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Shenanigans! Dollywood is a theme park. Do you realize how many people go to Dollywood for the shows? Or the Eagle habitat? Or the soot train? Or just to take it all in? Or the freaking cinnamon bread? I don't usually call out opinions but saying that people go to Dollywood for the rides is really out of touch with what that park and Silver Dollar City are for Herschend and the U.S. theme park scene in general.

Sure the rides are big attraction but there's a reason I dive 5+ hrs to DW vs 3 to SF. The shows, the festivals (food and shows), the shops, and just the scenery (in and out of the park). Most trips are 3-4 days and I catch several shows. During festivals I'll see 90% of the shows/acts and try about that many dishes. If there are special vendors I'll usually end up buying from 2 or 3. And yes, ride every coaster 2-3 times. Meanwhile SF is just a few hours to ride the coasters and go home. So, no people don't just want rides. Not all and I dare say not even most visitors to DW.

Great trip report! Some of your captions were hilarious as well! It's so weird to see Nagashima as empty but I had a similar experience as yours when I went in 2018. It was mid-summer and the only place where I had to really join an actual line was for their Mine train and Steel Dragon. I am glad that you had the chance to ride Hakugei, as it was under construction when I was there. It looks so majestic with the massive white structure combined with blue rails. I must agree that Arashi is completely nuts. I had ridden Joker at SFGAdv but boy does the Japanese clone ride differently! It span so many times I left the ride shaking. It was really intense and quite fitting for the ride's name (Arashi means 'storm' in Japanese). One of the funniest memories was doing the horror walk-through with a Japanese bunch of school girls. They were screaming their heads off and sort of hiding behind me (as if I was a sort of human shield "Let the Western boy die" ) while I was just casually strolling through the maze.

We spent at least an hour just in Dolly's museum on my first and so far only trip. I could've spent all DAY. Shoot, I told my mom that I wanna plan a trip to stay in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge for a whole two weeks so I could spend an entire day just sitting in front of the eagle habitat at Dollywood.

That's not really a fair assessment at a place like Dollywood. A large amount of people go there for the rides, yes, but they drive a lot of business for their non-ride offerings such as their shows, their food, the shopping, and yes, their museums. While I personally never checked out the Gospel Museum, I have checked out the Dolly Museum on previous visits and always left feeling like I could have spent a whole lot more time in there. The assumption that "people want rides, not museums" is exactly the sort of point of view that I would expect out of the average coaster enthusiast.

