Dollywood Discussion Thread

[PKI Jizzman]

Every time I visit Dollywood I leave singing that ride's praises. Everything about Tennessee Tornado is fantastic, the lift and turnaround that uses the terrain, the tunneled first drop and the snappy but ridiculously smooth inversions.

 

TT's mini helix and tunneled drop really surprised me. I must've missed the POV's or something, but I think those two quirky bits really elevated the ride.

[LukeFlynn]

I love the banked curve right after the crest of the lift... and how that first drop just sucks you in.

[SFOGdude25]

Not to mention the legitimately good airtime in the back seat on the first drop through the tunnel.

Yeah, Tornado rocks.

[LukeFlynn]

Or the fact that you feel like you're gonna rollback in the first row of that first loop.. every single time.

[Canobie Coaster]

All I knew going into the ride was that the first drop was huge and through the mountain. That drop was amazing and the rest of the ride was smoother than most B&Ms. I'm really sad Arrow disappeared since they were heading in the right direction.

[Vonni]

The only time I've ever been to DW, I was still a young enthusiast. I did not know what hang time was, so my first ride in the front seat on TT and we hit the top of the loop, I was freaked out thinking something was wrong haha!

[dstephe9]

I'm here today so far LR gas been down all day, so had Daredevil falls, but I think it's been down on and off for several days

 

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[SharkTums]

^We have friends who are there and it was closed all day yesterday but they got on it this morning.

[bluestreak]

Currently open with a 45 minute wait according to the app.

[dstephe9]

Yes, Daredevil Falls finally opened.. as for LR, I either missed when the app said it was opened or it never opened.. We had to leave early as my GF was called into work but I never saw it open when I was there haha..

 

They also seemed to have Drop Line on a fast mode or something.. It never actually stopped at the top today like folks have been mentioning.. it went up, stopped spinning towards the top but never stopped moving up.. as soon as it got to the top it dropped, no stopping haha.

 

Good short day though! Fairly busy, looks like summer crowds are starting.. lots of families

 

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[I Like Theme Parks.]

^So it basically does what a Larson tower does? If it runs that way often, than that's awesome!

[dstephe9]

Yup.. now some folks on here say that it stops right before the top, makes a full rotation, and then goes up a little more to drop.. like I said, when I watched it this morning (it was actually closed until shortly before noon) it never made the stop for the full rotation it just stopped spinning and continued to climb then drops.. that's how my ride cycle was as well..

 

So not sure if they were trying to keep the line down by putting it in a fast mode or if it was having some sort of problem which could explain why it wasn't opened for the first 30 - 45 mins when I was there (I arrived shortly before 11 so not sure if it was opened before then or not and went down)

 

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Edited May 18, 2017 by dstephe9

[dstephe9]

Looks like LR has been shut down for the day.. it's now listed as CD.. like I said, I never saw it running at all during my short trip today but a poster here said at one time the app showed a 45 min wait for it so it possibly opened for a very short time.

 

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[jh5292]

The daily question of the operating status of Lightning Rod reminds me of a situation in certain sports leagues over the last few years. A twitter account will be created for a bad team and it sends out 1 tweet per day with if that day won the night before. Because the team was so bad, it was always....."No."

 

We need a twitter account @IsLightningRodOpen.......and every day it can just send.... "No"

 

I've already had 3 trips booked to DW over the last two seasons that I've cancelled due to the ride not being open or weather issues. Got another planned for next Friday. I'm to the point that I'm just going to go and expect LR will be closed and experience the rest of the park as I've never been there before. A 10 hour drive isn't much fun though.

 

Looks like they have a $10-15 million (or whatever it cost) paperweight, sadly.

[dstephe9]

The cost was between $25 - $30 million and has probably topped that now due to all the issues haha

 

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[coasterbill]

While the ride is far from reliable it's doing much better this year than it did last year and we can only expect this trend to continue. This honestly kind of reminds me of rides like Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster. The first season is a complete sh*t show, the second year is a little better and then over time as the park becomes familiar with the ride they make tweaks, learn to quickly fix and anticipate problems and eventually the ride is at a point where even if it still breaks down a lot it's still generally open for a decent portion of each operating day (with a few rare exceptions here and there).

