Dollywood Discussion Thread

[dstephe9]

It's hot! Probably a glitch though but still it's hot outside

 

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[mckayj93]

It's back to zero. Glad to see Lighting Rod averaging a 10-25 minute wait. Will be good for my trip next week!

[Cj1990]

It’s been very hot today. The Dollywood dream more resort has been a great escape for food and drinks! Lightning rod was actually not as much fun as I had expected. Great ride, I just built it up too much in my mind lol. The back row is the way to go after trying middle and front. We actually loved fire chaser express today. We had the most fun on it lol.

[Djwadeknox]

The Dollywood Pumpkin LumiNights starts today!

 

If you need tickets I have a special Dollywood Insider code you can use to get $5 off each online ticket you purchase.

 

The code is DWINSIDERS15

 

It IS upgradeable to a Season Pass and it IS good for Arrive After 3, Next Day FREE.

 

I hope this helps some folks!

[dstephe9]

Like how Dolly snuck Dollywood into the new Miley Cryus Album? If you haven't heard yet, listen to rainbowland

 

Dolly is actually very funny in it to, at least her talking before the song!

 

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[rebelrailroad]

From all the comments on Dollywood's Facebook page the first weekend of their Halloween lights was a disaster. Thousands of people wedged in to the canyon area, fights breaking out, people jumping fences to get out of the chaos, etc. Sad start to this event....

[Nrthwnd]

Wow - reality check.

 

Public park events are so hard to pre-judge, nowadays.

[dstephe9]

Ehhhh sounds like the haunted attractions at six flags.. people will complain but will continue to come.. Six Flags Over GA has never addressed their complaints of the haunted attractions but people every year continue to buy those bands and wait in lines for hours at a time just to walk through a not so scary haunted house lol to that takes two minutes

 

Also Dollywood is full of trashy rednecks so it doesn't surprise me that a fight broke out.. We can't have anything nice at Dollywood lol

 

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Edited October 2, 2017 by dstephe9

[Diamondbacker27]

Like how Dolly snuck Dollywood into the new Miley Cryus Album? If you haven't heard yet, listen to rainbowland

 

Dolly is actually very funny in it to, at least her talking before the song!

 

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I noticed that, I thought it was neat.

[Dollywoodlover20]

I was at Luminights last night and was in Timber Canyon during the fight. Here’s my review of the festival. Luminights is a FANTASTIC addition to the park. It makes wilderness pass and Timber Canyon have a needed feel during this time of year. Thunderhead glows a bright green, Drop Line a purple, Mystery Mine glows the eerie green with a red/purple on the half loop. The path up to everything floats with fog and has songs such as beat it and thriller blasting along with a personalized Dollywood Halloween track. The smells are great too. I think I like it a tiny bit better than Smoky Mountain Christmas. Here are the cons. Last night the crowds were absolutely awful up top. The crowds came to a hault and it took an hour to walk from River Battle to Mystery Mine and that’s honestly no joke. People were trapped, and it’s due to the narrow pathway, the photo ops set up on the corners with people trying to get you to get pictures taken, and then a mile long line going out into the crowd from the glow maze. The crowds aren’t bad where the best of the displays are odd enough. The fight broke out in front of the glow maze. It was a fist fight and it was due to irritability and people being pushed around from not having any room to move. So fists started to swing. Cops were called and the women and man were taken out. Then the path was re routed that you had to enter from Tennessee tornado side ONLY to help traffic flow. It kind of helped.

 

On another note. The traditional feel of Dollywood seemed to be back. Dolly was everywhere! Got my first night rides on Lightning Rod and I was honestly scared shitless the first 2 times. I got 5 night rides in and 3 day rides. Night is amazing!!!

River Battle is completely gone entirely. All that’s left is the que house.

I have some pictures that I’ll post later but here’s a crowd picture and a river Battle picture.

A little preview for now

[Nrthwnd]

^ Crowd photos like that, make me appreciate how our not-so-crazy-huge our crowds are,

during Playland's Fright Nights, in Vancouver. Big crowds, sure. But still workable.

 

But hey - Haunt Events are big crowds, anyway. So, I'd deal with it.

 

Boo.

[dstephe9]

These same complaints came last year during the revamped Christmas Parade.. Unfortunately, Dollywood just isn't built for the crowds they draw in for events like this.

 

But even Disney has issues during special events and parades and essentially just have to reroute traffic.. Disney reroutes their New Year's traffic of people exiting through back stage areas and it's still a standstill..

