Dollywood Discussion Thread

[Thunderhead01]

Never really had a bad experience at Dollywood hearing this really shocks me not sure when my next trip will be but when I make it back to the park I’ll post my experience

[jonskinny12]

I'll throw my opinion out there and say that on my visit in June, Barnstormer was the only place that I experienced any kind of unfriendly, seemingly unhappy staff. The rest of the staff was some of the best I've encountered at any park, but these old guys just seemed annoyed that they had to be there. I also thought the ride itself was pretty disappointing. The only other Screamin' Swing I've been on is Skyhawk. I know Skyhawk is a bit bigger so maybe my expectations were too high, but Barnstormer felt SO much slower and seemed to have a way shorter cycle.

[mckayj93]

No other park has a setting this nice, you can see Wild Eagle peaking up from the park between mountains and valleys

entrance to the main festival theming- daytime

the side of Mystery Mine

dark pic but the pasta from Lumberjacks. It was pretty good. Didn't have a pic of the cider.

Drop Line with it's theming and amazing light package

front of Mystery Mine. Looked more impressive in person

Had a disco ball up over the graves with scarecrows dancing to music. Didn't even get a pic of the 2 big pumpkins or the torches. Again, much cooler looking in person.

I'll definitely make plans to check this out again next year!

 

Just got back to my room from Illuminights and other festivities going on at Dollywood. I got to hand it to them, they did a fantastic job with this new festival. More on that later. I also got my first night ride on Lightning Rod, and holy crap is all I can say. Everything in the park gives a good night ride, my favorite was a tie between Tennessee Tornado and Wild Eagle, but this was insane. More on the festivals: the daytime stuff was as good as ever. If your into the gospel bands, they are good. Quality wise the ones in Celebrity Theater are best, then Showstreet, then meh after that. The front half of the park has the typical fall decor out with craft vendors set up everywhere who are very neat to watch. I never saw a line ride get above 5 minutes all day, including Lightning Rod and Fire Chaser. Weather was good for everything, not too hot, but still warm enough to enjoy water rides. As far as daytime festival food- anything they are making at the shop back behind market square and kettle corn will be amazing. Grilled potatoes, onions, sausage, chicken, vegetables, etc. Some thoughts on Luminights- the theming started at the Timber Canyon path at Showstreet and continued up to the River Battle site, although the really heavy theming stopped at Mystery Mine. Glow Maze was in River Battle due, the rest of the ride was already gone with a fence around it. Covers more space than I originally thought. All the food vendors had special options for the festival. I had a chicken, bacon, and tomato garlic pasta from Lumberjacks, it was pretty good. The iced apple cider was phenomenal, $2 in the refill mug. There was other options I saw, like candy apple sundaes, and a Fanta Float. The theming was through the roof. I'm glad this end of the park has a festival to call its own- as the other ones all focus on the front end of the park. The pics I have do it no justice to how well done and immersive it was. It had more detail than most of the Christmas elements. The pumpkin carvers were very cool. I saw the tail end of the dance party, it got moved from Timber Canyon to Showstreet due to the crowd level. The character's acting and costumes were all great. The "dance party" consisted of hits like Thriller, Macarena, etc. The whole festival was I felt exactly what they were aiming for- it wasn't too scary or too childish or corny. Only complaint was the speed of the how the crowd moved. There were no where near as many people as the pics as last weekend, but not enough people to have this many traffic flow issues. October is usually bad in the park due to the old people in the electric scooters. Most of them along with people with strollers were all in Timber Canyon and gave no thought to parking in the middle of the path and stopping both sides of the flow to either take a picture or fumble through a bag or pocket. Thats my only complaint though. Here are some pics!

[defrocker]

Does Dollywood offer a "night before preview" during the Christmas season?

[dstephe9]

Sometimes but not all rides are open.. it's basically like the luminights night before preview they did this year.. for the luminights preview, only that side of the park was open.

 

You will get your invite in an email if they do one

 

Also note it's only for pass holders

 

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[defrocker]

I meant if you buy a ticket do they offer for you to come into the park the night before? Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear.

[dstephe9]

Hmm good question.. I believe it'll be the same as luminights still.. they honor it but it's not 3:00... I believe it's 4:00 or 5:00 to get in free the next day

 

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[dstephe9]

Ok so I looked it up for Luminights it's still free after 3 but it says that promo expires the end if October.. I guess we will have to wait and see..

 

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[DorneyKid14]

Saw these on Facebook. River battle is gone.

 

 

Photos were taken and posted to Facebook by coaster crew.

[DollyWould]

An employee friend of mine said the park released attendance numbers for this past Saturday today. An all-time one day record was supposedly set of 32,000 on Saturday!!!???!!!??? Has anyone heard the same, differently or can confirm this?

 

If so, where was everyone parking? What is the capacity of all lots (A to F, Preferred and Splash Country combined?) Seems like at one point, they would just have to turn people away at the parking booths.

 

If this is factual, I'm not so sure I'm really looking forward to my weekend trip this Friday now, as they are predicting similar crowds.

 

I (and my peeps) would refuse to deal with crowds of that magnitude, unfortunately. Maybe we'll just wait & go in Sunday for awhile & imagine it's nightime, LOL

[coastermaniac]

This was my second visit to Dollywood [first time being earlier this year]. We had a fantastic time with quite a few rides on Lightning Rod as well as the other attractions.

 

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[DorneyKid14]

An employee friend of mine said the park released attendance numbers for this past Saturday today. An all-time one day record was supposedly set of 32,000 on Saturday!!!???!!!??? Has anyone heard the same, differently or can confirm this?

 

If so, where was everyone parking? What is the capacity of all lots (A to F, Preferred and Splash Country combined?) Seems like at one point, they would just have to turn people away at the parking booths.

 

If this is factual, I'm not so sure I'm really looking forward to my weekend trip this Friday now, as they are predicting similar crowds.

 

I (and my peeps) would refuse to deal with crowds of that magnitude, unfortunately. Maybe we'll just wait & go in Sunday for awhile & imagine it's nightime, LOL

 

The could of told people to park at the hotel, or even in the town and have shuttles running to the park, which they do already I believe.

 

A few years ago, dorney had to tell people to go find parking at businesses around the park and long the streets. Dollywood could of done the same.

[Thunderhead01]

River Battle is gone I’m jumping on the 2018 hype train

[dstephe9]

An employee friend of mine said the park released attendance numbers for this past Saturday today. An all-time one day record was supposedly set of 32,000 on Saturday!!!???!!!??? Has anyone heard the same, differently or can confirm this?

 

If so, where was everyone parking? What is the capacity of all lots (A to F, Preferred and Splash Country combined?) Seems like at one point, they would just have to turn people away at the parking booths.

 

If this is factual, I'm not so sure I'm really looking forward to my weekend trip this Friday now, as they are predicting similar crowds.

 

I (and my peeps) would refuse to deal with crowds of that magnitude, unfortunately. Maybe we'll just wait & go in Sunday for awhile & imagine it's nightime, LOL

Ehh not sure.. last year I think they broke a record and it was 35,000 people or so the report said.. it wouldn't surprise me if they did break a record, just not sure the total.. they would park at splash and then the splash employee lot (gravel lot) and then preferred.. I was there last year when they supposedly hit around 35000 and they never turned anyone away and never ran out of parking.. that total could of been 30,000 though if the report of 32000 is accurate.. but again, they reported 35000 that weekend last year so who knows.. they have been packed on the weekends this month so it is very possible. When I got there last year the lots were mostly full and they told me to just drive around and find an empty spot.. spots opened up all over the park as folks left for various things.. it just took a little hunting for a parking spot.. I think I posted here about the parking nightmare and driving around for 30+ mins until found out it was a record day haha.. they also had RV parking opened and cars doubled up in it that day.

 

Also, Dollywood does have a lot of growing pains when the park hits that many people. They don't handle it nearly as well as other parks.. rides are usually fine and under 60 min wait so still far better than a six flags park but food service suffers and places around the park bottleneck making it hard to move around.