 

The park is clearly making progress with Lightning Rod but it's not going to go from being the most unreliable ride in recent memory to Wild Eagle over the course of one 2 1/2 month off-season.

 

Sure it's annoying but have a little patience. Dollywood was one of my favorite parks in America long before Lightning Rod was a thing so even if it is closed it's still worth traveling a long distance to spend a day at Dollywood.

Edited May 18, 2017 by coasterbill

[jh5292]

Even bigger ouch! Wish I had that much money to throw around!

[VegasBaby]

The daily question of the operating status of Lightning Rod reminds me of a situation in certain sports leagues over the last few years. A twitter account will be created for a bad team and it sends out 1 tweet per day with if that day won the night before. Because the team was so bad, it was always....."No."

 

We need a twitter account @IsLightningRodOpen.......and every day it can just send.... "No"

 

I've already had 3 trips booked to DW over the last two seasons that I've cancelled due to the ride not being open or weather issues. Got another planned for next Friday. I'm to the point that I'm just going to go and expect LR will be closed and experience the rest of the park as I've never been there before. A 10 hour drive isn't much fun though.

 

Looks like they have a $10-15 million (or whatever it cost) paperweight, sadly.

 

It's very disappointing that they cannot get this coaster to operate consistently. I know that it's a prototype and all, but they've had 5-6 months since they shut it down for the season last year and they still haven't figured it out. I don't know if that's more of an indictment on the Dollywood maintenance staff or RMC or if they both share the blame equally. I will say that they look pretty dumb when Pete Owens comes out and says "The ride is operating at a much more consistent level than it did at this time last year." While that might be technically true, saying that it is operating at a consistent level is laughable.

 

We're going to be visiting DW at the end of June and I'm just hoping to get one ride in. Hopefully we'll see better operations once the summer season is in full swing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Edited May 18, 2017 by VegasBaby

[dstephe9]

Honestly, the ride operated very well during the fall last season.. Almost no issues or closures at all but currently, it isn't operating nearly as well as it did last fall.. Maybe it did the first few weeks of the season but recently, downtime seems to be 50% or higher, with one week of almost 100% downtime last month

 

I go to the park a lot, although normally short visits.. I actually only recall LR being open during only one of my visits.. I know it had been opened on some of the days I visited, but was never open when I was actually there.

 

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[SharkTums]

I think at this point we have a right to be a little ticked off about the whole situation. Again, had this ride been at a Six Flags park or an Intamin ride at any park the enthusiast community would be ruthless!

 

We've been very supportive of the ride and the park, but a little more transparency at this point would be nice for people planning trips well into the second season.

Edited May 18, 2017 by SharkTums

[dstephe9]

A lot of folks today weren't very happy with a few leaving the park early because of it.. I had the Joy of hearing them complain on my early tram ride out haha (I personally didn't leave the park because of it, my GF got called into work so we had to cut our trip short.. but we are locals)

 

With that being said, the stamp lady on the way out did send one unhappy family to Guest Services where I assume they probably got a free ticket if Dollywood is still doing that this year

 

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[robbalvey]

I think at this point we have a right to be a little ticked off about the whole situation. Again, had this ride been at a Six Flags park or an Intamin ride at any park the enthusiast community would be ruthless!

 

We've been very supportive of the ride and the park, but a little more transparency at this point would be nice for people planning trips well into the second season.

Edited May 18, 2017 by robbalvey

[LukeFlynn]

It was operating fairly well this year up until about late April. Evidently, they had been testing it extensively during February, but I guess once it really started to get hammered with trains constantly being sent out more issues started cropping up. Part of me wishes they would just shut it down for a few weeks and actually work on fixing the issues instead of taking it down 20 times in a day eventually just to close it anyways.

[dstephe9]

That's essentially what they did several times last year but it didn't help much.

 

It not helping makes me feel like there are several areas on the coaster having issues

 

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[Jew]

The cost was between $25 - $30 million and has probably topped that now due to all the issues haha

 

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I hope they aren't paying for it, since they essentially have a lemon at the moment.

 

I feel bad for all involved, since I don't think it is for lack of effort that it is always down. The park is almost in a worse situation by having it be so inconsistent they can't even give clear information---seems like it never lasts a whole day, but opens as much as possible.