Hutch
Strata Poster
I originally wasn’t gonna write a report for this since I covered Dollywood pretty well from my first visit, but there’s some new creds, old ones have been updated, and it’s been eight years since I’ve visited.
That’s way longer than I would’ve liked to revisit—especially since it was one of my best visits to a theme park, also becoming one of my favorite parks—but it’s such an effort to get down there between travel logistics and price. Last time we did it as a road trip weekend starting out at Carowinds and finishing off with Six Flags Over Georgia (about 4-5 hours between each). I've since done separate revisits to the other parks, so this time around I flew into Knoxville, which required a layover and an hour drive to Pigeon Forge. Flights were expensive as hell so I took Monday off for the flight home and planned for a second day at the park—no idea when I’ll be back so I wanted to have enough time to enjoy the park.
This was another event with the Buzzed Bars gang. I flew into Knoxville Friday evening, grabbed my rental (easiest pickup ever), and just did a direct hit to our cabin. A bunch of the group were doing alpine coasters that evening, but since I got in late I just went to the house and had a pretty chill night when others got back. We were up on the hillside overlooking the park. Some views from the next morning:
We spent a full day in the park on Saturday. There was lingering rain all day and was pretty gross in the morning, but I had an umbrella and it wasn’t really cold—only really an issue while riding some coasters. Despite the weather, it was pretty slammed all weekend as the park hosted some 5K/10K/half marathons both mornings (few folks from our group had participated as well), and Saturday was infested with multiple groups of obnoxious school children. We did pretty well the first couple hours of the park though. Took a bit for crowds to make their way up the hill so got some rides in pretty easily.
I needed the new Vekomas so we started out in Wildwood Grove—very nice area. I wasn’t sure about it going into it as it seemed to lack vegetation, but it looked better than expected.
Dragonflier (as well as Firechaser) were down as the tire lifts did not bode well with the rain, so we started out with Big Bear Mountain. Line was only 10 minutes so we did a couple rides—never saw it that short the rest of the weekend.
If it wasn’t obvious enough already, riding this really makes you understand why theme park officials from around the country really rave this thing. It’s a very nice ride with fun launches and a couple moments that toe the line of airtime and positives. And it’s LONG (longest coaster in the park believe it or not), so it feels pretty valuable.
They really need to get more trees and vegetation planted though. Outside the waterfall set piece, the main plot is pretty empty, which is somewhat jarring comparing to all the other coasters. Obviously it’s new and the area is actively under development, but I hope they don’t just leave it as is.
Only drawback is that it was drizzling both our rides, so the crisp weather and occasional raindrop to the eye was a little unwelcome.
With Dragonflier down we continued up the hill. Mystery Mine already had a long queue building up, so that’d be a waste doing it now. Firechaser as I said was also down, so we rode Wild Eagle while it still had a station wait. Timed it pretty well too—20 minutes after our ride the queue house somehow got completely full.
For some reason I wasn’t a huge fan of Wild Eagle back then, but I grew to like it a little more this trip. It has a pretty nice first drop and it flows nicely through the layout, without being too exciting. By far the best part about this ride is that it looks magnificent off-ride. Seeing that huge 200 ft lift and the drop and loop sitting above everything else in the park just looks great.
Tennessee Tornado is one of the only Arrow loopers worth reriding. It’s got a new paint job (surprisingly nice considering both the track and supports are the same color), so seems like it’ll stick around for a bit.
At this point we were getting kinda sick of the rain, so Blazing Fury was a nice change of pace. The park was starting to get packed at this point, and this had a line out the door, but it only took 20 minutes to get through.
Blazing Fury is poor as a coaster, but works better as a dark ride. For some reason I remember thinking this only had one drop, but I was pleased to see there were a couple extra at the end. Pretty good in the back row!
We had a leisurely lunch at Aunt Granny’s (family style southern food—was okay), then had a walk through this Dolly Museum. I don’t remember this being here my last visit. It’s so unapologetically Dolly.
It was time for Lightning Rod next. The queue was pretty full, it had a breakdown, and the ride ops surprisingly weren't in any rush, so it took about an hour and twenty minutes to get on. At least we snagged the back car.
Lighting Rod quickly became my No. 2 coaster last go around, and has clung onto my Top 5 since then. They’ve massacred my boy in the meantime, so I was ready for disappointment. It’s especially a bummer hearing the engines rev as you pull out of the station, only to slowly engage in a lift hill.
The biggest takeaway with the launch’s removal is that it makes the ride seem much shorter, even though it’s technically a longer ride time with the slower lift. I actually remember preferring all the other elements over the launch, but the launch was a unique start and added a lot to the ride. Now you’ve completely removed an element (and a bit of character), so the ride “starts” at the first drop rather than right out the station. So before you know it, you’re already at the quad down.
