I love DW

My home park is Holiday World (2 1/2 hour drive). I go once a year usually. This year I may end up there twice though.

Nice trip report. I can not wait to get back down to Dollywood. I will be going Thanksgiving weekend. I will be getting there early and hitting the Polar Express first due to expected long lines for that attraction. And a note to anyone who doesn't know the Polar Express 4-D Experience:

[two cents]I have never tried to upload anything to YouTube and there for have not read their copyright but using someone else's music without permission I beleive in some way could be copyright infringement, so that could be their reasoning behind it. However it is odd that they would do this because I'm pretty sure that means about 90% or more of the videos uploaded should be removed due to someone using a song without permission from the artist/label.[/two cents]

Saw prices hovering between $1.87 and $1.90 yesterday in Southern Illinois.

Just posted three and have at least one more to go.

Didn't get to as many as I wanted to. Parks for 2008: Dollywood - Every month except April and September Holiday World - May Canada's Wonderland - June Cedar Point - June Ober Gatlinburg (if you want to count it) - July Still more Dollywood to come in November and December.

Voted!

As far as Adventure Mountain is concerned you can read in the first paragraph at: http://www.dollywoodadventuremountain.com Reasoning behind doing something like this is basically new attractions cost a lot of money and with the economy like it is new attractions are not guranteed to bring in larger crowds. Spending all this money would then in turn be almost useless because there would be very little to no gain from it. This will provide Herschend to focus more on infrustructure and keeping all host. As stated three post above Silver Dollar City has many 'citizens' who have been there more than 20 years the same with Dollywood 'host'. I my opinoin this is a VERY wise decision on the part of Herschend and each individual park! I don't know if other plans where included at Silver Dollar City for next year or not but I do know that Dollywood WILL STILL be adding the shows Imagine for Festival Of Nations, Sha-Kon-O-Hey which will be the parks most elabrote stage production in it's history and the park will also be adding to it's KidsFest lineup. As far as the Dollywood properity goes they will still be having there biggest year of entertainment lineups ever. So it is mostly just major attractions.

^First of all I have not been to the Valdosta area so I don't know what is there. When asked for special prices or coupons I looked at there website. Plus I don't know who the person is so I really don't know if they may be on there way to visit someone and just passing through (hince will be back through again on return visit home) or what. So I just was trying to help. Plus by listing the phobia ticket deal with Coca-Cola it draws attention to the fact you should ALWAYS check the park site weeks before so you can get special online deals.

You could always just buy a 2009 season pass for $69 so you could go the rest of this year and next year!?! And if you looked ahead of time I would have bought the $29 Phobia and Bottomless Coca-Cola wristband that you can ONLY get ONLINE if I were you: http://wildadventurespasses.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=161989 Also by looking online it looks as if by getting the $45 day ticket you get the second day FREE, so really that is not a bad deal at all! : http://wildadventurespasses.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=160714

Partly cloudy and 74 degrees with NO winds.

$3.59 at most stations here in Southern Illinois.

Tan FBLA shirt Blue warm up style pants and no shoes

What screamscape.com says about the future resort hotel: While I have not seen the survey I beleive either Chasing Rainbows or the Southern Style will be one of the themes. Although I think Dollywood could make a really nice International style like nothing in the Smokies I don't see it ranking as high on the survey. Maybe the first resort will go over big and we will end up with three different hotels using all of the themes...........Of course that announcement may be saved for the 50 year plan

I remember when I was 10 walking all the way to the top of Mountain Scream at Dollywood's Splash Country and walking all the way back down once I reached the starting area. Now I have concurred the fear of Mountain Scream. Most recent I remember is back in 2006 I said 'no' to Fire Tower Falls at Splash Country and Summit Plummet at Blizzard Beach...just not a fan of heights unless I'm strapped into a coaster seat, then it's the higher the better!

I did like Smoky Mountain Adventure Tours but I like Thunder Road better. So far this season I have not got a chance to ride it yet so my last time to ride was it's last day of operation back on December 30, 2002.

