Since the last couple of years have been a little crazy for me, my travels have kept me closer to home. I’ve been going to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg more often, and have really come to enjoy it. Especially the newer areas of town, like The Island and some of the newer mountain coasters. And one year I had a season pass to Dollywood and took advantage of it often.
Therefore, I have ridden all of Dollywood’s thrill rides many times over, even the elusive Lightning Rod. (And surprise! it’s NOT at the top of my list.) Check out my personal rankings below, from ugh to wow.
BLAZING FURY
This indoor roller coaster predates the park, having been built during the old Silver Dollar City days in 1978. My only thought while riding this ride was, “Goodness. It’s even worse than I remembered.” And it is. Don’t do it. If you can walk right on and have time to waste, feel free to indulge your curiosity. But too many have crammed themselves in that foul-smelling queue for too long for what you get. Keep it as history, but don’t ride it for fun.
MYSTERY MINE
Oh bless. The Mystery Mine tries so hard. There is so much good theming and excellent execution of detail in the immediate area. Unfortunately, it’s just not a good ride. At least I’m not a fan of jolt-y stops and starts and a general lack of momentum in my roller coasters. The second straight-up lift hill in the mine shaft is great, and the track inside the building is generally fun, but the outside portion is just painful.
TENNESSEE TORNADO
The saving grace of the Tornado is that it is a much better ride than it looks. Because it looks rough. It looks like it’s going to break your spine and give you brain damage, but it doesn’t. It’s actually a fun ride with a nice big 110-foot loop. Don’t expect too much and you’ll have a fine time. And as an inveterate back seat rider, I recommend the last row or two to get the most snap out of the hills and inversions. There’s also a few nice thematic touches around the coaster, evidence of the “tornado” nearby.
FIRECHASER EXPRESS
Now we’re getting to the good stuff. The FireChaser Express is a fun family style coaster with some decent thrills and one fantastic show piece. You have a nice long lift hill over a water element, some reasonably decent airtime, and fire! This one is worth experiencing in both in the front and the back, mainly for the show scene.
In the front, you are more deeply immersed in the show elements of fire and mist/smoke, which is really fun to get pulled out of backwards. And in the back, you feel a little more airtime and can see more of the show in the shed, whereas in the front, it’s all behind you. The only bad part is the wait in sun while the track switches over to get you back to the starting house, and it’s not a fast loader so be prepared to wait on even moderately busy days.
DROPLINE
(Sorry, no picture for this one.) The newest thrill ride from Dollywood, the Dropline stands on the spot of the failed Timber Tower at pretty much the highest point in Dollywood. From this vantage, it is the perfect spot for a height-based attraction. I highly recommend it around sunset for beautiful views of the Smoky Mountains all around you. I also appreciate that the seats don’t tip forward like the evil Acrophopia in Six Flag Georgia.
LIGHTNING ROD
I waited a looooong time to ride Lightning Rod. For over a year after it opened, it was closed whenever I was in the park. It was so bad that by the end of my season pass, I complained to customer service and they gave me a one-day pass to come back the following year to ride it. I finally did around the fall the year after it opened.
The first ride was almost a walk on and I rode in the middle back. It was so rattley and there was so much airtime that I wondered halfway through the ride if anyone had passed out on this ride. Because I was about to! And I LOVE airtime! The second ride was a long wait and a ride in the very front, which was a much smoother experience. I also held the joystick-like handholds down by your knees instead of holding my hands over my head, and I think that helped too.
Lightning Rod is definitely a unique experience. The track keeps falling away from you, twisting in such a way that you can never see what’s ahead and leaving you out of your seat more often than in it. I thought I would love it, but I mostly found it messed with my head. It rode like a bad action movie–all action, no plot.
But the most disappointing thing about it was how short it is. I expected a lot more ride on the other side of that hill, and there’s just not. I find this to be a failing of most of Dollywood’s newer big rides and it holds true here. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but this was a big disappointment to me.
WILD EAGLE
This is the other new-ish ride at Dollywood that is too short by half. The half a ride that is there is a good one, however, and I recommend the back seat on the left, which you can get to by walking up the right-hand stairs from under the loading platform.
BARNSTORMER
The Barnstormer is not a mighty roller coaster, or even much of a thrill ride, but gosh, I love it! It’s just a fun, well-themed super swing that makes me giggle and that I can usually ride without much of a wait. There’s great airtime at the top of each swing, and it’s just darned fun. I do wish it were a bit of a longer ride, and I’d love to see both swings in action at the same time, but I never pass a chance to ride this when I can.
THUNDERHEAD
And now we come to the best thrill ride in Dollywood, hands down–the Thunderhead. The sweeping first drop, the overbanked turns, the luscious airtime, and that station flyby!–is all perfectly orchestrated to make a full, emotionally satisfying ride. It looks beautiful, is run well, and doesn’t seem to suffer the same downtime as some other rides in the park, though it will close if lightning strikes within something like 5 miles of the park. If you at all like roller coasters, this is your ride.
WATER RIDES
A note about the three water rides in the park: you’ve got Daredevil Falls, a simple splashdown ride designed to get many people at once as wet as possible; River Rampage, a small-scale raft ride designed to get a small amount of people absolutely soaking wet; and the classic Mountain Slidewinder.
The Slidewinder is a super fun flume on foam rubber sleds that have seen better days. But you don’t get too crazy wet and it’s pretty darn thrilling, especially if you are the grown adult in the back–feel prepared to feel like you’re going to fall off at any moment! It does limit operations to the warmest months of the year, so don’t be surprised if it’s not open in the spring or fall. It’s also quite a long and steep walk up to the top.
There was also a River Battle ride that allowed riders to shoot water at each other, passersby, and other targets, but I believe it is being out for something else.
AND THE REST
Of course, there are lots of other kid’s rides and your average flat rides, such as the scrambler, bumper cars, swing ride, etc. almost all of which are down in the always hot, always crowded Country Fair area. I wouldn’t waste too much time on these, but I’ll point out a couple of items of note.
Rockin Roadway is a very cutely themed car ride for kids in the shadow of the Lightning Rod, but be warned of what you can’t see–the queue inside the building is very tight and uncomfortable.
Sky Rider is a fun way to get a good view of the park at 70 feet, and if you constantly move your ride wings back and forth, you can get a decent amount of swing going before the short ride is over.
Dizzy Disk, tucked away in the very back of Country Fair, is a step up from your average flat ride, but still not much more than a twirl-till-you-hurl spinner.
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