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Dollywood Discussion Thread

P. 796 - Ride closing 10/30 to remove launch and install chain lift!

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Dollywood is open till midnight today for the very first time ever. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

 

Me and my best friend are going next Saturday, we figured it would be better crowd wise the weekend after the 4th,instead of the weekend before the 4th.

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The app list most of the rides open.. what do you mean they are closed? Sure they aren't closed due to weather? It's been storming on and off all afternoon??

 

LR is listed as TC and Daredevil Falls is listed as CD but they have been having issues with both those rides on and off all summer so if those are the only two closed, I wouldn't fret it

 

Also, the park is normally open until 10 at least this time of the year and all rides remain open until 10.. they do close some for the fireworks, but quickly open them after

 

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Edited by dstephe9
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Dollywood is open till midnight today for the very first time ever. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Hopefully it goes well! Some if my favorite times at Six Flags and Disney are 10:00 - Midnight!! Unfortunately I couldn't go to Dollywood today.. I'm hoping they take into account the weather (calling for storms all day today) if it doesn't go well.. I'd love to see Dollywood open to midnight everyday next summer

 

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Rain and Thunderstorms have been off and on since 5pm today. Do to the remote location of daredevil falls and it not having a lot of lightning around it I think it close every evening once it gets dark for safety. Everything else stays open as far as I know.

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I do see on the app now that they did close Drop Line for the night? Wonder why? That would be one of the best rides in the dark, with the light package and everything!

 

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Have some extra time off work next week, thinking about making an extra trip to Dollywood. Hotel costs are pretty much the same all week. Which day do you think would be best for Dollywood and which for National Park as far as crowds and Lightning Rod? Obviously not Saturday lol. And are there any deals for Splash Country besides the value I get with my Gold Pass?

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National Park is slammed pretty much any day this time of year.. week of course is better than weekend but it'll still be crowded.. As for Dollywood I find Tuesday or Wednesday to be less crowded than other days from all my visits

 

And Splash Country doesn't really run deals for pass holders until August when school starts back.. so just the value Discount or whatever is the only deal right now.. Maybe try McDonalds? They have deals on their cups

 

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I might wait and do a extra trip a weekend in August if they offer the season pass deal like last year. Especially if aquarium does the $10 deal again. I guess its still a gamble with Lightning Rod, got to ride once this season, twice last. Just would hate to wait an hour and it goes down

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Yeah, I took advantage of the season pass deal last year.. it was like half off a ticket in August, plus Splash Country is dead on those days.. this year I got super passes and have honestly been spending more time at Splash Country than Dollywood haha.. Last week though, the water in the wave pool and lazy river was cold! Like below 80 degrees cold which is cold for around here..

 

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Here's the McDonald's deal, it's actually pretty good. $10 off if you buy online and no need to drag a McDonald's Cup or Bag in.. only $5 off at the gate though and you must bring your McDonakds cup in

 

 

This is good for a blanket ticket meaning it's good for any day until August 13th

 

http://www.dollywood.com/lpg/promo/McDonalds

 

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Don't shoot the messenger here, but having experienced LR its opening year, this past spring and now over 4th of July weekend here, I'd say there is a noticeable difference over the first two hills of the ride. After the main drop it remains about the same intensity wise. Although the train launches at the same 47 MPH as it always has, the launch definitely shuts off a bit earlier than it used to. Earlier this season and last year the train continued to accelerate until the last car left the last stator, but now it appears to begin its deceleration when about half the train has left the last stator, holding back it's cresting speed a little.

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IOE has said that is not true, just ask them on their Facebook.. several of us here have and they say they would have to be notified by the park if any changes like that have been made. They didn't say why they would have to be notified but I'd assume it's because they had to commission the software and fault tolerance for the ride so it would probably require a recommission if changes like that are made.. just guessing though.