It’s been a bit since I got out of the house – doing our best to stay as safe as possible during these crazy times. but when an acquaintance from TPR, Condor, messaged me that he and his Dad were swinging thru Texas on a quick Theme Park trip and was I interested in joining them for a day? I jumped at the chance and said, Yes! And booked my reservation for Yesterday. I knew it was going to be crowded – FrightFest always is – and recommended that yes, it was a good idea to purchase Flash Pass. I never buy Flash Pass, since SFFT is my home park, but said that if he does purchase, I’m totally in (it’s cheaper the more people, and we’d likely need it). How correct I was on that! I’ve not seen the park so packed in years. Knew it would be bad from the moment we walked in, but the crowds got bigger and bigger as the day went on, and by the time the fog machines kicked in all over the park (~6pm), forget social distancing. There were just way too many people to even attempt that (despite the many signs, and security guards holding signs all thruout the park. By 7pm, the lines for food/drinks – which had been long-ish thruout the day – became unbearable (hour + waits). .and it’s not that many places were closed. They were mostly all open. . there were just a LOT of people in the park. I’m sure that factoring in that Gov. Abbott just this past week relaxed restrictions that included Theme Parks – allowing to operate at 75% capacity – had a lot to do with how crowded it was. But mainly I suspect that it’s simply closer to Halloween, and people just really want to get out and have some fun regardless of Covid. At least pretty much everyone WAS wearing face coverings/masks everywhere. Still lots of hand sanitizer avail everywhere too. . . so felt safe enough, even without really any social distancing happening. I had a fantastic day, and very much enjoyed the company (another of Condor’s friends from Austin also drove to meet up for a while). I’ll have comments among the pictures – but just a couple of quick notes: “FrightFest” is not the branding in 2020 for SFFT at least. They are calling it “Hallowfest” – and just know there are no actual “haunts” available. None of them even appeared to have been set up. Tho there is tons of fantastic theming thruout the park, and they are making liberal use of Fog-machines thruout several areas. there are also no Scare-actors roaming the park – instead, they have put them behind fenced areas (or scenes), and so there is socially distanced interaction with the Scare Actors. Honestly? I *greatly* prefer this way. LOVED this – even tho in areas like by the waterfalls, having “scenes” on both sides of the path, made for a huge crush of folks all crammed in tightly together. I guess to make up for the lack of haunts, SFFT brought in what they are calling the "Freaky Car Show" - which had 10 or so "freaky" cars, to see. Majority were together in a queued off area in Los Festivales, but a few others were sprinkled thruout the park. Most were recreations, but the "moderator" did tell me that 3 are "real" - the Flash Gorden skimmer, the Men in Black car, and the Batcycle. Kinda cool. in addition, there were horror actors coming in every weekend to do meet & greets and have panel discussions thruout the day. (the ones yesterday were Ray Park (Darth Maul!), and a few from the Resident Evil films (tho I didn't really recognize them). They are now operating most coasters at full capacity, having installed plastic “guards” between the row queues. (the exception being Wonder Woman, which is still only loading a handful of seats per train – and is only operating two trains while the 3rd is being refurbed). The real downside of this, is that they have removed WW from Flashpass because capacity is so limited now. So if you go, don’t expect to be able to use FP for this ride – stand by only, and with literally ~8 seats available across two trains. . . even a shortish line is going to take ~25 minutes. Even the flats (such as Disc-o, Joker, the swings), are back to operating at almost full capacity. Maybe 2 seats open between patrons, instead of what they had been doing on my visit a month ago – were they were loading less than ½ the ride to enforce lots of space between folks. in addition, the Indoor and enclosed attractions are back to operating as well: Pirates of the Deep Sea (indoor Shooter) was operating (and we would have ridden it if it hadn’t broken down while we were in line), and the Ferris Wheel (with the small mostly enclosed pods) was operating too. The shows are back – at least in the outdoor theaters. We passed a Dia De Los Muertos band performing in Los Festivales theater, as well as a Horror Themed Cover band performing in the big amphitheater over in CrackAxle. Both shows had really good crowds watching every time we passed them. The park has gone “cashless” – if you want to purchase anything in a store, you either have to charge it, or use a card that you get from converting your cash at several locations thruout the park. This didn’t impact me at all, and actually helped use my “snack” credit on the dining plan, since the lines in the actual stores (as opposed to food service places) were pretty much non-existant. Speaking of food service. . . they are heavily promoting Online Ordering for food (tho as noted above, many folks were waiting in the walk up lines as well as in the online ordering) It really was crowded tho - even with 4 of us on the Flash Pass? In total we only got in 10 rides using Flash pass (and 15 rides total in a 10 hour + day). . frightening to think how bad the day would have been *without* Flash Pass: Goliath x2 Iron Rattler x2 Superman x2 Poltergeist X1 Pandemonium x1 Batman x1 (standby line) Skyscreamer x1 Wonder Woman x2 (not on Flashpass) Bugs Whitewater Rapids (flume) x1 Supervillain Swings x1 (standby line while waiting for Iron Rattler