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DOLLYWOOD & Splash Country
Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Herschend Family Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(6/30/2025) Dollywood Set To Reopen Blazing Fury This Friday
(6/28/2025) New Rumor For 2026 Ride System Checks All The Boxes
(6/27/2025) Dollywood Posts More Teasers For New 2026 Attraction
(6/12/2025) 2026 Project Hints and The Dollywood Dream
(6/2/2025) Popular Attraction Closed and Thoughts About the New 2026 Attraction
(5/29/2025) Dollywood Wins Major Award For The Third Year In A Row
Dixie Stampede (2016) Review
FireChaser Express - Grand Opening & Review
Dolly’s Splash Country Waterpark - Official Screamscape Review
Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort - Official Screamscape Review
 General Park News - (6/12/2025) The Dollywood Dream, a 40 minute long documentary about the origins and launch of the Dollywood theme park property has been posted by the park to their YouTube channel, and I’ve embedded the video below for everyone to enjoy as well. This includes footage from the early years of Silver Dollar City in Branson and how they bought the small “Rebel Railroad” attraction in Tennessee to turn it into a second Silver Dollar City theme park in 1975. Before long Dolly came on board and the rest was history.
Check it out!
(6/2/2025) If you’re visiting Dollywood in the near future, know that for the past week or so the park’s famous Dollywood Express railroad ride has been closed with no official ETA to reopen. The park confirmed this on a Facebook post back on May 21st, simply stating that the Dollywood Express is now closed for maintenance. It sounds as is this was something unexpected, so we don’t know if the issue is with the track or the train itself.
Currently the park has two locomotives, #70 (Cinderella) and #192 (Klondike Katie), but I believe that while one is operating on any given season, the other is in the shop undergoing maintenance that year, and then swap them out and begin again. So if an issue comes up with one of the locomotives, they wouldn’t be able to just bring the other one back online right away.
Dollywood has only stated that repairs on whatever the issue is are under-way and that they hope to have the Dollywood Express reopen again very soon and will share that on social media when they have a date.
(5/29/2025) Dollywood has been named as America’s favorite theme park for the third year in a row by the National Amusement Park Historical Association. Congratulations to everyone at Dollywood on this major achievement. Dollywood is truly a park experience different from most others and it shows.
(5/13/2025) While Dollywood is currently celebrating the park’s 40th Anniversary, nearby Dollywood’s Splash Country just kicked off its 25th Anniversary season as well over the weekend. But would you believe there is another big Anniversary event on the horizon?
While I still find it hard to believe that it took the park this long to build one, Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa will turn 10 years old on July 27, 2025. Having stayed there a few times over the past decade, I can still say that the DreamMore is one of my favorite places to stay when visiting Pigeon Forge, and when we are planning to visit Dollywood or Splash Country, it is almost a requirement. Guests of the resort get a free shuttle right to a special side entrance to the park, early entry and complimentary TimeSaver Passes so you don’t have to wait in long lines.
(5/2/2025) For a limited time Dollywood is offering a ticket special where you can purchase 2-days at the park for the price of 1. The tickets are valid for visits between now and July 8th only so if you’re planning a trip to the Pigeon Forge area soon, this may be the perfect deal for you.
(4/3/2025) Dollywood has announced some headlining music acts coming to the park on August 23rd for a new “Dollywood’s Rock the Smokies” event. The park will feature Skillet and Zach Williams in the Celebrity Theater that day as well as an assortment of other acts in the park. It sounds like there will be a special ticket required to see the concerts in the Celebrity Theater which will go on sale next week, but other assorted acts throughout the park are included with park admission. You can get more info about the special ticket concerts at the official event site.
(3/6/2025) Sad news for our Dollywood friends and family came out earlier this week, when it was announced that Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband, had passed away at the age of 82. Our thoughts are with Dolly and the entire Dollywood family during this time. I also would not be surprised if Dolly opts to not attend this year’s Season Passholder Preview Day on Friday, March 14th next week for obvious reasons.
(2/28/2025) Lots of changes are taking place at Dollywood right now that will have an affect on your visits in 2025 and 2026. Outside of the park there is a new parking lot being added to the park in phases, but in the end it should result in about 3,000 more parking spaces I believe. Lots of refurbishments are taking place inside the park at various locations, including some theater upgrades, but on the attraction side of things there is some news about a few of the park’s rides.