A hard pill to swallow at first, but later rerides helped a lot. The thing still hauls ass at the bottom of the quad down, and everything else still hits very well. Everything might be a tad slower than the 2018 launch, but it seems to match the overall speed from the launch’s last years, where they started to slow it down.
The big wave turn still gives pretty great sideways airtime, and the airtime elsewhere is still violent. The steel track fixed my one issue previously, removing the pothole at the bottom of the drop. The transition to wood halfway through is pretty hilarious and a bit scrappy. Just make sure you avoid the wheel seats (general rule of thumb for the RMC woodies).
I don’t think I can still say the quad down is the best sequence on any coaster ever, but still in the hall of fame. The laterals at the end spice it up a bit, and that final hop beneath the brake run actually might be the wildest part of the ride.
Multiple rides were definitely needed. This first ride left me feeling conflicted but further rerides convinced me to keep it in the Top 20.
Another coaster that received some updates was Thunderhead. Back in 2018 I felt it was on the cusp of being too rough in some spots. Well the park put a lot of work into the ride and now it’s as smooth as it can be while still maintaining a bit of edge, so you still get thrown around all over the place on those transitions. The layout lacks a little airtime for my liking, but I appreciate the focus on laterals. The low-to-ground ending sequence is probably my favorite part of the ride.
The rain had mostly cleared at this point, so while waiting for Dragonflier to reopen we did a ride on the flying scooters—always a good time.
That timing with Dragonflier worked out well as we were pretty much able to walk on. I was really impressed with Orkanen, and while the landscaping here can’t match Farup's pond setting, the layout has nice forces, especially with the drop and helices. It’s short, but it does a pretty good job with what it has.
Closing time was imminent so it was back to Lightning Rod. The school drops were leaving at this point, so as expected Lightning Rod’s line plummeted. We got three rides pretty easily—great way to finish the day.
We went to some bar in town for food and drink, and I was among the first to bed as I was just exhausted. I’ll put up the next day real quick. I sacrificed the valuable ropedrop in favor of brunch in Gatlinburg (many friends would be traveling home shortly afterward). I spent the rest of the day in Dollywood with a couple other folks. It was even more packed than yesterday. No school groups but it was a beautiful day, so everyone in town showed up.
Pretty much did most of the creds again. Lightning Rod and Firechaser were the only slow waits, but we timed things pretty well elsewhere. Thunderhead’s full queue isn’t actually a big capacity, so that wasn’t too bad and moved pretty well. We also managed to hit Wild Eagle after reopening from a breakdown, and Tennessee Tornado is just a people eater. My friends weren’t able to get Dragonfiler the previous day, but an evening wait was actually pretty manageable despite the one train.
Things we did today but not the previous day included Drop Line—good time, and surprisingly a quick wait—and Firechaser. As I mentioned it was a rough wait, about an hour, but what can you do? It’s one of the most popular rides in the park, and only ran with two trains, each with low capacity. At least it’s a nice ride.
Only coaster I wasn’t able to reride this weekend (except for the kiddie cred) was Mystery Mine. We had planned to hit it this evening, but it was cycling empty trains as we approached it. We were already thinking of skipping it anyway—I really liked the indoor stuff, but it’s probably the worst coaster in the park. A reride on Thunderhead at the end of the day was the better option. Was hoping to close out on Lightning Rod but the line was shockingly still pretty full and it would’ve resulted in a late dropoff for my rental car.
And that’ll do it for Dollywood. I dropped my friends off at their hotel in Pigeon Forge while I drove back to Knoxville. I dropped the rental car and stayed at a Best Western near the airport and treated myself to one of the worst pizzas I've ever had, courtesy of the Pizza Hut across the street. My flight out wasn't until midday the next day, so I just slept in and waited around at the airport. I didn't get home till like 7 that evening. Honestly such a waste of a day to travel to and from here. At this rate it’ll be 2034 when I return. Hopefully they’ll build that hyper by then.
I’m glad I had two days to enjoy the park, but the crowds made it tough to work though. Obviously there are MANY worse parks to be stuck in with busy crowds, but it was rough for a few moments. Thankfully, at least for me, I managed to limit my long waits for Firechaser and Lightning Rod. Everything else we did pretty well.
I definitely got spoiled last time with the fast passes. I think for future visits I’ll just do one day and splurge on a fast pass—two days is nice to have but the park really isn’t that demanding. Could also use that second day to finally collect some alpine coasters. Going into the weekend I was honestly 50/50 on whether I’d actually bother with them. I was thinking about trying for one or two, but it didn’t really work out.