flash pass time) Train x1 (full lap of park, since only CrackAxle station is operating) k. . on to pictures! I'm here! Tho it's not "FrightFest" this year. . rather it's "Hallowfest". . hmmmmm. . . . wonder what the differences are? guess I'll find out. I should mention here, the mask I'm wearing today, was a surprise in the mail gift from @Nrthwnd (thanks Bill! it's an awesome mask, and very appropriate for "Hallowfest") my reservation was at 11 - made weeks ago, to meet up with Condor. Tho the park didn't open until Noon today - weird, tho I had checked with SF customer service, and they told me that they open the gates an hour early to help with Social Distancing. So I didn't worry about it, and sure enough, when I arrived slightly after 11, the lot was open (and already getting pretty full!). They also had the entire front part of the park, Los Festivales area, open, and were operating both rides there: Goliath (Batman clone) and Boomerang. Condor and his Dad had already headed over to the Flash Pass booth, and picked up the "watch", and I met up with them there, and we noted that Wonder Woman wasn't on the Flash Pass. We went back over to the booth, and asked - to be told that due to the limited capacity on the ride, they weren't offering WW on Flash Pass at this time. Which is a shame, as Condor really wanted to get multiple rides on it. We decided that we'd "rope drop" WW, once that was let loose at Noon, but since we still had over 40 minutes before that, we'd head over to Goliath and make use of the Flash Pass for the 1st time to get a ride. This early, it didn't really save us more than 10 minutes, but hey. . it left enough time for me to go fix the issue that was going on with my photo-pass (which had stopped working on my prior trip in late August, and still get to be near the front of the Rope drop by the Spassburg Train Station, so we could head to WW). the photo booth wasn't operating at Goliath (I guess because the park wasn't officially open yet, before Noon), but since we headed to fix my Photo-pass right after we got off of it - they "fixed" it by giving me a new card/account. . which really is what they should have done 6 weeks ago so I didn't lose *those* pics - I knew that I could ask them to find the Goliath pics, as the camera had flashed. I must say, I *LOVE* the filter options available for Frightfest online. Multiple for most all rides that have a photo op, in addition to the "standard" ride photo! spooky! Since I had my photopass fixed now, as we headed to rope-drop area, we stopped to pose for an official photo by some of the decorations that were up. I was surprised when the photog told us we could, and should, remove our masks for the picture if we wanted. There was no one near us this early, so went for it. so yes, the maskless pics (the only ones of the day) were taken here, by an official SF Photographer who told us we could Rope Drop happened, and we bee-lined it to Wonder Woman, and got on in ~10 minutes for our 1st ride. As we were getting off, Condor's friend texted that he arrived, and so he headed to meet up with him at the front gate, while his Dad and I got back in line (which had lengthened, but was still not too bad yet). Remember, no Flash Pass, so we wanted to get in at least 2 rides now before the line filled in (later it was running easily a 3 hour queue). Condor and his friend came back, and with a few excuse me's - came down and met us where we were in the line. This time we had waited ~35 minutes. . still, not terrible when capacity is ~8 seats for every two trains! Nobody had issue with them joining us, since the two of us would have ended up in 1 train anyways, so ended up as 4 didn't change the wait time for anyone. So we got rides in the very back, and in the very front - so Condor & his Dad could experience the different rides you get depending where you sit. then we headed over towards Superman (which had been down, but came up while we were in line), Skyscreamer, and over to Iron Rattler - making use of the Flash Pass. which by this point (just after 12:30 was extremely obvious was needed - we had to "excuse me" thru probably 150 people to get thru the Iron Rattler line, to get to the point in the queue were you can take the path to get to Flash Pass queue! really! ). I think the Flash Pass time was ~40 minute wait here, tho later, it would be 1:45 and we had to kill that time before we could get in line (where again, we had to "excuse me" our way thru the back end of a full queue to get to the Flash Pass entrance). Some of the decorations up in CrackAxle. They didn't have the train station shut down, which implied to me that there was not going to be a zombie horde pouring out of the train as Fright-Fests always has. So I suspected no Roaming Fright actors later (which was correct). these decorations are awesome tho. . most of them belched smoke and some fire, too. from when we passed Iron Rattler on our way to get some food (while killing time before our Flash Pass pinged we were ready). Shortly after I took this pic? the line spilled out of the entrance, and around the corner on the right! the 4 of us In line to get food - at Totally Kickin Chicken. Was a good choice, as usual, the food was very good (in particular for a theme park). The wait wasn't fun - 20-30 minutes, I think. . but later on, the lines all increased exponentially. Showing off our Godzilla shirts. . that's how we knew we'd get along and decided to hang out at the park. . we both love the Big G (and no, we didn't coordinate, we just both happened to show up in Godzilla shirts LOL) From the Kickin Chicken ordering line. THIS IS THE LINE for Roadrunner Express !! Well out of the queue and down the walk way. (this ride does offer Flash Pass, but when Condor looked, it was almost a 2 hour Flash Pass wait, so instead we decided we'd use our next avail. booking for