My last coaster was Mystery Mine at Dollywood on March 21st! Next coaster will not be until June at Canada's Wonderland, then on to Cedar Point!!!

For my two home parks: Holiday World - Voyage Six Flags St. Louis - Mr. Freeze

Ok just a few thoughts over the last pages of comments: Holes on the sides of the hills and 'eco friendly' ways: Now I have not seen these holes but you should know that all Herschend properties are required to plant two trees for every one they cut down. Plus during construction building around them can be more difficult than plowing them down and replanting since they have a landscapers on hand everyday. So my guess is these could be for new trues of the transfer of trees. Dollywood also tries during construction to make it to where runoff water during and after rains can be reused and not go down the drain. They do this by using plants that can stand flood conditions, trees on sides of the hills so there roots will keep the dirt from being washed aways, etc. So my guess for the holes is trees to keep the mountain there because they don't want it to wash away during construction or during possible future use. Future of the park: As most have said Dollywood can not be called a small park in 2007 it attracted over 2.5 million guests, Dollywood's Splash Country saw a 19.6% increase in attendance last year with almost a half a million visitors making it the 11th most visited water park in America and the 17th most visited in the World. As someone stated the Smoky Mountain National Park is the most visited national park with 10 million plus visitors annually, so the attendance is there for a resort. Dolly did state back in 2005 that there twenty year plan included investing another $160 million with such things as a resort hotel, a heavily themed restaurant, she also said that she wanted to have a kid based t.v. show produced there and she said they projected 5 million as there annual attendance in twenty years (I see that happening for sure). Well just three short years later at this years grand opening weekend she was quoted by the Knoxville News Sentinel as saying: That is just a little food for thought edit* Speaking of food, Dolly how long till the new highly themed restaurant?

My next parks will not be until Canada's Wonderland and Cedar Point sometime between June 1 - 7 then Dollywood on June 10.

Really just love it that much. I'm posting a few pictures on Coaster 101 next week, after I download the images to my computer at home.

^That's what I thought to when i saw the construction picture of it on Screamscape but when I got there it didn't look nearly as cartoonish as what the pictures do. Even the few pictures I took of it make it look more cartonish probably because a picture just focuses on one particular thing and when your there what surrounds you is different. Also another thing I thought was cool with the area was the speakers right around River Battle announce when it closes also. The music stops and a chipmunk sounding voice comes on and really has a whole story element to the closing of it. Found this out when it closed about 6:45 Saturday more than likely due to the fact that NO ONE was on the ride all of the rafts were completely empty and the area only had a few people walking either to Mystery Mine or Tennessee Tornado so really no need to keep it open then.

Thanks for the photos! I went Saturday and the park was not crowded at all. Mystery Mine was down at 10:30 and what was funny was "Buzz the buzzard" said "You wanna know the real mystery behind the Mystery Mine" and of course the crowd replied "yah!" Buzz's response "The mystery is when it's going to open" and laughed. I thought it was funny. The next time I saw the ride around 6 it was opened and at 10:30 they were saying it would be opening in thirty minutes so... I heard on park the train will be down for a couple weeks possibly. Also Blazing Fury was running Saturday afternoon as I passed it. Thunder Road was also running Saturday (which was the first time for guest to ride it since 2001 since it did not operate sneak preview days or Friday.) As for concerns people have mentioned about shade. The trees that are up there don't have leaves now so that alone will provide more shade than what you see in pictures as for flowers and such they are just small right now. The retaining wall that you see directly across from River Battle has flowers of some sort almost in every hole. So give it time...know of course it won't be the most shaded part of the park this summer by no means since it is the first year for it but they have transplanted several larger trees from other places so it won't be completely in the sun plus between Ranger Supplies and Tennessee Tornado will be getting the shade canopies like they have in parts of Timber Towers que line.

Tye-dye t-shirt Aeropostale sweatshirt Old Navy sweat pants

About two months ago. when was the last time you visited a theme park's website?