The confirmed that Blazing Fury will remain as is, and not undergo a complete teardown and rebuild as was done with the the sister attraction, Fire in the Hole, at Silver Dollar City. Instead they will continue to restore and upgrade the existing Blazing Fury ride, including the return of the ‘waterfall’ this season. It doesn’t sound like it will be ready for opening day, but they’re working to finish the planned upgrades for the season as fast as possible.
Meanwhile it was also confirmed that Daredevil Falls will be down for the year, as the attraction will be receiving a major makeover and sounds like it will be ready to reopen in 2026 hopefully. Look for more details to come about this in the future.
The former Heartsong Theater (by the train depot) is being changed into the Imagination Playhouse. Meanwhile the Heartsong movie that used to play here is being remastered and will be played in the future over at the Dolly Parton Experience attraction.
(12/17/2024) An interesting rumor has been posted by TheSmokies.com, claiming that Dollywood may be pondering an idea about keeping the Showstreet section of the park open year-round. According to the rumor, this might just be something of a perk they offer to guests staying at the Dollywood resort properties, or this could be a way to keep the front of the park’s numerous gift shops up and running during the winter months when the rest of the theme park is closed. Of course, you wouldn’t have to pay to get in to shop along Showstreet during this time period, and I seriously doubt you would have to pay to park either if Dollywood were to actually pull the trigger on a plan like this.
If nothing else, this would make sense if it was used as an exclusive perk for the theme park’s resort guests who have opted to stay during a times of the year that the theme park is closed. Currently we’ve seen the DreamMore Resort host an annual winter concert series during this time period, but if we take this concept to the next level… what if these concerts were offered in one of the theme park’s Showstreet theater venues instead.
If you were to seek out an example of such a concept in action, you might want to look across the Atlantic to Europa-Park in Germany. Much like Dollywood, Europa-Park offers an amazing theme park open almost year round, a waterpark, and several on-site resorts, all tucked away in in a small town in the countryside. Unlike Dollywood however, Europa-Park isn’t surrounded by a strip of small attractions, restaurants and hotels and dinner theaters competing for the tourists’ attention. So instead Europa-Park has set up a couple of epic dinner shows set within the theme park that are offered as an extra-ticket entertainment option for the resort guests.
Whichever path they opt to take, I could see this rumor becoming something the Dollywood Resort is likely to experiment with, especially with plans in place to continue growing and adding more resorts to the property.
2025 - Park Improvements / 40th Anniversary Celebration - (6/30/2025) Dollywood will be hosting a ceremony to reopen Blazing Fury on July 4th following a lengthy refurbishment that will bring about a few changes. This include the restoration of the water splashdown drop at the very end.
(12/21/2024) It’s been awhile since we’ve heard much about what Dollywood has planned for the future, but according to what I’m told, Pete Owens leaked out some more hints in an YouTube interview posted by Hollers and Hills three months ago. In the last 4 minutes of the video interview, Pete mentions a few items for 2025 as well as new hints about 2026 plans.
2025 plans include it being a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Dollywood, with plans to expand the parking lot, adding a new “destination restaurant” in the Wilderness Plaza area. There will be a lot of entertainment options added as well throughout the year, including a special 40th Anniversary show.
2026 - Major New Attraction(s) - (6/28/2025) An interesting rumor has come our way regarding Dollywood’s 2026 attraction. According to our source this could be the world premier of a new “Suspended Dark Ride” system from Vekoma that is listed on their website.
The concept shares a lot in principal with the Powered Inverted dark ride concept from Mack Rides used for Arthur at Europa-Park that was also rumored, and this makes sense. Unlike the Mack system that uses a small coaster train of cars, the system from Vekoma appears to use individual powered cars that as suspended from an overhead track and actually can swing a little bit from side to side like a Suspended coaster. Like the Mack concept however, the motorized cars are fitted with motors not only to move along the track, but to rotate the cars to face in whatever direction they need to to allow the riders to view the scenery. They are also outfitted with an on-board audio system but feature a bottom to the cars, making them more family friendly than the legs-handing inverted-coaster looking system from Mack.
(6/27/2025) Dollywood has posted another teaser about their 2026 project, as we watch someone discover and open an old book called “The Legend of Secret Lake”. Meanwhile, just to confuse everyone even more, they’ve posted a short teaser for ‘Hidden Hollow Aviation” on Instagram. Digging a bit more, you can also visit HiddenHollowAviation.com and find a new teaser website as well tucked inside the Dollywood website that also includes the two teasers we’ve seen released so far.
I’ve also come across some pictures of the large building under construction behind Big Bear Mountain at the back of Wildwood Grove.
