Welcome back to my Live From the Road series, tonight coming to you from Pigeon Forge, TN! I just had my first visit to Dollywood today, and I have to say that I was very impressed with everything. For a small park the rides were just as good as any you would find at a large park, and capacity was decent with the exception of Tennessee Tornado which was running one train all day. The whole park is very clean and the employees are much more friendly than any park I’ve ever been to.
The first ride of the day was Thunderhead, which is the ride I’ve been looking forward to the most. I have always heard good things about the ride and was really excited to finally ride my first GCI with Millennium Flyers. I really don’t know what to say other than I was completely blown away by the ride. The pace did not let up at all throughout the course of the ride, which doesn’t seem to happen much any more on coaster designs. The transitions were the tightest and quickest I have ever seen/ridden, but they weren’t rough at all. The airtime wasn’t like Magnum Shivering Timbers, but it was still there and very enjoyable. The positive Gs were the most surprising thing on the ride for me. I was expecting air and laterals, but wasn’t expecting near as much positive force as I got. The first drop is one of the best drops on a roller coaster now in my opinion, and that first hammerhead style turn is just wow. Thunderhead is a really amazing coaster, and its going to be tough to decide if I can put it in my top 10 without bumping out a very deserving ride.
After Thunderhead we decided to just go ahead and hop in line for Mystery Mine despite it having a bit of a line. The building and theming for the ride are all very well done. There a lot of little things that really make the theme seem very real, like the random boards that appear to patch gaps in the ceiling over the line. In the station and inside the “mine” (building) the track has been painted to appear aged and rusty, while the outdoor track looks like normal shiny coaster track. This was of course my first Euro-Fighter, and I was thoroughly impressed by every aspect. It definitely has the potential to be a high capacity ride with a good station design (separate load/unload sections), and I wouldn’t mind seeing one at Cedar Point, quite honestly.
Tennessee Tornado was a very big surprise for me at this park. I had heard that it was a smooth Arrow, but I figured that “smooth” was in comparison to every other Arrow creation and that it would still be pretty darn rough. As soon as the train left the station I knew that this was going to be a very different Arrow looper. The lift hill had a pretty much perfectly straight chain lift, which I actually don’t see very often on Arrows (the chain and trough sometimes will have slight shifts to the right or left along the length of the hill). As soon as we dropped off the lift I expected things to get rough, but the transition over to the drop was almost B&M smooth. The drop was incredible and not rough at all, which really surprised me. That first loop is gigantic and a definite departure from the traditional Arrow loop, most definitely not a product of Ron Toomer. Although the ride is pretty short, it surprises you with its smoothness and speed through the inversions.
After getting on all of the major coasters, it was time to just walk around and check out the rest of the park and ride some flats. The first ride we came across was Blazing Fury, and if you have ridden it, then you may be expecting what I am about to say. What just happened to me? After three rides I still just could not “get” the ride. The scenes were very cool, and you actually get a decent pop of air in the back of the train, but it is so unique that you really don’t quite know what to think about it. Up next was their Disk-O ride in the Country Fair section. Having never ridden one I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being kind of fun. In fact, this is another ride that I think would be well received at Cedar Point. It isn’t tall and intimidating, so younger ones may be more apt to ride. Our next adventure was on Lemon Twist, their teacup ride. I don’t think any other flat ride will ever give the kind of insane ride I got out of that teacup. One of my friends on this trip is a really big guy, and they were telling me about a ride they had on a similar flat where they really got their speed up in their “cup” spinning it to the point where they were having trouble seeing. This time, none of us could see anything; it was all an insane blur. That is the most sustained amount of Gs I have ever experienced, and I literally could not move my head or my body while we were spinning. We were all feeling the effects of that ride for the rest of the day.
After a trip up the mountain on the famous locomotive our day was pretty much done. We went back to Thunderhead and Mystery Mine for a few more rides before heading to our hotel. Overall it was a very interesting and fun park that I wouldn’t mind visiting again, although the $53 price point is a little on the high side in my opinion. The roller coasters there far exceeded my expectations and were really amazing for a park its size, so in the thrills department, I would give it a 9/10. I also got some great pictures that will hopefully be up in the gallery after I get back home. That’s really all I have for Dollywood. Check back soon for another Live From the Road post about my trip to Alabama Adventure.
P.S. I realize I am posting these a day (in this case two days) late, but it is really hard to keep on top of writing and posting these when you are on the road for an average of four hours a day with trips to parks.
