Dollywood 8/10 Part 1 Posted

I'm going to Pigeon Forge for a long weekend and convinced my non-enthusiast mother to spend a day at Dollywood. I thought it was going to be years before I would get to visit Dollywood, so I'm especially excited. I don't know which day I'll be going yet but it's sometime over the weekend.

[mkingy]

Enjoy yourself and try not to inundate your mother with enthusiast facts

[Paradox]

No trip would be complete without riding Thunderhead in the back seat

I won't be visiting the park until Sunday but I have to say; Pigeon Forge is a tourist trap! I knew there were going to be some places that were just itching to take your money but this is excessive! It can be a fun trip though if you can sift through the garbage to find some things that are genuinely enjoyable. The towns of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg are all situated on a street called Parkway. Besides the gap between the national park and Gatlinburg, there are billboards and ads everywhere you look. Probably the most interesting thing I've seen is the new alpine coaster in Gatlinburg. Screamscape has a few ;pictures of it but it looks extremely cool. It is in such a strange location which makes it even cooler. I'll post a few pictures of it once I have access to a computer. We drove by Dollywood and I love that the park is invisible from the road. The only glimpse I got of the park itself was the tops of Wild Eagle's elements. It blends into the scenery which is awesome considering everything on the main road looks like the Las Vegas strip.

Okay here's the alpine coaster, I'ts kind of hard to see from the road but I tried. Sorry they are flipped! Click on them and they'll flip right side up.

They also have these go-kart tracks that look like wooden coasters. They're kind of cool.

Sorry for the double post but I don't want this to fall into archives before the actual trip report. For those who have been, what is your favorite coaster at Dollywood? I'm pretty sure I'm running to Thunderhead as soon as it opens. This will be my first GCI coaster . I'm also interested to see how Wild Eagle stacks up to X-Flight.

[mkingy]

Dollywood has always been a park id like to visit. I think Mystery Mine is a fantastic idea and Wild Eagle looks like a great wingrider too!

Pictures coming in a bit. I'm no pro photographer; just keep that in mind.

Total Rides:
Firechaser Express: 3
Wild Eagle: 3
Tennessee Tornado: 2
Mystery Mine: 1
Thunderhead: 3

Lines were non-existent all day. I'll have a full trip report in a few hours.

Favorite: Thunderhead! Not as many negative g's as I would have thought but you hit those turns hard!

[Paradox]

Only 1 ride on Mystery Mine? I loved the ride especially the hangtime.

Okay, the link to the album will be at the end of the post.

We arrived to the park around 10:30 to find an empty parking lot. I knew it was going to be pretty dead considering it was supposed to rain all day but this was awesome. Half-hour late and we still got front row parking. The thing I love most about the outside of the park is how hidden the park is from the road. You cannot tell there is a theme park there unless you knew it was. I drove by the day before and all I could see is the tops of Wild Eagle's elements. It is the same way until you are standing under the coasters. It's just that well hidden and it looks awesome compared to a Six Flags skyline. The employees were extremely friendly in every corner of the park and the atmosphere was top notch. My mom isn't big on coasters to begin with so we had to work our way up to the bigger coasters.

We had no clue where we were going so we just walked until we hit the back of the park. Firechaser Express was the first coaster we rode today and it was actually pretty fun. The trains are really open and the track is super smooth. The forward launch definitely had more force than the backward but they were small friction wheel launches so I really wasn't expecting much. Nothing too special but my mom and brother liked that it didn't scare the living s*** out of them

We worked our way back to Mystery Mine and I managed to conceal the fact that there is a beyond vertical drop enclosed until we were on the ride. Fighting the urge to blurt out useless facts that scare my family is hard to do. It was fun but it felt kind of gimmicky. The theming was cool but without it this coaster is pretty uneventful. The only part that was really insane was the drop and the final few inversions. Yes paradox, the hangtime is pretty sweet.

Lumberjack Lifts sounded way cooler than it actually was but it killed a few minutes before we rode Thunderhead! I knew GCI coasters ran balls to the wall but this was awesome. You literally get tossed on every turn. This would have been painful if it weren't for the rolling couches called Millennium Flyers. I had never ridden anything quite so strong on the turns. The quick transitions and high laterals really made this ride.

We actually didn't know there was a way back to the front right outside of Thunderhead so we ended up walking back the way we came to Daredevil Falls. Log Flumes are fun and I'm glad we didn't have to wait.

We went up by the Barnstormer with no intentions of riding it. I'm probably just being paranoid but I'm a little nervous to get on an S&S Screamin' Swing after Skyhawk snapped a cable. Actually, one side wasn't running all day. Blazing Fury and the River Rampage were also closed. I guess they knew it was going to be dead today.

Part 2 Coming Soon
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126875157 ... 348183555/

[TTD03]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!

[mkingy]

Cool pictures - I love the ones where the rollercoaster is just peaking above the scenery haha.

[Paradox]

Did you like Tennessee Tornado? I didn't find it very enjoyable.

^ Why? Is it painful? Hope not, as its coaster seems to pack a good punch.

It was fun but I got a headache after riding the second time so I stayed away from it for the rest of the day. It was a million times better than my home park's Arrow looper. (Demon @ SFGAm) You can't see it as much from POV videos but you're hauling down that pre-drop.