|
DOLLYWOOD & Splash Country
Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Herschend Family Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(1/19/2025) Dollywood Makes Another Hint About Large 2026 Enclosed Attraction
(12/21/2024) What Is Dollywood Planning for 2025 and 2026?
(12/17/2024) Rumor Claims Dollywood May Be Considering Plan To Open Showstreet Year-Round
(12/16/2024) Dollywood Winter Music Concert Series Details
(11/16/2024) Dollywood's Splash Country Adding New Tasty Treat for 2025
(11/9/2024) Big Bear Mountain and Blazing Fury Status Reports
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 - (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.
(12/16/2024) The Winter Music concert series is returning to Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort & Spa. The 2025 edition is an extra-ticket event open to both the general public as well as guests of the resort that will take place on select weekends between January and March 2025.
This includes performances by Linda Davis (Jan. 24-25), Michelle Wright (Jan. 31-Feb 1), Aaron Tippin (Feb 7-8), Gary Morris (Feb. 14-15), Ruby Leigh (Feb. 21-22), Mark Willis (Feb. 28-Mar. 1). Visit the official website for all the details.
(11/16/2024) Dollywood’s Splash Country waterpark has made a tasty announcement for next year. Starting for the 2025 season the Smoky Mountain waterpark wonderland will begin serving ‘Ben’s Soft Pretzels” from within a new “bakery-in-a-box” container store that will be placed within the park.
“Ben's Soft Pretzels, known for their warm, soft, and irresistibly delicious pretzels, will now be an integral part of Dollywood’s Splash Country experience. This partnership brings together the unique flavors of Ben's pretzels with the fun and excitement of one of America's favorite water parks.”
The offerings will include the classic salted pretzel option as well as a sweet cinnamon sugar pretzel, along with a collection of dipping sauce options.
(11/9/2024) Dollywood’s website has confirmed that Big Bear Mountain is currently closed for an “extended maintenance” issue and does not have an estimated reopening date at this time. They do hope that it can be reopened before the end of the 2024, they are currently unable to guarantee that right now. Screamscape sources have told us a little bit more about the reason behind this, which I’m not going to get into, other than to say that this is basically an issue that is going to require someone from the manufacturer (Vekoma) to come out and take care of for Dollywood.
Elsewhere in the park, we’ve also seen something interesting going on with Blazing Fury since mid October. Previously we had heard that Blazing Fury appeared to have been closed down and removed from the park’s website. While it is still not listed on the park’s website, we have heard from some guests that Blazing Fury did appear to be operating as of late, which makes it sound like Dollywood may have closed it, and then reopened it once Big Bear Mountain had to be shut down at the end of October.
While we don’t know what is planned for Blazing Fury, the park has performed a number of upgrades on it over the years to keep it running. However, you may also be aware that sister park, Silver Dollar City, closed their own version of the attraction (Fire In The Hole) and rebuild it from scratch, reopening it for the 2024 season. This had led some to wonder if Dollywood may have similar plans in store to ensure that a Blazing Fury experience will be in the park for generations to come.
(10/30/2024) Congratulations to Dollywood this week as the Dollywood Parks & Resorts were named as the #1 theme park company in the US for “customer service” by Newsweek. This was through the America’s Best Custom Service 2025 rankings, an independent survey of more than 28,000 US customers. Dollywood received an overall score of 92.33 out of 100 above theme park rivals like Disney, Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens.
(10/5/2024) The past week of news coming out of western North Carolina and East Tennessee in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene has been nothing short of heartbreaking. There has been so much death and destruction on a level never seen before in the area. While the immediate Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg area seems to have been mostly spared from the worst of the flooding and destruction, keep in mind that the major freeways and highways in the surrounding areas to the east have been devastated. This includes the complete closure of I-40 and I-26 between North Carolina and Tennessee, which is going to make travel through the region extremely difficult. Repairs to these damaged roadways are expected to take months, if not years, to complete, so if you are eventually planning a trip through the region, please do your research to find your best route ahead of time. Personally, we live in the Charlotte, NC area, but my son goes to school in Knoxville, TN and we have a family member living in Johnson City, TN, so these road closures have now placed large barriers between us all.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t visit the Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg attraction areas, as those people have businesses and families that will need your support going forward as much now as it did when the wildfire blazed through the region in 2016. Tourism is the lifeblood of these areas just west of the path of storm destruction, so please do visit, just don’t go out of your way to peer into any of the devastated areas, as the precious routes remaining open will be vital to the relief efforts trying to help those communities for months to come.
2025 - Park Improvements / 40th Anniversary Celebration - (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) - (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.
|
