Dollywood Discussion Thread

[coasterbill]

I’m at the park dude.

 

and?

[Mastalucky23]

Clearly you were trying to make it sound like I didn’t know what I was talking about. But I don’t sit and troll theme park forums all day.

[coasterbill]

Okay... you're right. Dollywood posted a bunch of fake wait times for the first hour of the day that they kept changing just to mess with you, then they did it again from 11:45 to 12:45. It's all part of their grand plan to make your day miserable.

[Mastalucky23]

I really can’t argue with someone like you. Lol have a great day man

[Canobie Coaster]

Is this the first day this year where Lightning Rod has gone all Lightning Rod? It seems like the ride has been running pretty consistently so far this year.

[thrillseeker4552]

^I hope so. There is a fair chance I am visiting this park (along with a few others) for the first time this summer and, of course, I would really like to ride Lightning Rod.

[Canobie Coaster]

^ Still temporarily closed and it has been 7 hours of that. Hopefully this is just a bad day, but with this ride's history you never know.

[Canobie Coaster]

Looks like they got Lightning Rod open for a half hour around 5:15 before it closed due to weather.

[neilnky]

Looks like rainy weather for the opening I hope it clears up. I tell you I love looking at Thunderhead in all the videos and the live cam. I just never realized how beautiful it was when it was all hidden. I think it is so cool seeing so much more of it.

[tndank]

I like riding the drop tower just so I can get an overhead view of Thunderhead. Beautiful coaster.

[Canobie Coaster]

I can't wait to see some photos of Thunderhead taken from within Wildwood Grove.

[dstephe9]

I am going to Dollywood over Memorial Day weekend. Has anyone ever been during this time? Will the park be slammed?

 

The issue with going at the end of May is that the "Bring A Friend Free" passes that you get with your season passes expire at the end of May. Everyone waits till last minute to use them so its nothing to see the park at or past capacity. I've learned to avoid the park on Weekends in may at all costs. Even the food lines will be 45 minutes.

This year it was worse the first day of the passes. I went the first day of being a friend and they filled up splash country parking lot. I never got a number on attendance for that date but the next weekend, it was also crowded but not nearly as bad. I heard from multiple team leads that the attendance that Saturday was 28,000 so I'd put the first Saturday over 30,000.. a lot of people were using friend passes both Saturdays to get in

 

Both weekends were beautiful though! Low 70s, and sun so yeah with Dollywood it also depends on weather.

 

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[dstephe9]

I really can’t argue with someone like you. Lol have a great day man

I believe you! There's been several times this year when I've been there the rides show as open on the app but find a message on the screen that doesn't say closed or temporarily closed but says "temporarily delayed". (I noticed that's what the site says, delayed, but like I said they sometimes update delays on the app. Not sure if the sites getting data from the app with a spoofed location but I'd imagine it is) To me that's the same as closed sometimes, but they weren't always updating the app with that delayed message. Is that maybe what Mystery Mine said instead of closed most of the morning? Plus, a few weekends ago, on a lot of the rides, the ride ops did a piss poor job updating the wait times anyways. I was at barnstormer and it had a 0 min wait most of the day but my wait was clearly 10 mins. Finally the girl assigning gates, opened a tablet box right in front of her and changed it to 5 mins, but the line was even longer then. LR said 20 mins but it was over an hour. On the other hand, other rides said their waits were over an hour but were only 20 mins.

 

Unlike a lot of parks, humans put the wait time on Dollywood's screen so if they are busy or forget, it might not be very accurate

 

During my experience, they didn't use the temporarily delayed message often last year. Biggest difference I've noticed is the leave the line open if it says temporarily delayed, at least on LR and firechasher (the two rides I've seen it the most) however LR stayed temporarily delayed for over an hour one day. Personally, that's why I consider it the same as closed. 5 - 10 mins while loading a train is a delay, not an hour long closure but that's just me.

 

 

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[coasterbill]

When it's temporarily delayed it updates on the app and the site too. Also, humans put the wait time on the screen at every park (though Disney does occasionally hand something to a person in the queue that they hand in later to the "human" that updates it).

 

No park is wait time tracking robots, though that would be pretty awesome. It's not that hard to see what happened here. The ride was open until about 11 (after a briefly delayed opening of a few minutes), then it went down for a bit, opened at 11:45 and went down an hour later. He thought that the ride had only operated for that second hour because he probably didn't rope drop Mystery Mine which was all the way in the back of the park and never knew it was open earlier because you wouldn't know that unless you were back there. He was probably at Lightning Rod as any normal human would be.

 

Sometimes parks suck at updating wait times, but that's going to be in the form of posting a wait time and forgetting to change it (so like... posting a long wait for Lightning Rod and forgetting to change it 3 hours later when it's a station wait and the park is about to close). In this case the number was constantly changing and the ops weren't just screwing with it for sh*ts and giggles.

 

A little common sense is necessary when looking at wait times.

[dstephe9]

When it's temporarily delayed it updates on the app and the site too. Also, humans put the wait time on the screen at every park (though Disney does occasionally hand something to a person in the queue that they hand in later to the "human" that updates it).

 

No park is wait time tracking robots, though that would be pretty awesome. It's not that hard to see what happened here. The ride was open until about 11 (after a briefly delayed opening of a few minutes), then it went down for a bit, opened at 11:45 and went down an hour later. He thought that the ride had only operated for that second hour because he probably didn't rope drop Mystery Mine which was all the way in the back of the park and never knew it was open earlier because you wouldn't know that unless you were back there. He was probably at Lightning Rod as any normal human would be. [emoji38]

 

Sometimes parks suck at updating wait times, but that's going to be in the form of posting a wait time and forgetting to change it (so like... posting a long wait for Lightning Rod and forgetting to change it 3 hours later when it's a station wait and the park is about to close). In this case the number was constantly changing and the ops weren't just screwing with it for sh*ts and giggles.

 

A little common sense is necessary when looking at wait times.

Man I know you love arguing with us but I'm saying I have witnessed what the other person witnessed in person a few times this year. That the app doesn't update correctly and shows open on but rides aren't they aren't open. But like he said, you can't argue with someone who only visits the park once or twice a year vs someone who is in the park so ok you win man. Have a good weekend!

 

And by humans I mean humans input the wait time and it's not done by tracking cards or anything like Disney

 

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[coasterbill]

I'm really not even arguing. I'm agreeing with you that wait times aren't always accurate (you're totally right about that) but parks never update the wait time every few minutes for a closed ride just to mess with people.

 

It doesn't matter if someone is in the park since the only way you would even be able to see that ride that early in the day is if you ran to the back of the park immediately for no reason.

 

At the end of the day this doesn't really matter anyway. I'm not sure how it became a big thing.

[VF15]

I’m going to be visiting Dollywood next week on Wednesday. How busy does the park typically get this time of year on weekdays?

[tndank]

Prob not bad on Wed. Schools are still in for most around here.

[Vonni]

Wildwood Grove looks so awesome! I've seen some videos of it on YouTube. I'm looking forward to some trip reports posted here!

[Taylor Finn]

^Check out TPR's coverage here!

 

https://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1906229#p1906229

[VF15]

Post deleted.

[tndank]

I went to check out the new section today. Things looked nice over there. Dragonflier is so quiet. Hard to hear it even standing in the queue. Nice little family coaster with nice, comfy seats.

[blk_mamba]

I am planning on going to Dollywood Memorial Day weekend. Does anyone else have experience doing this? Will the park be slammed?

[TEDodd]

Will the park be slammed?

 

Yes.

[blk_mamba]

Will the park be slammed?

 

Yes.

 

Guess I'll be getting some skip the line passes. lol.