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Dollywood Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Weather: Scattered Thundershowers, Warm Crowds: Moderate Lines: Minimal This is a trip that almost didn’t happen. After checking the weather Sunday night, it didn’t look promising. Now I don’t mind having to wait out a passing thunderstorm at a park, but when you have a four hour drive each way, time at the park is precious. There was some debate, but since we already had the day off, we figured we might as well. We wanted to put our season passes to work. The weather held out pretty well on the drive, though we took the “short cut” through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, which connects Cherokee, North Carolina with Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It’s not really much shorter time wise, as it’s a one lane windy mountain road that is 35 miles long. (The other rout is northwest up I-75 to Chattanooga, and then east on I-40 through Knoxville.) The park provides some spectacular views, and as long as you’re not stuck behind a slow moving vehicle, it’s definitely worth it. We headed out of Atlanta around 9:30am, and with separate lunch and gas stops pulled into Dollywood right around 1:30pm. That gave us 6 and a half hours to run around the park. The parking lot was crowded, so we expected the worst. We hopped the efficient tram system they have (which they need because the parking lot is linear), and were dropped off in front of the Season Pass entrance. Predictably, we headed right for Thunderhead. The path that takes you up to Thunderhead Gap is not meant for capacity. It’s narrow, very windy, and can’t handle more than 5 or 6 people across. I can’t imagine what a traffic nightmare this would be when/if they eventually connect the “Loop” from Thunderhead Gap back to Tennessee Tornado. So with a crowded parking lot, we expected a crowded queue. A full queue on this coaster is about a 20 minute wait. If the line is going out the queue and back onto the midway, it would be around 30 minutes. Dollywood really knows how to operate this ride well and almost always has both trains running. There was no queue, and as we walked up the stairs into the station, we saw a one train wait for the back seat. Suddenly the 4 hour drive was worth it. We spent about 30 minutes getting 4 rides. It wasn’t empty enough to stay on the train in the back seat, so we took our time walking around the exit and hoping back in line. The ride is amazing, as I’m sure most have heard by now. It’s such a stunning combination of the laterals of a twister and the airtime pops of an out-and-back. The speed and pacing are amazing, the transitions are perfect, and it somehow feels smooth and out of control at the same time. There’s no question that this ride is number 1, and it’s ahead of a number of rather reputable rides. The line started to pick up (now at 5 minutes) so we figured to head to the back of the park to hit up Tennessee Tornado, the triple inversion Arrow. Same as our last visit, they were running only one train. I’m not sure why exactly, but even so the line was no more than 10 minutes. We got a pair of rides in, towards the back, which is where I recommend everyone sit. The train comes quickly off the lift, a sudden drop into a sharply banked U-turn right. The drop on this ride is stunning; I’ll leave it at that. Arrow has come a long way since their standard loop-screw model U-turn and drop. Pulling up from the drop into the 1st loop is crazy, hitting over 3.5 G’s only a few seconds before cresting the peak of the 100 foot tall loop with some wonderful airtime. You’ll dive back down into the woods, and then up over a hill into a 90 degree banked right turn. That drops you back into the ravine for another loop, which leads right into the sidewinder (i.e., Immelman on a B&M coaster). Climbing up the ravine, there’s the final banked turn, with a nice dip, then a sudden pull-up into the brakes, with some sick ejector airtime. There is only one thing I can say about this ride. If Arrow had made rides that even came close to this one for the past 20 years, they would not have gone bankrupt. Kudos to Dollywood and Arrow for this surprising custom terrain looper. We headed towards Blazing Fury, Dollywood’s indoor coaster/darkride/waterride. Our first stop was at a snack stand for a free cup of ice water. That’s a policy I like to see at a park, *big* cups of ice water at any drink stand. We queued up for Blazing Fury, and they were running three trains, cutting a full station wait to only about 5-10 minutes. It’s a fun ride, a good way to break up the day. Some cool scenes, and just the right amount of cheesiness. Watch out at the end though, that splash may be bigger than you expect. The sky had opened up just a bit, so we wanted to try to get over to Thunderhead to get some slick rides before they closed it. Too bad we only got ¾ of the way there before the downpour began. We gave up and headed for shelter. Even before the rain stopped, the sun was shining bright. We headed up to the ride when it did stop, and waited outside the queue. A train was stuck on the lift in the rain because the computer shuts the ride down when it gets too much speed. Those poor people. Once it was safe to run that train, the riders came off, and we expected the ride to open up again. Unfortunately, the Doppler said otherwise, and they tried to make us evacuate that section of the park! This was a strange policy, as they told everyone in the ride area to leave, but didn’t have anyone or any notice to tell people to stop from coming into it. We played a cat and mouse game of them trying to shoo us down the hill, and us slowly pushing the line forward to be the first to ride. After 15 minutes of that, they let us queue up for the ride, and another 15 passed before they opened it again. It probably wasn’t worth the wait, since the sun had been out for a while now and dried up the track. But it was about 15 degrees cooler, and you could tell the ride was picking up. We meandered around the park for a bit, walked through Dolly’s Museum, hit the Car Ride (cleverly themed like a used car dealership). We headed over to the Country Fair section of the park, craving a few flat rides. The cycle was nice and long on the bumper cars, followed by a dampening trip on the Log Flume, which is strangely always walk-on. It was dinner time, and we had seen a deal for $6.45 dinner specials at the Backstage Restaurant. I had the pork chop (2) special, and David had the grilled chicken. The food was decent, and definitely worth it. We were surprised by the price, as that’s a good deal for any restaurant, let alone an amusement park. On our next visit, we will hit the $9.99 all-you-can-eat fried chicken dinner place! Time was winding down, so we decided to head back to Tornado one last time. A shorter line this time, and we walked onto the second to last car, front row. This is not a particularly special seat, and coincidently the others at the park agreed, leaving the row empty for 3 straight circuits, giving us 4 in a row without leaving the seat. We didn’t look that gift horse in the mouth, and decided to finish it out on Thunderhead. We got up there around 7:15, hoping to get a few rides in before 8pm. The line had picked up, but we got two backseat rides and were back in the queue for the front seat at 5 till. We timed it perfectly and got the second to last front seat ride of the night. The pace had picked up as the day wore on, and we couldn’t have thought of a better way to end the day. On our way out we strolled through the Emporium. David picked up a shot glass and such, and we were back on our way. The tram once again met us just outside the entrance, and we only had to wait for a couple to get a seat. We were out of the lot around 8:45, and despite the horrible driving conditions throughout the drive back, we made it back into town around 12:15 am. I was lucky to have a few speedy pace cars to follow behind I suppose. It was another great visit. I really like this park. Their overall focus is not on rides but rather on guests, making for a pleasant day. But the rides they do have they run very well. They pride themselves on filling every seat out on Thunderhead (almost to a fault), and the crew on Tornado just flies. It’s a great place to bring your family, and now it’s a great place to bring your coaster enthusiast friends. Back to Trip Reports
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