Thanks for reading. In a couple weeks I’ll be off on another trip for a new mega park for me—should be a good one.
That’s way longer than I would’ve liked to revisit—especially since it was one of my best visits to a theme park, also becoming one of my favorite parks—but it’s such an effort to get down there between travel logistics and price. Last time we did it as a road trip weekend starting out at Carowinds and finishing off with Six Flags Over Georgia (about 4-5 hours between each). I've since done separate revisits to the other parks, so this time around I flew into Knoxville, which required a layover and an hour drive to Pigeon Forge. Flights were expensive as hell so I took Monday off for the flight home and planned for a second day at the park—no idea when I’ll be back so I wanted to have enough time to enjoy the park.
This was another event with the Buzzed Bars gang. I flew into Knoxville Friday evening, grabbed my rental (easiest pickup ever), and just did a direct hit to our cabin. A bunch of the group were doing alpine coasters that evening, but since I got in late I just went to the house and had a pretty chill night when others got back. We were up on the hillside overlooking the park. Some views from the next morning:
We spent a full day in the park on Saturday. There was lingering rain all day and was pretty gross in the morning, but I had an umbrella and it wasn’t really cold—only really an issue while riding some coasters. Despite the weather, it was pretty slammed all weekend as the park hosted some 5K/10K/half marathons both mornings (few folks from our group had participated as well), and Saturday was infested with multiple groups of obnoxious school children. We did pretty well the first couple hours of the park though. Took a bit for crowds to make their way up the hill so got some rides in pretty easily.
I needed the new Vekomas so we started out in Wildwood Grove—very nice area. I wasn’t sure about it going into it as it seemed to lack vegetation, but it looked better than expected.
Dragonflier (as well as Firechaser) were down as the tire lifts did not bode well with the rain, so we started out with Big Bear Mountain. Line was only 10 minutes so we did a couple rides—never saw it that short the rest of the weekend.
If it wasn’t obvious enough already, riding this really makes you understand why theme park officials from around the country really rave this thing. It’s a very nice ride with fun launches and a couple moments that toe the line of airtime and positives. And it’s LONG (longest coaster in the park believe it or not), so it feels pretty valuable.
They really need to get more trees and vegetation planted though. Outside the waterfall set piece, the main plot is pretty empty, which is somewhat jarring comparing to all the other coasters. Obviously it’s new and the area is actively under development, but I hope they don’t just leave it as is.
Only drawback is that it was drizzling both our rides, so the crisp weather and occasional raindrop to the eye was a little unwelcome.
With Dragonflier down we continued up the hill. Mystery Mine already had a long queue building up, so that’d be a waste doing it now. Firechaser as I said was also down, so we rode Wild Eagle while it still had a station wait. Timed it pretty well too—20 minutes after our ride the queue house somehow got completely full.
For some reason I wasn’t a huge fan of Wild Eagle back then, but I grew to like it a little more this trip. It has a pretty nice first drop and it flows nicely through the layout, without being too exciting. By far the best part about this ride is that it looks magnificent off-ride. Seeing that huge 200 ft lift and the drop and loop sitting above everything else in the park just looks great.
Tennessee Tornado is one of the only Arrow loopers worth reriding. It’s got a new paint job (surprisingly nice considering both the track and supports are the same color), so seems like it’ll stick around for a bit.
At this point we were getting kinda sick of the rain, so Blazing Fury was a nice change of pace. The park was starting to get packed at this point, and this had a line out the door, but it only took 20 minutes to get through.
Blazing Fury is poor as a coaster, but works better as a dark ride. For some reason I remember thinking this only had one drop, but I was pleased to see there were a couple extra at the end. Pretty good in the back row!
We had a leisurely lunch at Aunt Granny’s (family style southern food—was okay), then had a walk through this Dolly Museum. I don’t remember this being here my last visit. It’s so unapologetically Dolly.
It was time for Lightning Rod next. The queue was pretty full, it had a breakdown, and the ride ops surprisingly weren't in any rush, so it took about an hour and twenty minutes to get on. At least we snagged the back car.
Lighting Rod quickly became my No. 2 coaster last go around, and has clung onto my Top 5 since then. They’ve massacred my boy in the meantime, so I was ready for disappointment. It’s especially a bummer hearing the engines rev as you pull out of the station, only to slowly engage in a lift hill.
The biggest takeaway with the launch’s removal is that it makes the ride seem much shorter, even though it’s technically a longer ride time with the slower lift. I actually remember preferring all the other elements over the launch, but the launch was a unique start and added a lot to the ride. Now you’ve completely removed an element (and a bit of character), so the ride “starts” at the first drop rather than right out the station. So before you know it, you’re already at the quad down.