(6/12/2025) According to the latest local news update, Dollywood’s Pete Owens dropped a few teasers about the park’s big new 2026 attraction project. While the announcement itself wont be coming until September, it was mentioned that the $50 million project is “the largest single attraction we’ve ever built in the history of Dollywood.”
Pete went on to say that the attraction is “an opportunity for us to do something that no one’s ever done before.” and curious enough, he also mentioned that “it’s gonna allow us to do a couple of things, including having an attraction that will help us extend our season.”
Dollywood is growing bigger each season, with an annual attendance estimated at about 4 million guests a year currently, and Dollywood is predicting they’ll hit 4.5 million guests by 2029.
(6/2/2025) So what’s going on for Dollywood in 2026? Yet another teaser video has been posted to social media, which you can see below.
It says that Dollywood is “going further than we’ve ever gone before. Up, Over and Through the Great Smoky Mountains, and down to the heart of the ancient Wildwood Tree.” Then other imagery and comments that give the whole thing a cute after-dark magical glow kind of feeling, “What will you find when the sun goes down? Take Flight 2026 only at Dollywood”.
So… at first I was still thinking that this may be some kind of Flying Theater, but one that may somehow tie into some myths and legends and magic of the Smoky Mountains. Then a reader had a great suggestion on FB as to what the Dollywood 2026 project could possibly be, other than a flying theater. Again… there is no rumor for this right now, but the suggestion was that it could be a Mack Rides Inverted Power Coaster, which was first used at Europa-Park to create an incredible dark ride / powered coaster experience themed to the Arthur and the Invisibles movie universe. Another was used in Duibai at MotionGate to create a dark ride called Dragon Gliders themed to Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon animated film as well. So the concept would certainly be idea to create a fun dark ride experience that has never been seen to date at any park in North America just yet. If you’ve never seen the Arthur themed ride at Europa-Park, is it also unique in the fact that while it is mostly an indoor attraction, it also goes outside for some higher speed thrills as well at different times along the way.
Either way, Dollywood sounds like they are working up to making an official announcement before too long. Likely more hints and details will come as the summer progresses, construction kicks into high gear and things get very visible. Of course with the Dollywood Express currently closed, there also goes our best way to actually see what is going on in the back end of Wildwood Grove for the moment.
(4/2/2025) One of our readers dropped by Dollywood this week and took some pictures of the construction now taking place at the back of Wildwood Grove for the mystery 2026 attraction. As seen from riding the train, digging is well under way in strategic locations. I’m not 100% certain what is going on, but it almost looks like they’re digging up specific holes in order to place utilities, and then will cover them up with grids of rebar before eventually pouring concrete over the top. There is also one area seen where they seem to have dug a larger deeper hole for something, as there appears to be a lot of rebar already placed below grade there.
(3/21/2025) While whatever Dollywood is planning on building in the back of Wildwood Grove for the 2026 season is still a mystery, they did drop a few hints at the Passholder Preview Day last week, including a graphic projected on a screen that simply said, “Take Flight 2026”. They also teased that the new attraction would go “up, over and through the Great Smoky Mountains and down to the heart of the ancient wildwood tree.”
While we were previously thinking this could be a dark ride, these latest hints now have be thinking more along the lines of a Flying Theater attraction. The kicker is that whatever this new attraction is, it is supposed to be unique and do some things that no other similar attraction can do. Any other ideas?
(1/19/2025) While we already know Dollywood’s next big attraction will be in the back of Wildwood Grove, and enclosed inside a large building. According to a small teaser at ACE No Coaster Con, the in-character excuse for the upcoming construction will be that “Ranger Ned is building some kind of storage shed back there”, behind Big Bear Mountain. Of course, knowing that this is Dollywood we are talking about, I can’t help but think that we may begin to see a series of teasers throughout 2025 that will drop easter eggs hints about the story of the upcoming new attraction.
(12/21/2024) In a video interview posted three months ago, Pete Owens dropped a new hint about that mega new attraction in the works. 2026 will include that new major $50 million attraction coming to Wildwood Grove that was previously leaked and Pete doesn’t give away exactly what it is, he did say that the new attraction would be “something that no one has ever done before in this particular way.”
However, there is more excitement coming in 2026… as he also confirms that a complete refurbishment of a “legacy attraction” will take place that will be celebrated in 2026. When it comes to things that I would consider to be a “legacy attraction” at Dollywood, that’s a pretty short list that would mainly include the attractions from the old Silver Dollar City days of the park, namely the Dollywood Express and Blazing Fury, as I think everything of note has long been retired.
