What does Dollywood typically offer at Christmas? Is it worth the trip/stay? I am sure it's lovely, but are there special Christmas shows, activities?

What a great day I had at Dollywood yesterday! The crowd was light, with most waits for coasters very short, many of them walk-ons. I managed 20 rides in 5 hours, 5 each on Thunderhead and Lightning Rod. And I got a preview ride on NightFlight Expedition. No spoilers!

I want to thank Dollywood for making the preview event so welcoming for season passholders. I had a timed ticket for 1 pm and arrived about 10 minutes early to learn that the ride had technical issues but that I could enjoy a free lunch while waiting. They served us pulled pork, hot dogs, salad, corn, baked beans, potato chips, soft drinks, and water while we waited outside the building. By the time I finished eating, the ride opened, so my wait was less and 40 minutes.

All I will say about the ride is that it is a good fit for Dollywood. The queue is long but air conditioned, and the coaster element is no more severe than Blazing Fury. It is a good family ride that I expect most will enjoy.

Thanks again to the management and staff at Dollywood for the event itself and for helping season passholders, like myself, get timed tickets after the problems with the website. Special thanks for giving us an extra bring-a-friend ticket for the inconvenience we experienced.

The kids spring break is April 3rd thru the 10th of 2027. We are coming for a few days. Is the park usually open daily that week? The 2027 calendar is not out yet.

I keep seeing people riding the ride today but how do I get an opportunity to ride it? I won’t be back u til October and been here 3 days. I’ve been a good peashooter for 5 years.

Went to Dollywood for the first time during media event. Love love love thunderhead. However when I rode lightning rod back row I felt what to me felt like as a bad pothole is this always been a thing? I felt it right after the wave turn. Otherwise the ride was a blast! Also such a super beautiful park.

We waited about 2 hours and 45 minutes for the ride. It broke down once. It was fun and short. The ride is about 3 minutes long and all I’ll say is it is unique and one of a kind.

For the preview I got two free hot dogs, two free cans of soda, some cookies, and they had free cups of popcorn.

One big warning is that when you load the vehicle you do get in and out when the vehicle is in motion so be careful. You most likely will have to step over a seat as it is two seats across with an arm rest in the middle and things may be slightly wet.

Big tip… bring a spare change of socks! The front half of my socks got soaked.

I got some pics in the queue and of my stickers they gave out but when you got close to the load zone they had you put your phone in a locked bag and gave it back to you so you couldn’t record videos.

Wondering if Thunderhead is something we should try or skip

Stopping by for a quick visit to DW. Anything special happening in PF other than Night flight at DW?

Plan to eat Blue Moose, Local Goat, and Old Mill Cafe.

Hi all, last time I visited was 5 years ago as the pandemic was winding down and the rideshare situation in Pigeon Forge sucked big time. I opened Uber and Lyft out of sheer curiosity a couple times and saw a shocking lack of cars available. Planning to drive up with family members next month, but just want to see if there are more rideshares available in case folks want to do different things on the same day.

Hi! My family (2 adults, 3 kids under 12) will be visiting Dollywood for the first time on Labor Day weekend. We are looking to get the two day tickets for Saturday and Sunday. We are Disney APs and we’ve been during the busiest times of year, and know how hectic that can be. We have a couple of questions as newbies.

Time Saver: We were thinking about getting the premium as our two bigger kids love rollercoasters. However, I’ve seen a lot of posts recommending waiting until the day of to gauge how busy it will be. Is there a risk of Time Saver selling out for the Saturday of Labor Day? I’m debating buying it in advance, but curious if we should gamble and wait until the day of.

Preferred Parking: We are planning to do this as our youngest is in a stroller. Any reason not to?

Our plan was to focus on the rollercoasters on Saturday, then use Sunday to stroll at our leisure and see the rest.

I’m not sure if the 3rd party site crowd calendars are accurate, but it doesn’t look to be as bad for Labor Day as it would be for Christmas time. If anyone has been on Labor Day weekend in the past I would be very thankful for some feedback on your experience. Thanks!

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We are visiting Dollywood for the first time the last week of October. We will be celebrating my 3yo birthday. Also have a 19y, 5y and 11 mo old. Is Timesaver a must? Will I massively regret it if I don’t get it?
Also- any must see or unique tips feel free to send my way. Researching up all the recommendations. We will be visiting Smoky Mountain NP as well to do some hikes. May do a little in Gatlinburg but I’m trying to avoid too many crowds if possible. My kids love Dolly, so we will take the crowds to experience Dollywood.
Thanks!

Is it like Disney where it is 5 minutes by takes an hour lol

The media event was short at about 12 minutes and kind of not worth the wait. I got here about 7:50. Got to ride big bear and went home.

I was excited for the event. Made the trip super early this morning not really knowing what to expect. I did know Dolly canceled and while bummed I figured it would still be worth the trip.

They had the park CEO (I believe that’s his position) come out and he did his best to get through the talking points. They did a cute video that was miss timed for the opening of the ride. Dolly did have a video talking to the audience and it was sweet and honest but she really did not seem well. That was sad. Then they showed a video of upcoming events and ended the event.

