To start off we purchased all of our tickets onlin...

To start off we purchased all of our tickets online. This included the parking pass, the tickets to the park, and the fast lane PLUS passes. Everything went seamlessly.
We arrived at the park at about quarter to 10 a.m., which is opening time. Our parking pass was scanned and we pulled into the parking lot and I actually found some shade from a small tree to park our car underneath. We loaded up and went to the front gate and showed our printed out tickets after going through the security check which was done quickly and efficiently.
Once our tickets were accepted, we went over to the FAST LANE PLUS picked up our wristbands for the day. Our visit was on July 1st and even though the park wasn't super crowded that day, we estimate that the FAST LANE PLUS pass over the course of the day saved as close to five hours of waiting in line. The cost is obscene, but it's actually worth every penny. If this sounds like an advertisement for FAST LANE PLUS then YES it is. It helped our family so much to stay together in the park at all times.
Personally no one in our group would have cared to go to Carowinds without the FAST LANE PLUS passes. We loved all the rides that we went on, camp Snoopy was a blast and we enjoyed the water park although we didn't do a whole lot in the water park.
We spent most of our time on the fury, Copperhead, nighthawk, and the intimidator.
We had a very leisurely day leaving the park between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. to go to our hotel to eat, shower, and take a nap. Even with being out of the park for that many hours and spending quite a bit of time in the water park probably an hour and a half, we were able to ride roller coasters 18 times during our day.
Since I'm quite old, 18 rides on those roller coasters is quite enough for me and actually everyone in our group. I could see being a young teenager and getting upwards of 25 to 30 rides in a day with FAST LANE PLUS.
So I guess what I'm saying is purchase your parking, Park ticket, and the FAST LANE PLUS ticket online and you will have a great and fun day. By the way my personal favorite might be the nighthawk or the intimidator it's a toss-up between those two.