[Dollywood] trip report week of Thanksgiving
Dollywood - Monday 11/25
My daughter had no school for the whole week of Thanksgiving so we decided to make the drive from Ohio to Dollywood. We went to Dollywood two years ago but that was before Big Bear Mountain opened. We’ve talked a bunch since then about going back to ride it and to get more laps on Lightning Rod (which we loved!).
Knowing that a lot of schools were still in session for the first few days of the week, we chose Monday as our day. We even checked the Dollywood Reddit where it said it would be slower on Monday than Sunday and queue times had it as a medium day at 47%. This definitely wasn’t the case when we got there. The weather on Monday was great and the park was nuts to butts everywhere.
Even though it was about as packed as I think it could possibly be (just so many people everywhere!) we still had a pretty good time. We did learn as soon as we got there that Big Bear Mountain would not open and had actually been down for a few weeks…and spoiler…Lightning Rod never opened either….doh!
Here’s what we got on:
Tennessee tornado - back row - Big fan of Arrow loopers (in fact I was wearing an Arrow Dynamics bootleg shirt under my fleece) and this is one of the best I’ve been on. I’d forgotten a bit about the hangtime going through the massive loop and the first drop is just great (especially in the back row). This ride is pretty short though. Honestly it’s like a super sized Corkscrew without the jank. Probably my 3rd favorite Arrow after X2 and Magnum (which are both top 10/top 15 rides for me).
Mystery mine - My daughter claimed two years ago that this was her favorite rollercoaster and I also really love this one. What a weird ride! Big fan of coasters with multiple lifts (looking at you, Beast!), and these gerstlauer vertical lifts are the best. Hangtime is another really underrated coaster that we both love btw. Anyway, there’s sections that are a bit dull and some of the transitions are abrupt but the combination of dark ride and legit thrills (that end!) make this a winner. Not a winner: so busy that even the time saver line was 30 min long. Regular line was 90 min. If I waited 90 min to ride Mystery Mine I’d be pretty upset.
Thunderhead (x3)- row 4, then 2 back row rides - Thunderhead is my favorite GCI that I’ve ridden. They put us in row 4 for our first ride and it was good but we requested back row for our next two rides (Ops let us wait an extra cycle) and that’s where you’ll really feel the whip that this coaster is capable of. Yea, I think I like this one better than Mystic Timbers (and Ghostrider). I love how it crosses over and under itself so many times, the station fly through is great, and it’s just so fast and fun. The dream is for Cedar Point to get an even longer, taller version of Thunderhead when they hopefully add a modern twister GCI to the area in frontier town that they are clearing for something! Would it be too much to dream of a racing version of an even longer Thunderhead where two trains cross over and under each other?
Mystery mine - grabbed another ride on this weirdo. Incredible. I guess it’s a bit rough but I’d rather a coaster be a bit rough than TOO SMOOTH like another coaster in this park that we didn’t try to get on this visit (Wild Eagle).
Fire chaser express- back row- by the time we got on this it was night. Timesaver line was still about 40 min…this one is a lot more fun than I remembered. Maybe it was the night ride element. It was much taller than I remembered and also much longer. They sat us in the back row but we would have requested it if we’d thought to. I think that may have made a big difference actually. Not saying there’s incredible airtime or anything on this family coaster but I do think sitting in the back row is probably the ideal spot for maximum thrill.
Thunderhead - back row night ride, never rode this at night when we visited last time. I’ll just say that in the back row at night this has got to be one of the most out of control feeling rides of all time. Just incredible. One of the best rides I’ve ever had on a rollercoaster.
Even though they extended the park closing by an hour to 10pm, we left about 7:30 (seemingly with half the park…witnessed lots of family meltdowns on the way out). My daughter was pretty cooked. If Lightning Rod or Big Bear Mountain had been running I’m sure we would have toughed it out but having ridden everything we really wanted to, I didn’t push to stay longer.
Random observations:
- There is a way to fail spectacularly at parking at Dollywood and that’s to be in the righthand lanes near the main entrance. It seems that if you are in these lanes you will end up having to park way back by the water park which is really far from the main entrance and more or less forces you to use a tram. Besides the extra time you lose upon getting to the park, it makes it a near certainty that you won’t go back to the car for the sandwiches and beer you packed in the cooler (no alcohol is sold at Dollywood). When we came two years ago we got to the park early enough that we parked in the A/B parking sections and while it’s a bit of a walk, it wasn’t too bad to go back to the car to get sandwiches/beer/jackets etc. I think if we had stayed left or center when we arrived we would have been able to park closer. The close lots weren’t full yet and we arrived just before the park opened.
- We meant to arrive even earlier and should have. It takes a surprising amount of time to get to the park from Pigeon Forge. Our hotel was close (in distance) but there was A LOT of slow moving traffic and we were all trying to do the same thing (get to Dollywood just a bit before it opened). It took about 25 min to go a mile and a half. We left at 10:15 for an 11am open but should have left at 9:30 probably.
- This might have helped us avoid the line at time saver. When we saw all the traffic it was clear we were going to need to shell out an additional $200 for the timesaver to make the day bearable but once we finally got into the park and got to the timesaver area, we waited in another long line. This is when we found out that Big Bear Mountain was closed. Big bummer to start the day since it was kind of the reason we’d driven across two states to get to Dollywood. The time saver passes are a bit weird. We ended up getting the premium one ($99 per person) since it was the only one that gets you unlimited rides on Lightning Rod (the lady at the counter said: “oh yea, it’ll be open today!”) but the joke was on us since it never opened and it was so crowded that even the time saver lines for everything were pretty long. We could have ridden everything that we ended up riding with the cheaper timesaver plus and saved ourselves $40. Thanks Lightning Rod!
- Big Bear Mountain. Wtf? How come this new coaster is experiencing sustained down time already? How come I didn’t know this before we got there? I check various coaster and park reddits but somehow didn’t come across this info before getting to Dollywood. It’s out there now that I’ve looked but for whatever reason it was still a shock. If it’s on the Dollywood website somewhere, I didn’t notice it either.
- Blazing Fury is also closed for refurbishment. If you’re like me and didn’t ride it the other time you were at Dollywood but were thinking to yourself, I’m going to get that credit this time, well…think again.