Poltergeist once we ate and rode Rattler, since that one was a much more reasonable 20 minutes or so, giving us time to eat). the show going on at the theater behind us while we waited in line. Mainly 80's coversongs. . . but they were decent (and the guitar player was wearing a KISS shirt). they had a decent crowd - and way more watching a later show when we came by. Loved they were all performing in facemasks. yes, LOL, they are called "Wicked Mixx" (that's TWO "xxes" in Mixx). hmm. . .theme park friendly? HAHAHA. . just "sexy" enough to be entertianing! After our Rattler ride, we headed towards Poltergeist. THIS is the Flash Pass Retail spot, as we passed by it. Yes, the line goes all the way outside the queue, and wraps around! Folks saw the lines and immediately went to Flash Pass to purchase it - and it doesn't appear they were limiting either, based on how many folks we saw wearing the "watches" as the afternoon went on. (and they had raised the price too. . when Condor picked it up at 11, it was ~$80 per person - it was $95 per person when we passed here). and to be clear - none of these folks are in line to pick up the Membership Skip the Line passes per visit - there is a separate table for that up near the front gates. These are all folks getting Flash Pass over by Poltergeist. . love what they did with the open space in front of the queue! after Poltergiest, we used the Flash Pass to get an almost Walk On on Bugs - the line was huge, so not sure why this let us book and get on right away. . but it did. the Spitting Dragon was really drenching everyone, but what really got us were the kids manning the "spray hoses" near the end of the ride - in particular one hit that landed *right* in the crotch of our 4th team member - he kept saying he looked like he pissed himself (which it kinda did). .but was funny as hell. love the photo "wrap" option, even if it cuts me off in the back row. (the grouper was going to put us in our own log, but with the line so long - and us skipping said line - I offered to just take the back two rows of the log passing). this one is better tho. Condor's friend hadn't been with us when we rode Goliath earlier, so we made a trip back to the front of the park to grab a reride on it. Since B&M, we went for Back Row, left side - and it really had warmed up from earlier in the day. It's running great, and is supper snappy. I think the only Batman clone that runs better is the one at SFOG (and Condor agreed with on that). In regards to choosing seats - I do want to mention, we had no issue getting to sit where we requested, on any coaster where they were assigning seats. A polite request was always met with "sure" (*the only exception was a reride on Superman. . where the grouper insisted on sending us to row 7, instead of row 8 when we asked for the back (B&M coaster). . . but after they cycled thru all the trains fpr disinfecting - they were running all 3, and the line was still insane! (thank goodness for Flashpass, even tho we had to wait for our time) - row 8 was still empty, so we just moved back to to last row when we boarded. enjoying the decorations around the park as we roamed. no we didn't bother with Boomerang, even tho it IS the scary season! A pic of the separating screens they've installed in most of the coaster stations (this one is Goliath). with these "separators" installed, they are filling every row in the coasters now. a pic of the Parking Lot from Goliath's station. yes, even tho a lot of spots are blocked with cones? there are still a LOT of people here! SPOOKY on ride from Superman which was running fantastic, and the night ride was well worth the wait. it was around 6:30 here, and the scare actors were starting to come out. And the smoke machines started going into overdrive around the park. it wouldn't be dark for about another hour, but took advantage of the light to get some pics showcasing how they are set up for frights. Fenced off "scenes" with the scare actors roaming within these enclosed areas. and yes, they DID interact with the park guests. . coming up behind to hover in selfies, and "attacking" those who got close to the fence. we roamed around enjoying the sites, while waiting for our time to come ready for Iron Rattler (a dusk ride): the queue time on our Gold Flash Pass was over 1:30, so since the Gold is supposed to reduce time by 1/2? that meant standard was a 3 hour queue. From where we entered with the Flash Pass, and looking down? Yep, they are using the ENTIRE queue - and tho there is some social distancing attempted in this pic? that's still a LOT of people. the Iron Rattler Station showing off the plexiglass shields between rows. they were running both trains, fully loaded. (and it still had that long of a line) we had booked another ride on Superman, but it was going to over an hour wait, so decided we'd take a lap on the train (only running one engine, so it took two cycles). it was close to 7 here, I think. . you can see the smoke starting, and some of the CrackAxle decorations from our place in the Train line. Daredevil Dive is looking great. . . . so wish it was open already ooooo. . they added Fire effects to it! at first I thought it was just for Hallowfest, but the gas attachments appear to be Steampunk themed - AND tehy are thruout the ride in multiple pipes. I think this ride is going to have fire effects! on the train - they are loading every row - with plexiglass installed between each row. Really cuts capacity tho, as many rows are actually two benches facing each other - and with Covid, if someone is in a row? that means it's "full" regardless of how many are sitting on one bench. Sun was setting fast, and you can see from the train pics, how dark it got while we were on our loop around the park: blurry, since train was moving. . but the back side of one of the Scenes. I liked how the scare actor came over