One more item… I’m hearing that this third phase build-out of Wildwood Grove will not be the last… as long term planning is apparently working out early details for a 4th final phase of expansion to the Wildwood Grove area.
(9/27/2024) While some thought that the plans to expand Wildwood Grove were going to be for a new 2025 project, this appears to be the large 2026 project that the park president mentioned was coming back in 2022. According to some other social media posts, the plan for 2026 will be to construct a 43,000 sqft building at the 3.5 acres at the back end of Wildwood Grove (behind Big Bear Mountain) that will house an attraction with a $50 million budget.
So from the sounds of things, this could be an indoor themed roller coaster or more likely, given that Big Bear Mountain is right outside, this could end up being a major new dark ride concept. A high end dark ride experience has been something many Dollywood fans have been waiting a long time for.
Also, for those wondering about the size of things, the brand new version of “Fire in the Hole” built at sister park, Silver Dollar City, is said to be inside a five-story, 32,000 sqft structure, so whatever Dollywood has planned for 2026 is going to be even bigger!
(7/27/2023) Screamscape sources tell us that Dollywood may be working on a new roller coaster for the 2025 season. Based on the survey that was just sent out from the park last week, I do have to wonder if this is that indoor coaster project that was hinted at that would depart from Wildwood Grove.
(11/28/2022) In an interview with Dollywood’s Eugene Naughton about Big Bear Mountain at IAAPA, Naughton drops some hints about what’s in store for Dollywood in 2026 at the 2:20 timestamp. He mentions a ‘buying spree” and adding “things”... plural, with an “s”, that they are planning for 2026.
???? - Future Resort & Attraction Survey - (7/23/2023) Dollywood has been sending out guest surveys online again and thanks to a few readers we’ve got the gist of what they are asking about. While much of the survey is about vacation planning and what other parks, attractions or destination types you might be interested in, the end of the survey drops a few hints about some concepts for Dollywood they may be thinking of.
Keep in mind that Dollywood has conducted a lot of surveys over the years, many of which I’ve personally seen with my own eyes. Unfortunately, a lot of what I’ve seen pitched in surveys has never leapt off the page into the real world, so we’ll have to take some of these with a grain of salt where needed.
On the resort side of things, a couple of ideas were mentioned that fall right in line with projects we first reported on back in 2021 and 2022, starting off with the “Songteller Resort” being mentioned by name as a possible upcoming resort property after they finish the Heartsong Resort. Back in 2022 when some future resort master planning for Dollywood leaked out, we also discovered that they had also chosen to trademark the Songteller Resort name not long after filing the trademark paperwork for the HeartSong resort name. The survey described the Songteller Resort as being themed around various aspects of Dolly’s creativity. Another section mentions a proposed “Locust Ridge Outdoor Resort” that will offer Glamping, small cabins, tent camping and even RV hookups. Back in 2021, the masterplan resort plan that leaked did have areas labeled as “Outdoor Resort”, “Glamping’ and “Cabins”.
On the attraction side, the survey seems to expand upon what we may see coming to the park in 2024 as part of the previously announced “Dolly Parton Experience”. The survey describes a new experience that will allow guest to experience Dolly’s music in a “360-degree, multi-sensory format” that would involve elements to treat guest’s ears, eyes and even their nose.
Elsewhere it hints that Wildwood Grove isn’t finished yet, as another ‘new coaster’ will invite guests to “explore the greater mysteries of this hidden land, no matter the weather.” That last bit seems to indicate that Dollywood could be planning some kind of new indoor roller coaster experience.
Finally, they also mention upcoming possible improvements to Dollywood Splash Country that will see more waterslides added to the water park, a new kid’s pool area, an activity pool and a bigger and better wave-pool, aligned with improvements and updates to many of the park’s other non-water based amenities. This part was all very vague, but is probably more indicative of a multi-year improvement plan being established to keep the already awesome Splash Country waterpark at the top of their game.
Oh… one final thing was mentioned, and this one took me by surprise. The survey was trying to gauge interest in the building a new smaller scale theme park. This would be a separate gate and require separate admission to get in, but they called it the “Imagination Library Theme Park”. The idea is to borrow ideas and themes from various children’s books to use as theming for rides, shows and attractions. While this all sounds great as a theme for a possible new kiddie-land they could just add on to Dollywood itself, I’m going to chalk this up to what I’m calling “The Peppa Pig Effect”. This is in reference to where Legoland Florida opened a mini Peppa Pig themed park right next door, targeting the park’s smallest guests, that only offers about half a dozen attractions. It worked at Legoland Florida so far, and now their parent company is seeking to build a stand-alone successor park in Texas to see how well the concept will hold up. With all this in mind, while the survey about the Imagination Library Theme Park concept does pitch the concept as something new for Dollywood guests to consider, this doesn’t mean that they might not be considering the concept for other locations outside of the Pigeon Forge area. For example, I could see this concept doing well in the Nashville area which currently has no theme park of its own, and would likely embrace this idea.
