Dollywood - 6/7/17 - 6/9/17

[CoasterRiderSC]

We went to Dollywood on 6/7 (full day), 6/8 (full day) and 6/9 (only 2.5 hours). We also hit Dollywood Splash for 3-4 hours but I didn't do any of the major rides there so my report won't include that.

Here are some of my thoughts on Dollywood (theme park)
Theming = AMAZING!! I absolutely loved how most of the park was themed around the mountains, lumber industry, Tennesse in general, birds, etc. And all the rides seemed to be very detailed with the theming as well

Park Atmosphere = very family friendly, very fun, and very clean
Employees = very polite and helpful
Price = very good. We bought the 3 days/2 parks pass. $99/adult and $82/children 4-12
Food = we didn't eat any of the park food, except for the Cinnamon Bread and Cotton Candy.

RC - THANKS for telling me about that Cinnamon Bread! That stuff was amazing!!

Rides = excellent. While they have less coasters than our park, they do have a good assortment and the flat rides were good too.

Wait Times = excellent. Most rides had < 15 minute wait and many were walk ons.

Timesaver (like our Flash Pass) = very easy system where you have a punch card with 10 rides and you can use that on any ride (Drop Line and Lightning Rod only 1 each); you don't "reserve" the ride but just go up the Timesaver Entrance. We were extremely fortunate with this feature because someone had to leave and gave us FOUR of these things! They each only had 2-3 punches on them. We were actually able to use them for multiple days!

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Comparison of SFGAm rides vs. Comparable Dollywood ride (with the "better" ride on the left)
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Tennessee Tornado > Demon -- Cam, you were absolutely right about how smooth this ride is, especially considering it's an almost 20 year old Arrow looper!
I loved that I couldn't see first drop and all 3 inversions were pretty smooth. It has the largest loop (110 ft tall , huge loop) of any coaster I've ever ridden so far .Great theming overall and one of our fave rides there.

Drop Line > Giant Drop -- we waited till 2nd day to hit the Drop Line and WOW was it awesome! Much more reliable than GD and it's pretty cool that it spins you around as you ascend the tower. Never saw this ride stuck (granted it's brand new!) One of our faves and we hit it 5x total.

Blazing Fury > Dark Knight -- the theming and animations inside this dark ride were great and it has 3 drops vs. the 1 major drop in DK. Very fun ride and was one of our faves. We rode it numerous times.

Daredevil Falls > Logger's Run -- The theming was very excellent for this ride, much better than the lack of theming for our log ride. And, the logs had 4 rows (I think with lapbars) which made for larger capacity of each log and much more comfortable

Barnstormer > River Rocker -- maybe not a fair comparison but Barnstormer was AWESOME! You get pretty much horizontal to the ground on this ride and the restraints were comfortable. Theming was amazing!

Spacely Sprockets > Whistle Punk Chaser -- SS has slightly better theming and that cool jingle from the TV cartoon. WPC sends you thru the coarse 3x though which was cool. It was a little jerky though, up the lift hill

Racing Rapids (SFGAm) > Rapids (Dollywood) -- this one is close, but our rapids has those geysers that shoot up as well as the people on shore taking target practice on you! The Dollywood one had very good theming and we got moderately wet

X-Flight > Wild Eagle -- Wild Eagle has 4 inversions and there was no "keyhole" element and you didn't really get any "near misses" on either side. I rode it 3x in the back and 1x in front row. It has a nice first drop though. The ride wasn't terrible but X-Flight is just much better with no wasted track. One of my faves there though.

Viper > Thunderhead (or Thunder Headache) -- TH has no real airtime hills and the first drop wasn't a big deal. It was quite rough actually and it's not even that old. I'll NEVER complain about Eagle being rough again. This ride had only banked curves and that was about it. The one cool thing was that it does a fly thru the station but that was about it.

Revolution > Dizzy Disk -- maybe not a fair comparison because Dizzy Disk isn't a true pendulum. It had very uncomfortable restraints and really did nothing for me at all.

Goliath > Lightning Rod (aka BROKEN Rod) -- Goliath gets the edge because Broken Rod was NOT running the whole time I was there! They said it's been down for several weeks! Goliath is way more reliable. Perhaps I reverse this one in the future if LR is ever running and I get to ride it. The theming for it was excellent though


Other rides that were really good :
Classic Cars - great theming in the station (a "garage")
Firechaser Express - a very cool family coaster with a forward and backwards launch, real fire and cool theming. You ride into this fireworks shack and get "stuck" and then launch in reverse. This was one of our fave rides there!
Sky Rider - a fun flat ride

Rides I didn't really care for:
Mystery Mine - very jerky and nothing impressed me about this ride. The vertical drops weren't really a big deal and the inversions were just OK.
Ferris Wheel - super uncomfortable on my back

55 total rides in 2 full days + 2.5 hours on day 3!

Summary: I really enjoyed our visits to Dollywood and will definitely go back! I would recommend the park to others.

Thanks for reading!!

[Coaster Justin]

Do they push down your restraint on Mystery Mine or is it still "Hug Yourself" to fit?


Did you do any other Pigeon Forge stuff?

[Whizzer Whiz Kid]

As of late July last year it was still hug yourself.

[CoasterRiderSC]

Do they push down your restraint on Mystery Mine or is it still "Hug Yourself" to fit?


Did you do any other Pigeon Forge stuff?

Justin, yeah, we did a few other things in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg
* Great Smoky Mountains national park (very picturesque)
* Ober Gatlinburg (tons of fun here! I LOVED the scenic chairlift)
* Aerial tram to reach Ober Gatlinburg

[RollingCoasting]

Sounds like a fun trip! Sucks that LR was closed. While I don't think it looks like the #1 RMC like many people say, it looks like one of the better ones, for sure. Btw, would you say River Battle is better than Buccaneer Battle?

[Whizzer Whiz Kid]

River Battle is SO much better. It is in much better shape, the things are all working, and it has an amazing little song that plays on a loop. It fits in perfectly to its surroundings and is really a great addition.

[Coaster Justin]

Do they push down your restraint on Mystery Mine or is it still "Hug Yourself" to fit?


Did you do any other Pigeon Forge stuff?

Justin, yeah, we did a few other things in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg
* Great Smoky Mountains national park (very picturesque)
* Ober Gatlinburg (tons of fun here! I LOVED the scenic chairlift)
* Aerial tram to reach Ober Gatlinburg

Why did you skip Jurassic Jungle Boat Ride? How can you not do a ride with this in the queue line

[CoasterRiderSC]

We didn't do River Battle because it looked like the exact same thing (more or less) as Buccaneer Battle!
As for the Jurassic ride I don't know if I knew about it or not. I'll have to try it next time (and hopefully Broken Rod is running on that next time!)