 

I rode it probably 100 times last season and maybe 20 this season.. some rides I have noticed a slowdown, but most of those rides where actually last season.. it really depends on the ride but this season I haven't noticed any significant slowdowns even after the the downtime this season.. my speed app that I have been using to measure everything seems to be consistent on all rides of LR

 

I rode it 4 or 5 times this year before the downtime and made a trip to Dollywood just a few days after it reopened and have rode over 10 time since then and it was running the same as beginning of the season, at least on my rides.

 

I'm sure at times, due to train weight and whatnot, it slows down more towards the top than other times.. but IOE says nothing is intentionally slowing it.. last year I had a few rides where the slow down was very noticeable but not really had any rides like that this year, but no changes have been made to the ride making it slow down launch or software wise

 

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Hi, Jeff from IOE here - just wanted to clarify (as we have mentioned on our Facebook) that we don't know anything about changes on Lightning Rod within our scope of work, and that we are not involved with the actual launching of trains, which is a separate contractor. If something has changed with the launch itself then we would not necessarily have any knowledge of it. Thanks!

 

-Jeff

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I went yesterday and after a few rides I feel it does seem to let off just a little towards the top. It was ripping me out the first hump, but now seems to be a little more gentle. I can say after that it's is still balls to the walls crazy awesome. It's not being braked at the top, but it does seem to let off a little early now. Please don't let my opinion dampen your excitement at all because it still is the best coaster all around. It still is having some TC time throughout the day, but not as much as before. Still only one train.

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I went yesterday and after a few rides I feel it does seem to let off just a little towards the top. It was ripping me out the first hump, but now seems to be a little more gentle. I can say after that it's is still balls to the walls crazy awesome. It's not being braked at the top, but it does seem to let off a little early now. Please don't let my opinion dampen your excitement at all because it still is the best coaster all around. It still is having some TC time throughout the day, but not as much as before. Still only one train.

Were there any signs of any work being done on the 2nd train down beneath the station? I don't think they've ran the 2nd train at all since the reopening.

 

While checking the app occasionally the past few days, I have noticed an uptic in "TCs" with the coaster but still seems to be running somewhat better than before the closure. I do wonder what could be preventing them on running both trains at once as the capacity seems to be hurting right now with just one train ops.

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Earlier in the season, everytime they tried to run two trains it started causing the failure to launch issues.. so my take is that something in the system just doesn't like both trains at the same time. From what I have seen, it doesn't seem like there is an issue with the second train. For example, I saw them load it once early during the season and the original train that had been on the coaster was the one that didn't launch.

 

So IDK, we haven't seen them attempt the second train after the downtime.. maybe they rewired one train during the downtime and not the other? According to Pete, a lot of rewiring was supposed to be done to the trains during the off season..

 

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When Lightning Rod has a TC, are they allowing you to stay in line or do they evacuate the queue? I may be able to sneak out to Dollywood again when I'm in Atlanta in a few weeks and really hope it's still running after missing it repeatedly.

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Just a thought - purely speculative.

 

Last year, most of the season, they were running the ride with rows empty. I haven't seen them doing it this year. Since the ride is launched on a pretty steep incline and the LSMs ends before the top, wouldn't the additional weight cause the ride to lose a little momentum before cresting the first hill? I'm not sure that the weight of 4 people or so would cause a noticeable change or if the launch system compensates for weight to reach the desired speed...

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When Lightning Rod has a TC, are they allowing you to stay in line or do they evacuate the queue? I may be able to sneak out to Dollywood again when I'm in Atlanta in a few weeks and really hope it's still running after missing it repeatedly.

 

 

If it's a short TC yes. If they feel it will be take some time then no.

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When Lightning Rod has a TC, are they allowing you to stay in line or do they evacuate the queue? I may be able to sneak out to Dollywood again when I'm in Atlanta in a few weeks and really hope it's still running after missing it repeatedly.
I have seen it go both ways.. sometimes they allow you to stay but in my experience, most of the time I have been told to leave.. keep in mind, I haven't been in line many times when it goes down.. most of the time I stay away from it when it is down or had been going down a lot

 

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