brave to get on. The WindSeeker goes 301 feet up into the air and you are swinging in a circular motion. It looks great at night when it’s all lit up. Maybe I’ll have the courage to get on it my next visit.
For more information you can go to the Carowinds website or download the Carowinds Mobile App to your smartphone. Carowinds Mobile App is available in the Apple App Store and the Android Marketplace. These thoughts and opinions are my own from my family visit to Carowinds Theme Park and I wasn’t compensated for this blog post. Here are some cool pictures via my Instagram account…