???? - Dollywood Future Resorts Plan - In Development - (1/24/22) While searching through the Trademark database I came across another interesting entry for the Dollywood Resort. While we know that Dollywood’s next resort hotel was announced as “Dollywood’s Heartsong Lodge & Resort” (which has a trademark filing), the company also filed for a second trademark name a few weeks later to use the name, “Dollywood’s Songteller Resort”.
As the company has put plans in place to add several new resorts to the Dollywood complex over the coming years the new “Songteller Resort” name could be for third resort project, or it could simply be a backup name for the Heartsong Lodge & Resort project just in case there is some kind of objection that blocks their original Trademark filing.
(6/19/21) Last week we mentioned that Dollywood briefly mentioned they had plans for several more resorts down the line, and today we’ve learned a bit more. Prior to the announcement a Screamscape source reported in that they had seen a graphic map showing off a future resort plan that would include camping and possible RV park opportunities, but the announcement of Dollywood’s HeartSong Lodge was for a more traditional style resort.
Jump ahead to this week and a picture was sent my way of a new Master Plan resort layout for Dollywood that will feature five planned resorts and an area marked as “Outdoor Resort” which I’m assuming may be for RVs. I took a part of the masterplan drawing and overlaid it on top of a Google Map aerial image of the area, with Dollywood’s Splash Country in the lower left and the existing DreamMore resort just above it, half blocked from view behind a gentleman’s arm.
There are a number of interesting items we can make out from the rest of the map, including the location of the announced HeartSong Lodge labeled as “Resort 2”. The gentleman’s finger is pointing at an unknown Resort 3 concept that appears to include a horse-shoe shaped resort building. Resort 4 however is very different and shows a main building surrounded by numerous large buildings placed along a winding circular road. Before you suggest those could be cabins, I’d say no as there are already two other new roads listed on the map labeled as “Cabins” and those buildings are much smaller. With that in mind, the larger structures scattered around Resort 4 may be more the size of Houses or perhaps some kind of luxury style home resorts. Along the right side of the image is REsort 5, which once again looks like a more typical resort building, but a little smaller than the building drawn up for the HeartSong Lodge. Along the top edge of their property is a purple area outlined and simply labeled as Outdoor Resort, which could be for a possible RV or camping park. Speaking of camping however, not far from one of the groups of new Cabins is another street marked off for “Glamping”, with a cluster of about 22-24 of the luxury-oridentel camping structures. A second similar sized Glamping area can also be see between Resort 4 & 5.
Between Resort 4 and 5 is an interesting green space with a yellow star labeled as “ICON HUB EAST”. I’m not quite sure what is intended to go here, but it is worth noting that two pathways depart from here, one represented by a series of yellow dots listed as a Vehicular Tour Trail that runs around the southern side of the resort property, and a similar trail marked by green dots that mostly runs around the northern side of the resort property. I can only assume these will be used as off-road pathways for the local Pink Jeep Tours attraction.
It’s also fun to note that just south of Resort 2 (HeartSong) they also show plans to build a road labeled as “Park Connection” that will run back the Resort 2 parking lot and down the hill and into the Dollywood’s Splash Country parking lot. This is important as currently the DreamMore runs shuttle busses of guests from the hotel to the theme park and back, but has to travel on public roads to do so. Providing this new private access road will allow these same resort trams to travel directly from the resorts into the Splash Country parking lot, which is then connected by an underpass to the main Dollywood parking lot, moving all internal resort traffic off public roads entirely.
(5/16/21) According to a Screamscape source, Dollywood may be working on new plans for their next resort. From the sound of things, this is not the anticipated big-hotel sequel to the popular DreamMore Resort we were expecting them to announce in March 2020 before the pandemic shut down most of the world for a time. Instead our source tells us that the park may be planning a different kind of resort expansion first that will come in the form of an official Dollywood RV Resort. From what I’m told they may be taking some inspiration from Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort campground at Walt Disney World for this one, so expect it to feature some themed smoky mountain themed amenities.
I am curious about the location of this, if it comes to pass, and if Dollywood is building this from scratch or if there was an opportunity to purchase an existing campground nearby and upgrade it with new theming and amenities.
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