mellowcotton

Just went to Dollywood for the first time on Monday & Wednesday. Overall, we had an amazing time. We only had time for a couple of hours yesterday before having to drive home, but we were able to ride every coaster (FCE and WE 2x) between the hours of 10-12. Definitely worth the multi-day pass. If anyone here is lurking wondering about crowds, the max time we waited either day was ~10 minutes for Lightning Rod in the back. Also, we never had any issues with Lightning Rod being down, although they only ran one train both days (which seemed to be the case for all rides except FCE, so that might just be how the park operates?)

Get to the park @ 9:30 when the gates to the parking lot open, and once the park opens run to get in line for Goliath. If you're there right when the park opens you should only have ~5-15 minute wait. Once you get off the ride, you'll probably be able to walk on X-Flight/Batman, or head over to Raging Bull and get in a relatively short line. The rest of the day, if the weather is good, lines might be 45 minutes-2 hours for most of the rides, but if you use the single rider line you can definitely fit in all the major coasters.

I don't really see the harm in calling to complain if you think the experience was bad enough. Worst case scenario, nothing changes. Best case, someone else doesn't have to deal with it in the future.

Decided to head to the park yesterday since I'll be back at school anyway and there was an ERT event if you bought a Slurpee that my group was considering buying if the open rides were good (turns out they were Superman and Condor, so we passed) We got to the park at around 9:40 and queued up to enter the park right away. Once we were in the park, my group ran to the back to get in line for Goliath. Lucky for us, we were there soon enough to be almost directly outside the ride entrance, and the ride was essentially a walk-on after waiting for it to open. This was my first time riding Goliath and WOW. They ride ops were assigning seats and we got put in the very last row which was an amazing ride. While I agree that it almost feels like a truncated coaster, what we got was definitely worth waking up early and speeding on I-90 to experience (however, I will say that if I waited 1.5+ hrs for it I would probably be singing a different tune) Discouraged from trying to ride Goliath again after seeing the line extend out of the entrance with full turnstiles, we decided to head out for other rides and were able to walk on both X-Flight and Viper, so we started off pretty well! As for the crowd report the rest of the day, lines were better IMO than previous visits I've had in August. We were able to squeeze in about 15-20 rides, as opposed to the usual 7-10. Both sides of AE were running and one rotation of trains was actually racing, which was a lot of fun. Of course, all the major coasters had their usual hour-hour and a half wait time, but single rider lines were open at Superman, Raging Bull, Goliath (and possibly Batman, no one in our group wanted to ride it, so I'm not sure) and we didn't have any problem with being turned away because we were a group. The system worked best on Goliath where the single rider queue leads you up to the station to be put on the ride as needed (ended up being ~30 minute wait for an otherwise hour+ line). Everywhere else, I think some operator training/relocation of the single rider line needs to happen, as you are simply sent up alone to the station in random intervals along with the regular line. On Superman and early in the day on Raging Bull, our group bypassed the 2 hour line completely and were even sent up together(?) to the station by the line operator. Later on, we went for the single rider line again on Raging Bull, and we saw a lot of people abusing the system (waiting in the line on the stairs for their friends to get sent out of the single rider line). Even after being warned by the operator that doing so would result in ejection from the park, we saw two girls wait and then get escorted out of line by security. Yikes. Hopefully situations like this don't get the lines removed! Overall though, I really enjoyed my experience at the park! Can't wait to come next year early in May to get some low wait-times on Goliath!

Hey everybody! So I know this has been asked a lot in this thread, but I'm planning a visit to Six Flags before I head back to school. I was wondering, is there a noticeable difference in the crowds the second week or third week in August as opposed to some time in July? Or would it be worth my time to wait until around August 25th (the last day before I have to head back to school) to avoid big crowds? Thanks!