The DC to Atlanta Halloween Coaster Road trip - Dollywood!

[disjunkie]

Today was the day I was most looking forward to, Dollywood!

First we had a 2 hour drive to get there, on the way we visited the Tennessee welcome centre which was the cutest rest area of the trip!

We were staying at DreamMore resort which I loved. It felt like staying onsite at Disney. The room was nice, and there were plenty of Dolly touches across the resort.

The resort has a free shuttle to the park which was very handy as it drops you at your own entrance and you get free timesaver passes for the rides. I managed to get a fall special rate so it ended up being less than $200 a night but rack rate is a lot more expensive.

I absolutely loved Dollywood. It was very crowded while we were there, but aside from Lightening Rod the wait times were around 30 mins and we were normally straight on with our passes.

The audience here tended to be on the older side and were here for the shows rather than the rides.

This park has a great coaster line up. Lightening Rod is the fastest wooden coaster in the world, like twisted timbers it’s ejector air is intense, and after multiple rides I did have some pretty impressive bruises on the tops of my thighs. Mystery mine is a little rough but has some great theming and show scenes. Thunderhead is a good woody, and Tennessee tornado is a surprisingly smooth arrow coaster.

Firechaser express is a fantastic family coaster, punchy but not too intense, with a decent show scene. All park’s should have one of these. Wild eagle is a very smooth B&M wing coaster, the vests really hinder air time and although it’s high it was forceless. This was the scariest ride for a different reason, wasps swarm the top at certain times of year and it was a problem when we were there, as soon as we crested the lift hill 40-50 wasps were there and I hate wasps!

I loved the new wildwood grove area, super cute with some nice little kids rides. Dragon flyer was actually a really fun suspended Vekoma coaster, very short cycle and terribly low capacity but fun all the same.

The theming all around was beautiful, we didn’t catch any of the shows as country music isn’t really our thing and there was a lot of gospel music which again isn’t for us but I’m sure they were good.

[disjunkie]

The one area we struggled with was dining I knew it was fall break so was expecting it to be busy but the food queues were like magic kingdom at holiday time! We also had limited choices with Neil not eating meat, I think the vegan movement has a way to go in Tennessee.

We ended up eating at Front Porch cafe both days which was very nice. They served complimentary garlic biscuits which were delicious!

I had pulled pork sandwich which was lovely, and Neil had fish and chips.

For dessert we shared a mini banana pudding. I loved the pen they gave you to sign the check!

They had a couple of cute bakeries, I picked up this owl cupcake at one of them.

We ate at the hotel bar one night, having a couple of cocktails and nachos which were huge so good value at $12. Neil sampled a couple of the moonshine cocktails which he enjoyed, but they were a bit strong for me!

Dollywood is famous for its cinnamon bread which is also sold at the hotel. I wondered if this was overhyped but bought some for breakfast at $8.99.

I honestly can’t describe how good this is, it’s soft, warm, so cinnamony with a crunchy sugar topping, I’m not even embarrassed to say we ate the whole loaf and had one for breakfast the next day too.

I would have really liked to spend another couple of days here seeing some of the smoky mountains and pigeon forge but sadly we had to move on.

[Jesslydevie1]

We are off to the Smokey’s in June cannot wait to try that bread 😛

[disjunkie]

Originally Posted by Jesslydevie1

We are off to the Smokey’s in June cannot wait to try that bread 😛

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I’m jealous, it’s totally amazing! I loved Dollywood and would really have liked more time there so hope you enjoy!