A hard pill to swallow at first, but later rerides helped a lot. The thing still hauls ass at the bottom of the quad down, and everything else still hits very well. Everything might be a tad slower than the 2018 launch, but it seems to match the overall speed from the launch’s last years, where they started to slow it down.
The big wave turn still gives pretty great sideways airtime, and the airtime elsewhere is still violent. The steel track fixed my one issue previously, removing the pothole at the bottom of the drop. The transition to wood halfway through is pretty hilarious and a bit scrappy. Just make sure you avoid the wheel seats (general rule of thumb for the RMC woodies).
I don’t think I can still say the quad down is the best sequence on any coaster ever, but still in the hall of fame. The laterals at the end spice it up a bit, and that final hop beneath the brake run actually might be the wildest part of the ride.
Multiple rides were definitely needed. This first ride left me feeling conflicted but further rerides convinced me to keep it in the Top 20.
Another coaster that received some updates was Thunderhead. Back in 2018 I felt it was on the cusp of being too rough in some spots. Well the park put a lot of work into the ride and now it’s as smooth as it can be while still maintaining a bit of edge, so you still get thrown around all over the place on those transitions. The layout lacks a little airtime for my liking, but I appreciate the focus on laterals. The low-to-ground ending sequence is probably my favorite part of the ride.
The rain had mostly cleared at this point, so while waiting for Dragonflier to reopen we did a ride on the flying scooters—always a good time.
That timing with Dragonflier worked out well as we were pretty much able to walk on. I was really impressed with Orkanen, and while the landscaping here can’t match Farup's pond setting, the layout has nice forces, especially with the drop and helices. It’s short, but it does a pretty good job with what it has.
Closing time was imminent so it was back to Lightning Rod. The school drops were leaving at this point, so as expected Lightning Rod’s line plummeted. We got three rides pretty easily—great way to finish the day.
We went to some bar in town for food and drink, and I was among the first to bed as I was just exhausted. I’ll put up the next day real quick. I sacrificed the valuable ropedrop in favor of brunch in Gatlinburg (many friends would be traveling home shortly afterward). I spent the rest of the day in Dollywood with a couple other folks. It was even more packed than yesterday. No school groups but it was a beautiful day, so everyone in town showed up.
Pretty much did most of the creds again. Lightning Rod and Firechaser were the only slow waits, but we timed things pretty well elsewhere. Thunderhead’s full queue isn’t actually a big capacity, so that wasn’t too bad and moved pretty well. We also managed to hit Wild Eagle after reopening from a breakdown, and Tennessee Tornado is just a people eater. My friends weren’t able to get Dragonfiler the previous day, but an evening wait was actually pretty manageable despite the one train.
Things we did today but not the previous day included Drop Line—good time, and surprisingly a quick wait—and Firechaser. As I mentioned it was a rough wait, about an hour, but what can you do? It’s one of the most popular rides in the park, and only ran with two trains, each with low capacity. At least it’s a nice ride.
Only coaster I wasn’t able to reride this weekend (except for the kiddie cred) was Mystery Mine. We had planned to hit it this evening, but it was cycling empty trains as we approached it. We were already thinking of skipping it anyway—I really liked the indoor stuff, but it’s probably the worst coaster in the park. A reride on Thunderhead at the end of the day was the better option. Was hoping to close out on Lightning Rod but the line was shockingly still pretty full and it would’ve resulted in a late dropoff for my rental car.
And that’ll do it for Dollywood. I dropped my friends off at their hotel in Pigeon Forge while I drove back to Knoxville. I dropped the rental car and stayed at a Best Western near the airport and treated myself to one of the worst pizzas I've ever had, courtesy of the Pizza Hut across the street. My flight out wasn't until midday the next day, so I just slept in and waited around at the airport. I didn't get home till like 7 that evening. Honestly such a waste of a day to travel to and from here. At this rate it’ll be 2034 when I return. Hopefully they’ll build that hyper by then.
I’m glad I had two days to enjoy the park, but the crowds made it tough to work though. Obviously there are MANY worse parks to be stuck in with busy crowds, but it was rough for a few moments. Thankfully, at least for me, I managed to limit my long waits for Firechaser and Lightning Rod. Everything else we did pretty well.
I definitely got spoiled last time with the fast passes. I think for future visits I’ll just do one day and splurge on a fast pass—two days is nice to have but the park really isn’t that demanding. Could also use that second day to finally collect some alpine coasters. Going into the weekend I was honestly 50/50 on whether I’d actually bother with them. I was thinking about trying for one or two, but it didn’t really work out.
Thanks for reading. In a couple weeks I’ll be off on another trip for a new mega park for me—should be a good one.
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