Somewhat Photo TR: Dollywood and Carowinds

[Reon]

Alright, heres the catch for the "Photo" part of this photo tr. I have tons of pics and clips from the trip, but their all posted on my friend Doug's site. So, if you want to see them, here ya go: http://dougerz.com/RoadTrips/roadtriplabordaymain.html

 

This link also leads to his version of the report, so its like 2 TR's for the price of one! Anyways, on with the report:

 

The trip started out kind of slow on September 1st. While I was ready to hit the road at the crack of dawn, my friend Doug Trovinger, or "Dougerz", insisted on starting the drive a little after noon. For the most part, this Saturday drive was harmless, but once we got into into Pigeon Forge...Lets just say that what could have been a 20 minute drive became 2 hours thanks to some traffic issues. Fortunately, this gave me some time to absorb the surrounding area, and take some cool pics.

 

Eventually we made it to Dollywood, and I was immediately impressed. Even on the drive down to the parking lot, I could tell this park was well hidden. All I could see anywhere were trees and hills. We payed, parked, and hitched a ride on the tram up to the main entrance. Once we got to the entrance, we had to pay for full admission price, even at 4pm. Thats probably the one thing I have to hate on Dollywood for: no twilight hours discount. However, the nearly $50 admission was well worth it, even for the few hours we had in the park.

 

As soon as we went through the gates, I urged Dougerz to go for Timber Canyon first. We headed up the long winding ramp, watching all the amazing scenery until we finally caught sight of Thunder Head's turn around. Naturally, we went straight for Dollywood's woodie as our first ride of the trip.

 

-Thunderhead: 8.5/10 This ride was simply amazing, from the beginning to the end. It was filled with constant suprises, directional changes, and airtime, with a speed that never seemed to slow down. The fly-through was pretty cool, but far from the defining moment of the ride. Thunderhead easily made it to my top 5 list, and takes 2nd place in the wood division (cant beat the colossally insane ride of Cyclops.)

 

As soon as we got off, I had a feeling that this would be a good park, and hoped that we could get everything in for the short amount of time we had. Not waiting for Doug to respond, I dashed deeper into the area, heading for the Topple Tower. Unfortunately it was shut down, so we hit the next thing we could find:

 

-Mystery Mine: 10/10 This ride is perfect, plain and simple. I HIGHLY urge everybody to ride it if you get the chance. Gerstualler (or how ever you spell it) really knew what they were doing with this new installment to the park. It has Disney-quality theming, wonderful elements, fantastic airtime, and a perfect flow of ride. I only pity that its so short. Mystery Mine easily found its place as my current favorite rollercoaster.

 

Unfortunately, MM marks the end of the path at Dollywood (at least until next year), so Dougerz and I had to backtrack to the entrance. I took advantage of the time to take some shots of the area on the way back, and having some fun with some of their props. Eventually we found our way to the other side of the park. One of the really cool things about Dollywood is how everything is hidden. Its like an adventure to find everything, so it gets fun exploring everything. After a decent amount of exploring, and detouring to snaps some shots of the Eagle habitat, we found our way to the next stop on our trip.

 

-Blazing Fury: 7/10. I'm not rating this on thrill, but the full experience of the ride. Blazing Fury is a near clone of SDC's Fire-in-the-Hole (does anyone know which came first?) In fact, the ride-ops actually call out the name of the sister ride when they dispatch [/fun fact] Anyways, Blazing Fury is a fun ride for the whole factory. Its like a half-dark ride, half-coaster, and to quote Doug: "The old Mystery Mine."

 

Once we were done with this credit, we followed the path to another big thriller and Dollywood classic:

 

-Tennessee Tornado: 8/10 Probably the best Arrow coaster I've ever been on (and this is coming from the guy who until now though KI's Vortex was one of the best things ever). Despite the reputation of this now extinct company, Tornado is quite smooth, and filled with nice flowing elements. Some cool features on the ride include some terraining, a giant loop, a near-overbank, and a custom element designed for this ride. Far from best steel I've been on, but its still a really nice ride.

 

Now done with the majority of Dollywood's heavy hitters, Doug and I began our quest to whore out Dollywood's kiddy (which I won't rate since we whored it): VeggieTales. It took a while to find the area, since it was hidden in the corner. The Country Fair was pretty nicely themed, and I'm mad that we didn't have time to hit the Disk-O or the flyer thing. After we finished that, our time was running short. I remembered how SDC's toboggan ride was pretty fun, and I suggested that we try to find that before the day was done. Doug agreed and we found it after some more adventuring. I think SDC's is better, but this was still a Joey-friendly ride

 

After we finished up the Watterboggan, we only had time for one more ride. Although we still needed to hit the nearby flume, we decided to opt for another run on Mystery Mine. It was enjoyable, and now I have the tunnel's theme song in my head... After we had our last ride, the park was about to close. I tried to convince Doug to get another lap on Thunder Head while we were still there, but he overruled me, and we hit the gift shop instead. One Cowboy hat and MM shirt later, we were back on the tram. Over all, I'll give Dollywood a 9/10. Great service, beautiful theming, and godly coasters. I'll have to make a return trip some time to hit the stuff we didn't have time for. And more laps on MM of course.

 

 

Part 2 (Carowinds) will be posted later. I also have another batch of photos aside from what's posted on Doug's page, but I need to resize them before I can post them here

[kraken613]

Mystery Mine a 10/10? Definetly not for that for me. Thunderhead is a much better ride in my opinion. If it was me those scores would be flipped!

[Reon]

Like I said, Thunderhead was pretty sweet, but I don't think it's the best. MM is really short, yes, but what it has IT HAS! If they were able to extend the coaster section, I think this could really be a top-class ride.

[I love DW]

Once we got to the entrance, we had to pay for full admission price, even at 4pm. Thats probably the one thing I have to hate on Dollywood for: no twilight hours discount. However, the nearly $50 admission was well worth it, even for the few hours we had in the park.

 

I don't know if you know this or not but you could have gotten in the next day FREE!

 

Dollywood has a "Arrive after three next day free" program. All you have to do is purchase a ticket and not go through the turnstile until after three. You do not have to have any type of special ticket that says "Arrive after three next day free." All you do is make sure your ticket is run through after 3 p.m. and it will some how put a note on the tickets barcode and then when you come back the next operating day you can use the same ticket to get in the park for the entire day.

 

That is why Dollywood doesn't have "twilight hours discount." At Dollywood you can get a entire day plus several extra hours for the price of just one day. If you were to go during their Smoky Mountain Christmas festival you could take advantage of "Arrive after 6 p.m. and wrap up the next day free." Which gives you three hours the night of purchase then the entire next day, for the same price.