 

Dollywood has several backstage areas back there and I wonder if the opened those up for people exiting only, if it would help? They might not be linked to other areas of the park though like Disney's are so it might not help much but just a thought.. Disney has someone guarding these exits and they tell people they are for exiting the event only! Most of them at Disney come out on Main Street.

 

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[Nrthwnd]

^ Crowd sizes change and enlarge thru the years, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger....

 

So what can ya do? Just ride it out, and pre-plan accordingly.

[Dollywoodlover20]

After the fight broke out we were told if you are exiting down go through the normal entry and if you wanted to re enter you needed to circle around. The park extended an extra hour til 10pm which pissed of certain ride operators. Barnstormer has the two of the rudest operators I’ve ever had a park in my life and that shocked me. They were both older men in their 60’s and I’ve been coming to the park for 20 years, this shocked me. LR’s employees were amazing. They were really entertaining guests and the revving was working so that built guests up especially on night rides. One moment that made me laugh was when the operator came on and said “Guys if you don’t stop shaking the gates this ride will honestly shut its self down and you can’t ride it for the rest of the night because it’ll be down”. That moment everyone’s hands went off the rails and to their sides.

[dstephe9]

Dollywood expanded the path in that area this off season

 

All parks, even huge ones like Disney have issues during holidays and special events.. Six Flags has them during Fright Fest.. Disney during New Year's and so on

 

These same issues came up last year during the new parade at Dollywood. What Dollywood can do though is make an exit path that leads to another area of the park.. guard the path and it's exit only.. even if it goes through a backstage area.

 

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[Nrthwnd]

Actually, it sounds like "the crowds" are catching up to the usual way some crowds act - badly.

 

The parks are going have to act more police-state, to keep it all in order for the rest of the gp.

 

My five cents.

[Thunderhead01]

I’m really curious to see what happens to the land that River Battle was on I’m hoping for the train loop expansion I’d love to see a hyper, giga, or invert at DW as for the crowds all I can say wow I’ll be surprised if we don’t see some kind of security increase for these type of events

Edited October 2, 2017 by Thunderhead01

[Dollywoodlover20]

Here are some photos from Luminights

[Thunderhead01]

I hope they decorate Timber Canyon and Wilderness Pass for Christmas like they did for Fall like light The up in Christmas colors that area just seems kinda bland during Christmas time and since Drop Line has come in they won’t be doing the light show in Timber Canyon this year

[coasterbill]

Amazing, it's a shame about the crowds but that's a good problem to have and I'm sure they'll work it out.

 

This looks to be a great event, great job Dollywood on coming up with such a popular, unique Halloween concept!

[dstephe9]

I'm here tonight, much less crowded but still crowded.. it's fun, parts are actually kind of creepy.. foods good, loved the Apple Sunday! Apples with hot Carmel and whipped cream and Reese's pieces.. basically a cut up candy apple!

 

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[dstephe9]

I did notice from watching videos of this weekend, they did moge the dance party.. it's now in front of the bakery beside the ice cream shop.. earlier photos and videos showed it around Dropline but that wasn't where it was located last night.. so looks like Dollywood is trying to fix the crowded issue

 

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[mckayj93]

I was there for part of today, and I'll be there tomorrow night to check out the festival and coaster night rides. While I was there the longest wait anything had was 5 minutes, including Lightning Rod. If anyone is there during the day the Gospel groups that are performing in Celebrity Theater are very good. I can also verify the two old men ride ops at Barnstormer acted like butt wipes. Never had seen a bad ride op experience there before. It was those 2 with a older lady, at least she was nice. Rolled her eyes at one point when one of the dudes yelled at a kid on the mic for going the wrong way.

[Dollywoodlover20]

I’m glad someone else got to experience those rude guys and it wasn’t just me overthinking things. Well I mean I’m sorry for their absolute rudeness but ya know. These guys’ rudeness is just plain out bitter and almost has a cold evil feel to it, or it did the day I was there. One of the men named Toby told a woman that she didn’t look like she would fit on the ride (rolled his eyes) but he would try to fit her in. He then proceeds to ram the lapbar into her stomach and goes “Welp you fit, have fun.”

Made me friend and I cut our Barnstormer rides off quick. Once Drop Line opened up we replaced BS with it.

[rebelrailroad]

Yep, same experience with Barnstormer. There is one older man in particular who acts like he hates his job and all the guests who are there. No smiles, no chatting, just grumbling, barking orders, and slamming restraints.