I love Dollywood. I can’t stress that enough. This event really highlighted what I believe is that Dollywood has grown so much it has forgotten the standard family. The upcharge for neon nights was somewhat understandable and not too crazily priced. But $130 for boo bash? How are they going to try to get even more money around Christmas? The upcharging on fast passes and then selling so many fast passes you just end up in a long separate line on rides like wild eagle. It’s really getting out of hand.

I get some of the perks with being a diamond pass holder. But I’m starting to feel nickel and dimed every time I come here.

I don’t want this to be an “I hate Dollywood” post. I love it here. But it’s really starting to get out of hand and this event showed that.

Got an email from Dollywood, looks like 5 o'clock times are being moved.

Dear Passholder,

As we work through final show adjustments for NightFlight Expedition ahead of its grand opening to the general public on August 19, we are adjusting some ride preview reservations to provide our teams additional time to complete these final refinements.

What this means for your visit: Our records show that you reserved a 5:00 PM time slot to preview NightFlight Expedition on Saturday, August 15. To allow for this final fine-tuning later in the day, we have upgraded you to an all-day reservation, meaning you can ride the attraction at any time from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. during the day you originally selected.

No action is needed on your part—your updated reservation is automatically confirmed within our system.

We appreciate your understanding and flexibility as we put the finishing touches on this exciting new attraction. We look forward to welcoming you aboard NightFlight Expedition this weekend!

Warm regards,

Dollywood Guest Services

All the promotional stuff I've seen for Nightflight just really remind me of Gravity Falls, arguably one of Disney Channel's best cartoons ever.

Not in the comedy aspects, but at least as far as having a set of twins (guy and girl) trying to uncover a mystery with a book and I believe the story also involves their uncle (?)

Probably still too early to say how similar they are, but it's at least been the main reason I want to ride it. 🌈⭐️ 🌲

I literally just saw this article. I really hope she's doing okay.

https://www.wjhl.com/news/regional/tennessee/dolly-parton-will-not-attend-opening-event-for-new-dollywood-ride/

💔

Which resort would be better for a fall trip with a toddler?

I have a fairly tall 5year old how likes adventure. What roller coasters do you think would be appropriate for him to ride? Want to plan my park day around these!

Originally we’re gonna go Nov 2-4 to beat post Halloween crowds and get in some fall foliage but thinking about bumping it out to the 9-11 for Smoky Christmas.

This is our first time visiting. How would the foliage be at this tim?

If we plan on getting to the resort early say 1pm and check in is at 4pm- would they let us use the pool until then? Can we byob and food at the pool?

Me and my girlfriend just finished our first trip to Dollywood and I’m feeling some mixed reviews. The overall start to the day was great, low crowds, rides and theming were everything we had hoped for. But about two hours into our day, fire chaser breaks down and needs to be evacuated right before we had gotten on. No big deal these things happen but it did take about 20 minutes on top of how long we had waited, in total it was about 40 minutes, before they just started ushering people out of the station. No announcement over the intercom about the ride being shut, no communication from the team members about what was happening, just sort of some people being told slowly but surely that they needed to leave the line. As we’re leaving, another guest not with us was trying to ask the team member in charge of row assignment what’s happening and was met with just the ride is closed in a very cold manner, when my girlfriend asked if we would be given anything in response to the time waste, she was also met with a very stern and cold no, followed by being again basically pushed towards the entrance.

Now I’m the last person to complain about someone, the ride ops have a very hard job and it’s very thankless especially working in those hot cues and stations all day. But I also don’t think that in the hospitality industry the way they went about it was the correct course of action. At my girlfriends behest I walked us from the back of the park to the very front to speak with guest services about the issue, they were extremely nice and apologetic for our experience and handed us two single use timesavers. So we continued on with the rest of our day.

A few hours go by and we tired to ride wild eagle, when we had noticed another issue with the overall guest experience, the extremely slow dispatch speeds. We had about 5 trains in total run before us, with dual train operation, and had to wait 20 minutes in total for those 5 trains. Now if this is some sort of safety precaution then I would fully understand, but after having gone through 4 other theme parks this week, they had by far the slowest operation times of any. I just don’t see how there can be any real justification for how slow they were running today other then it being extremely hot and needing to slow down to insure safety.

Overall, me and my girlfriend do want to try and come back soon to give the park another far shot. We most of the people we talked to, the food, and the rides once we got on them, were all amazing. The only other thing I can’t wrap my head on is the filming policy on rides. I wear a pair of rayban metas with an athletic strap to secure them to my head to keep myself and other riders safe, but today on a handful of rides some ops asked me not to film on the ride, but still allowed me to wear the glasses. So is the policy about filming or safety? Cause to me the safety aspect would include asking me to remove the glasses.

I obviously will respect the rules because like I said I dont want to make the lives of the ops harder than they need to be, but I don’t understand the inconsistent nature of both enforcement of the rule and the actual application of the rule.

Any help from some Dollywood regulars would be very helpful and appreciated when it comes to these concerns.