 

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[ElvisLuv]

When SDC gets over 20,000 it's the equivalent of being at Disney between Dec 25th and Jan 1st. So I imagine 30,000 at Dollywood is about the same.

[dstephe9]

It's worse operations wise. I usually go to Disney around Jan 1st.. while Disney usually ends up closing their gates around 60something thousand, their food operations are still very quick.. Dollywood you might wait 30+mins for a basic sandwich.. that was a huge issue last year on Facebook..

 

Dollywood also seems more crowded, especially around the bottle neck areas when they are at 30,000+ than Disney feels at 60,000+

 

But that's just my experience being at Disney around new years the past two years and my times at Dollywood on record days haha..

 

Remember though, a lot of those 30,000+ aren't at Dollywood for rides so rides can still be under an hour wait while most are under 30 mins still

 

Disney opens backstage areas to help people exit the crowds (they did this after the new years fireworks) and get out of the park when they are ready and after a big event.. Dollywood doesn't which is why we heard of folks fighting and climbing the fence a few weeks ago.. again, Dollywood is getting better at it but still has growing pains at those high crowd levels

 

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[Derpologist]

Hey all, looking to visit Dollywood for the first time this November, probably Mon the 27th. Any tips or tricks from vets? I'm wondering if that's too close to Thanksgiving weekend and the park will still be swamped. Is this a park that can reasonably be done in one day?

[dstephe9]

During the week you should be fine.. on Saturday or Sunday, it's hit or miss and directly related to the weather.. if it's sunny, warm (yes we have 60 - 70 degree days all the way into December) and a weekend it's probably going to be swamped.. we are talking record breaking days! But during the week, you should be fine.. I have been during the week even when schools are out that time of year and it's usually fine

 

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[Derpologist]

^Awesome. Definitely will show up on a weekday. Has anyone done the SkyZip experience? Wondering about how long that takes. It seems there's no better place to zipline than above Dollywood, but I don't want to take too much time away from rides.

[dstephe9]

They advertise a little over an hour if you ask them but it's closed on slow days (usually weekdays that time of year it might be closed)

 

I think online they say it takes about an HR and half

 

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[dstephe9]

Just looked online myself it says it's closed after October 28th

 

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[middle_keeny]

An employee friend of mine said the park released attendance numbers for this past Saturday today. An all-time one day record was supposedly set of 32,000 on Saturday!!!???!!!??? Has anyone heard the same, differently or can confirm this?

 

If so, where was everyone parking? What is the capacity of all lots (A to F, Preferred and Splash Country combined?) Seems like at one point, they would just have to turn people away at the parking booths.

 

If this is factual, I'm not so sure I'm really looking forward to my weekend trip this Friday now, as they are predicting similar crowds.

 

I (and my peeps) would refuse to deal with crowds of that magnitude, unfortunately. Maybe we'll just wait & go in Sunday for awhile & imagine it's nightime, LOL

 

I was there Saturday the 8th. We arrived about 3pm and parked in Splash Country. IT actually turned out to be advantageous because they let us exit the lot out the employee exit of Splash Country right onto Veterans Blvd. They had anyone who parked in A,B,C go out the old way.

 

As for attendance. I have more than one person tell me that Saturday the 8th the attendance was a little over 28,300. The parks capacity is permitted for 28k. Not sure about Oct 2. I'll post a longer report later but the Pumpkin Funnel Cake is almost bettter than Cinnamon Bread

[Nrthwnd]

...I'll post a longer report later but the Pumpkin Funnel Cake is almost better than Cinnamon Bread

 

Sacrilege!

 

 

 

Oh. You said "almost better."

 

Well. That's nice.

[dstephe9]

The place is a madhouse tonight! Full lots, all of them.. long lines! Good to see this crowded during the week! Good sign

 

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[dstephe9]

They have added a lot of new crowd management things to help with crowds.. built new line areas around restaurants, they have folks directing traffic, and more.. they seem to be doing a good job at it

 

Park extended hours tonight

 

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