to the back fence to threaten the train passengers as we went by. so much beautiful track! don't be fooled by this apparent lack of line at Joker - it was pulling 2 hour plus lines all day, so we skipped it. (we did ride the blue swings tho!. .that was about a 25 minute wait) DareDevil Dive from the train. . this is going to look amazing when running and the train passes it (and you can see some of the fire effects in that "venting pipe" on the right. exiting the train - fire effect from a different "Venting pipe" see? all around the ride. . .these Fire effect really look to be part of the lighting/theming package! the ones on the main sign, did this every 20 seconds or so. . giant fireballs! it was time for our night ride on Superman, but the ride had gone down. It's B&M, so rather than cancel our booking and get in a long queue for something else, we decided to wait it out for about 30 minutes. . . but we wanted to get off our feet for a while. So decided to head to Sangerfest Halle to grab a bench (every other bench/table we passed was occupied since so busy). Turned out Sangerfest Halle was pretty packed too, but we did eventually find a bench to sit on for 20 minutes until we got a notice Superman was back up and headed that way. this is a shot of one of the scenes in the area by Bug's WhiteWater Rapids - again, the scare actors contained behind barriers, but messing with folks who got near enough to mess with. The area really does look quite spectacular! once we got back to Superman, Condor immediately booked us a night ride for Iron Rattler. Only to have the park do something insanely shitty: They had announced that several of the rides would close early for the big fireworks at 10:30 (it was only ~8:30 now), and that included the Train, Iron Rattler, Wonder Woman, and Superman. In fact, by the time we got to Superman for our ride, they had closed off the Standby line (to allow them to drain the crowd before the fireworks). But we were able to use Flash Pass line to get our reservation, since the ride had been down. but when we got off Superman, Condor got a notice on the Flash Pass that Iron Rattler was now closed - and our reservation had been deleted. We headed over that way to ask - and along the way, I saw a senior supervisor and stopped to query her why they would cancel reservations? I understand closing the line off to future bookings, but since the reservations were booked for it on the Flash Pass, they need to honor those if the ride is still cycling (ie: not down for mechanical). . she agreed, and said go see what they tell us at Iron Rattler, and then if not satisfied go talk to Flash Pass office. we got to Iron Rattler, and sure enough, lots of folks still in queue, and the ride cycling. . . . The Flash Pass folks just happened to be coming out the entrance, so Condor talked to them and we basically got the "im sorry, we werent' sure when we needed to close" and "we're not sure why it deleted reservations, but go talk to Flash Pass office" - because honestly, they had come to the park for night rides on Iron Rattler, and tho we had gotten a "dusk" ride, we had a night reservation locked in - it's not right they cancelled it. as we were starting to walk to the Flash Pass booth, I heard a ride op say to the Flash Pass folks - your Supervisor is not gonna be thilled with y'all! So I stopped and asked if a lot of people had the same issue we did, and they said yes - and were sending them all to Flash Pass to deal with it. Not gonna go into the whole thing. . but will just say that we ended up in the Flash Pass queue behind a Hispanic family that was complaining (and since I understand Spanish - hey, I grew up in Texas - I piped in and said - are y'all specifically referring to an Iron Rattler reservation being cancelled? And they enthusiastically agreed (they had been waiting almost 2 hours only for their reservation to disappear). . so with a big group now (5 of them, 3 of us), the counter guy went to get a Supervisor to talk to us. not thrilled with how it went down - terrible that they cancelled reservations from those who had them (and couldn't offer Skip the Line passes for Wonder Woman, since the Flash Pass queue wasn't being used today) - *but*. . . very pleased with the customer service the Supervisor provided, and I think it was a better solution than I could have hoped for. I believe Condor was happy to accept the resolution too, even tho We really wanted a true night ride on Iron Rattler. so just heads up for anyone going. . the park was "open" till 10, with fireworks at 10:30, but two big rides (Superman & Iron Rattler), lock the queue much earlier than that. once resolution happened, it was ~9:15 and we were near the front of the park anyways. . . (and Condor and his Dad had big day today heading to Dallas - and I had an hour 1/2 drive to get home still). . so we said our goodbyes and they headed out. Had a great time meeting and hanging with them, and really glad he had reached out to tell me he was gonna be at SFFT so I could drive down to meet em. was a great day, even with ending issues, and the gigantic crowd. I decided I'd wander thru the "Freaky Car Show" - since there was no line at this point (and I had taken a few pics around the park earlier in the day of the cars). so here's the "Freaky" cars that were on display. the big "Soul Harvest" scare zone at the front of the park - again, surrounded by fence, with the scare actors within) the Stilt performers probably appreciate not having to keep an eye out for little ones running beneath them! dark, but he nodded "ok" when I asked if I could use flash (ALWAYS ASK. . don't want to blind the performers) SPOOKY and with that, I headed out. way, way too busy, but had a wonderful time, and as noted at the start? I actually greatly prefer the scare actors being in scenes instead of running around freely. BOO!

