A Slice of Smith Life: Fall Family Vacation: Part One: Carowinds

Fall Family Vacation: Part One: Carowinds

See Fall Family Vacation: Part Two: World of Coca-Cola HERE
See Fall Family Vacation: Part Three: Georgia Aquarium HERE

For our homeschool this year, I'm doing a schedule where I will teach about 6 weeks with my kids and then have 1 week off and end the school year at the end of May making 36 weeks total. Last week was our week off (Sept. 24-28) after starting our school year on Aug. 13 so we packed our bags and headed to Carowinds in Charlotte, NC then we drove to Atlanta, GA to visit the World of Coca-Cola and Olympic Park where the 1996 Olympic games took place. We also visited the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world! Then as we headed to SC to visit family, we surprised our children with a visit to Legoland Discovery Center in a mall in Atlanta.

The end of September is a great time to vacation! The weather was great and there were no lines/crowds for any of our visits! Here are a few pictures from our visit to Carowinds on Sunday, Sept. 23.

Because it was almost October, Carowinds was gearing up for "Scarowinds", their Halloween- themed park days, so here are my children in front of skeletons at the entrance to the park.

On Sunday, September 23, after attending Mass at a large Catholic Church near Carowinds, we headed to the park and we were there from opening at noon to when it closed at 8 PM, but little to no wait for rides even for a Sunday! It was great to hop on and off rides all day long!

3 out of 4 of my kids are in the third and fifth cart on this ride called Lucy's Crabby Cabbie in Snoopy Land.

Our 4 year old was the "Carousel Queen" and rode it over and over again!

We were able to go up over 300 ft. in a round building with seats to see an aerial view of Carowinds and beyond. My husband snapped these pictures while we were up at the top.

Looking down at this orange and yellow ride called the Flying Ace Aerial Chase which was one of our family's favorites as you sit with your feet dangling and the coaster tracks are attached to the top of your seat vs. the bottom.

Another family favorite was the Gold Rusher ride, but I didn't take any pictures of this one. Our kids loved the part of the ride where it goes fast through tunnels.

This thin red coaster is called the Intimidator which was quite intimidating, but I worked up my courage all day to ride it alone and got a little nauseous to prove that I actually rode it :)