LukeFlynn

The launch system was a great deal of the problems last season, from what I can tell. It received a lot of work throughout January and February. I believe now it's just a lot of little things that are manifesting themselves now simply because it wasn't running at max capacity last year.

I've never been on a day within the past 3 seasons that Mystery Mine wasn't TC until at least noon. For some reason it's never opening with the park in my experience.

They might be for WiFi, Dollywood Guest Wifi is now an option, which I don't remember last year.

Anyone have experience at Red's they'd care to share? I stopped in on Friday, the burgers looked decent, but Dollywood has proved looks do not count for anything this year. Also, does anyone have a preference for Aunt Grannie's or Miss Lillians?

I didn't personally try the hot dogs this year, but I heard they were pretty bad. I also heard the stand doesn't provide mustard!? What is this!? I liked the corn dogs okay last year at Dogs 'n Taters, haven't gotten a chance to try them this year yet. I'm going to try a sit-down restaurant my next visit to see if that's a better experience than the stands.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that. The egg rolls are actually decent, not mind blowing, but good enough for the price. The chicken concoction that they describe as "teriyaki" is another story, mine was so dry it was like eating a paper towel. You watch them fix it and it doesn't look half bad, then you realize they just give you stuff that's been sitting under a heat lamp for an hour. The rice doesn't even taste oriental, it's like Mexican rice with some soy sauce in it. I would also recommend avoiding the crepes, they aren't made fresh, even though they lead you to believe that. I'm considering trying the FON Tacos, they looked decent in the pictures, anyone have experience? I think it would be cool if they had people from the respective country who actually know what the food is supposed to be like prepare the stuff.

Yes, the operations are frankly terrible. I sat on the brake run/transfer lift for as much as 5 minutes (timed) on Friday. I would attribute this to opening day hype, but it was exactly the same last season. It's likely due to the restraints, it's not uncommon for at least one person on the train to be too large or tall and require them to unlock all of the restraints to let that person exit.

They were letting people pick rows for the most part. None of the downtime was rollback related so at least that seems to be fixed for now. All three lasted for less than an hour.

They aren't to hold onto during the ride, they are there to help you secure the lap bar, a lot of taller people had to push extremely hard with their body working against them, these help apply the force better.

I am honestly more concerned about this than anything related to LR. Yes, LR is fine, just routine maintenance that came up a bit early. The new pizza is just sad, I'm going to start bringing stuff and keeping it in my car, honestly. I don't see how people rate Dollywood's food so high anymore.

it's a Rocky Mountain Conspiracy. I asked the ops, it's not having rollback issues, their elevator is broken and they seem to be fixing it and doing some train maintenance at the same time.

EDIT: I recant that statement, don't let the appearance fool you! The pizza sauce has changed into some overly sweet lunchable-esque marinara. The cheese is also very low quality. I'm very disappointed with Dollywood's food offerings this year, everything is made very early in advanced to all of it is cold. I rode in the back row on LR twice, there is no more pothole!

In other news, Lumberjacks has the same pizza as before, it's just smaller.

Yes, two train operation.

LR was closed until about 20 til 11 because of weather, it's running great now though! They added oh sh*t bars to the retraints that double as a great way to help secure the lap bar for larger folks.

Speaking of Lightning Rod, imagine my surprise when I opened up the app this evening: !!! Probably just testing the system, but still exciting.

Those restraints are brutal. I'm 6'2 and over 200lbs, sometimes I have no trouble at all getting the lap bar to close perfectly without extra force, but other times it fights back..... it's just not consistent seat to seat.

The actual cause of the downtime on this particular day was them adding a train and it causing a fault of some kind. I'll agree that it's not peak season, but it's by no means slow either. The "pothole" has been fixed according to Pete Owens. When I first rode in October I definitely noticed the pothole in the back row, I rode it multiple times in November and don't remember noticing.. could just be confirmation bias though.

Yeah, it didn't even begin to operate until around summer... The whole issue with RMC's restraint cylinder recall seemed to set them back as well. I can personally verify that it was running consistently between late September and early December, it had an hour or two of downtime on some days, but overall fairly reliable. Most of the time they only ran one train though, it seems like the addition of two always made the whole thing finicky.

I've ridden it multiple times as well, and I do agree that it is a fantastic ride. There have been multiple people whom haven't ridden it claiming it to be overhyped and overrated. The simple fact is, all of the hype is well deserved, and they're not going to understand until they ride it. I know I sound like some mesmerized member of the general public in awe of the airtime machine that is Lightning Rod.. but it truly is great. I don't think the GP is as disgruntled as we can be, especially the locals. A few of the coaster youtubers (and other communities) are giving this ride a bad wrap just because of the downtime. I think the Golden Ticket Aware was well deserved regardless.

The barn itself isn't the issue, it's just so high... It looks odd. In other news... 10 days until pass-holder preview day! Let's cross our fingers that Lightning Rod is open, I'm stoked.

They should've taken the station down and made a proper canopy or something, this just looks bizarre.

Right!? I feel like so many people are going into these older rides for the first time with super low expectations just based on what YouTubers say, it's pretty unnerving.

This isn't the map I'm referring to, I'm talking about the interactive phone version (iOS): [attachment=0]IMG_0221.PNG.png[/attachment] An Apple product has inferior maps? Say it ain't so! Right!? NB: Android is still not for me, tried many times.

This isn't the map I'm referring to, I'm talking about the interactive phone version (iOS):