Great pics!!

Looks like you are right and they are still planning on building the 2021 coaster, according to these permits filed this month https://epicla.lacounty.gov/SelfService/#/plan/34b29751-f381-4f38-b9b3-2cfc55afe0ee?tab=subrecords https://epicla.lacounty.gov/SelfService/#/permit/3f44c971-a566-49fc-95c9-7ae34f7382fd

This place is loaded with lurkers who don’t post (PS: You should post, only a few of us bite). I feel like the new post reactions are the moment they’ve been waiting for.

agreed with everyone else! this is a great report, thanks so much for sharing. Nagashima Spaland is a "greatest hits" park - with some amazing coasters (and flats), including the best free-spin I've ever been on (Arashi) and a super intense Manta clone (Acrobat), as well as classics (1st Gen Intamin drop, an Ultra Twister, TWO Schwarzkopfs), a killer haunted house walk thru (so great I went thru twice) and a fantastic dark shooter, that is up there with ToyStoryMania in terms of how great it is. That's without Steel Dragon 2K, or Hakeugei. so yes, ABSOLUTELY worth a visit. but so is Fuji-Q - which if you manage to get lucky with a good day of light-ish crowds and great weather? also has some absolutely incredible coasters. I'd also toss YomiuriLand on that list. . as I adored that park (tho recall, I'm a big fan of flats as well as Coasters), and this park included THE most fun river raft ride I've ever been on (Cup Noodles), AND the most fun Raft Slide I've ever been on: So I'd include that in a visit to Japan too (along with Tokyo Disney)

^ Why not both parks? (Money money money.... )

I might be somewhat biased since I'm an Ohioan, but I think Skyline is great. You can actually get a decent amount of food (2 cheese coneys and fries) with the dining plan. The Skyline at KI is right near the main entrance so lines can get pretty long at peak meal times. There is a separate restaurant just a couple miles away, though, which might be a better option during crowded weekends.

Great report, this place looks fantastic now. Japan is still high on my bucket list and while Fuji-Q used to be high on my "must visit Japanese parks list" (behind Tokyo Disney of course), I think Nagashima Spaland might have taken it's spot.

Thanks for the report! I like Nagashima Spaland quite a bit, and Hakugei looks great.

Hilarious. Thanks for the TR and the sexy sexy photos of Hakugei.

Great report! I've shared this on our other social media platforms as well!

"I can't believe it's not Manta"!!! HAHAHAHA!!! Love it! Great TR!

Love to see some Nagashima. I really enjoyed our day here. I know there were folks that preferred Fuji Q, but I think Nagashima has a more well-rounded complete lineup. I'm glad everything was open here for me except the Jet Coaster. Thought this park had a nice selection of flats and transport type rides. Plus the bobkarts were a blast!

Awesome TR and nice photos!

Dancing In The Streets ~ Martha Reeves & The Vandellas