Well, I took a family vacation to the great smokies with my boyfriend, daughter, mother, and stepfather. We left early thursday morning May 10th at around 8:30am, and got there about 5pm to see our huge and awesome log cabin we had rented. It had a private outdoor heated swimming pool with a spa/jacuzzi on the deck. Anyway we headed to Dollywood on Friday May 11th, we got there at about 9:45am, it was alot more crowded than I expected it to be. Why were there so many kids there at 10am, was it a teacher workday? lol But actually for it to be so crowded the lines really were not that bad.

Dollywood is a very family oriented park, they are so organized and have the nicest people working there and the fastest ride ops I have ever seen. Unlike kings dominion where they are all uncaring teenagers. I had a great time with just a couple complaints. 1. Thunderhead was closed all freaking day!!! Whats up with that? I was really looking forward to this woodie and adding it to my credits. 2. I know its in the mountains, but man walking up those hills can be very exausting, especially walking up to mysery mine and mountain slidewinder. Well here is a report on the rides my daughter rode. She's 4 by the way.

Flying Elephants- she absolutly loved this
Busy Bees, Dollywood express, Lemon twist, Lucky ducky and her favortie was Rockin Roadway.

Now here are the coasters and water rides we rode.

Mountain Slidewinder- 1st ride was about a 5 minute wait, but when we came back later, it was about a 30min wait. This was really fun especially slamming into the walls going around the corners, I swear I just knew the boat was going to flip us out. By the way if you sit in the back, you will get totally drenched.

Daredevil falls- rode once- about a 10min wait at 11am. This is very relaxing and a good cool off at the splash down.

River rampage- I like this one about the same as KD's, its fun and you get pretty wet, about a 20min wait mid day.

Blazing fury- This was so neat, I actually got my mom to ride this with me and she hates roller coasters but she loved this one, the drops were great and theming was funny inside very enjoyable. about a 25min wait mid day.

Tenesee Tornado- Undoubtably the best/smoothest Arrow coaster I have ever ridden. I couldnt believe how smooth it was to be an Arrow. Oh man and it was loop after loop just plain fun the whole ride. My favorite part of the ride was the very end when my butt literally flew outof my seat. About a 30min wait due to the fact they only had 1 train going.

Mystery Mine- 1st ride was about a 45 min wait but the line moves pretty fast. The 2nd time was only about a 20 min wait which was mid day, I thought that was weird. MM is themed very well but there just was not enough thrill for me I guess, and is a weebit on the rough side with those restraints, the last time I rode it I wacked both my ears to where they felt like they were on fire the rest of the day. But I have to say the ending of MM is GREAT with the 95 degree drop and the corkscrew and immelman, you even get some hangtime in the immelman. Great ride but I'm afraid it wont age well unless they get some other kind of restraints.

Well folks thats all DW is a great family park!!!

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Depression sets in-its the off season!!

I can't believe I love Dollywood hasn't already posted in here yet about his precious park. lol j/k

Typically Dollywood coaster lines are long early and then midday they slack off a lot.

The restraints didn't bother me much on MM, but then it probably depends on how tall you are and such. Plus any OTSR, I always hold my head to one side or the other during different elements.

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That does help a lot, especially on tighter inversions such as corkscrews.

Thunderhead was closed!? I hope that doesn't happen next Friday and Saturday, I'm looking forward to it the most!

Anyway, sounds like you had a good time, good trip report!

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Glad you had fun on your trip! I seriously need to go back to DW I was only nine or ten when I went before and I was scared to death of most of the rides.

^I was really upset Thunderhead was closed, thats one of the main ones I was looking forward to too, but if your going 2 days, it should be open at least 1 of the 2 days. They told me that it was going to open back up on Saturday morning.

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Depression sets in-its the off season!!

Wow that's bizzare. Thunderhead is never down.

Bummer. It's my #2 woody and was #1 until I set sail on the Voyage.

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Sounds like you and your family had a great time. Sorry to hear about Thunderhead being down. It is very unusual for that ride and probably the only time since it was opened that I have heard or seen it down. You'll have to be sure to make another visit back to ride it sometime

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ODD when I was there about 3 weeks or so ago tennessee tornado was down and its rarely down too! Of course so was timber tower and about 4 other rides!!!

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weeeeeeeeeeeeee

^Wow, sounds like a Six Flagsy park, lol. Anyways, I hope all the rides are open now... I'm going for the first time since 1999 tomorrow and Sunday .

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Tennessee Tornado has been down due to its new braking system being tweaked, if I understand right...

and Timber Tower is a HUSS ride, that should explain it...

Dollywood's rides are very rarely down..

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2008 - Tennessee Tornado Crew

I don't know if this is the real reason why but I heard some where the other day that a lot of the problems with Timber Tower was/is the fact it was manufactured in Germany but the computer was manufactured in the U.S. and for some reason that some how screwed something up in the system. But you would pretty much just have to take that for what it's worth because it could have just been someone saying that who didn't like the fact that it was a German company or something who knows.

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I'll have to admit that would tick me off. They did the same thing with The Raven and Legend at Holiday World when I went.

When they cause me to wait a half hour because they don't want to put an extra train on the tracks it gets under my skin. I want the park to value my time, not let me bake in the sun.

I'm sure its a great place, but that would leave somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth.