SILVER DOLLAR CITY
& WHITEWATER BRANSON
Branson, MO
Herschend Family Entertainment Corp.
Review - Fire In The Hole (2024)
 Park News - (12/6/2024) Congratulations to Silver Dollar city who was awarded the honor of being the “Best Theme Park Holiday Event” by USA Today for the 7th time for the park’s An Old Time Christmas event, taking place now through January 4th, 2025.
2025 - New Expansions and Entertainment Offerings - (10/13/2024) Silver Dollar City announced an expanded line-up of special festivals, events and entertainment offerings coming to the theme park in 2025.
New next summer, the park will introduce “Night Sky”, a new drone and fireworks show each night, featuring over 100 light-up drones that will dance across the sky. The park will also bring a new Wild-West themed comedy stunt show and the Silver Dollar City acrobat show to park guests as well in the Summer Celebration event (June 7 - Aug 3).
Also a new entertainment space is coming to the park called “The Plaza”, which will serve as a “hub of fun and entertainment” that will double the size of the current Grand Exposition area when it opens in 2025, offering a new performance stage as well as space for an assortment of new food booths and seating ares.
A new music and food festival event will launch in the Spring season called Spring Exposition. The winter season will of course see the return of the park’s popular “An Old Time Christmas” (Nov. 1 - Dec 30), which will include a new show called The Heart of Christmas in 2025. The park will also feature the Bluegrass & BBQ event May 14-26, Southern Gospel Picnic (Aug 21 - Sept. 1), and Harvest Festival (Sept. 12 - Oct 25).
???? - Outlaw Run Update - Wild Rumor - (4/9/2024) Consider this something more of a “Wild Rumor” for the time being, but according to an anonymous tipster, Silver Dollar City’s next coaster project may be may actually be a complete refurbishment or another existing park ride. In this case, the tipster points to Dollywood as an example, as the chain’s other RMC replaced the majority of the ride’s original RMC “Topper Track’ with I-Box style full-steel beam track instead.
At the time, this was done to Lightning Rod because sections of the ride’s track were taking a bit of a beating, which was in-turn doing a number to the support system as well, so the choice was made to upgrade to the stronger I-Box track option. According to this new rumor, and many guest reports, Outlaw Run has been getting a bit rough despite their best efforts and now they may be considering a similar upgrade for it as well.
Just something to keep in mind as a possibility in the not too distant future. Stay tuned!
2026 - Unknown New Addition - (1/19/2025) Silver Dollar City let it be known that “something else” is coming to the park for the 2026 season, in addition to the previously announced new resort hotel. They just aren’t ready to talk about it yet, so keep your eyes peeled when visiting this year.
2026 - New Resort Hotel - (10/18/2024) Silver Dollar City announced that they had a new name yesterday afternoon and are now calling themselves, “Silver Dollar City Parks & Resorts”. This is the first step of a half-a-billion dollar improvement plans for the famous theme park that will expand with the development of 1,200 acres of property next to the park, starting with a 262-room resort hotel that will overlook the Ozark Mountains and Table Rock Lake. The new resort has already started construction and is slated to open in late 2026.
So what does this mean for Silver Dollar City? For those who know the industry and that the company behind Silver Dollar City (Herschend Family Entertainment) is also the owner of Dollywood, none of this should come as a surprise. Over the past decade we’ve seen Dollywood grow by leaps and bounds, adding two resort hotels with plans on deck to add even more in the future, as well as major expansions to the theme park in response to the overwhelming positive growth there. Clearly the time has come for Silver Dollar City to start borrowing from Dollywood’s playbook and evolve the Branson park to have the same style offerings and amenities that have pushed Dollywood to the next level.
While the expansion of Dollywood was almost considered more of an experiment at first to see if the demand was there, clearly Herschend has used everything they’ve learned from their Tennessee resort and and this knowledge will propel the Branson property in all the right ways.
(10/26/22) The local news has reported that Silver Dollar City has just purchased the failed Indian Ridge housing development, which has been the subject of more than a few videos of the past couple years showing massive mansions built and then left to rot unsold on the property. Silver Dollar City bought almost 800 acres of property next to this in early 2021, which has long been rumored to be used to build a new mega-resort for the theme park in the same vein as the DreamMore Resort at Dollywood, and now SDC has bought up the remaining 26 acres that they did not buy previously.
(2/4/22) You may recall two months ago I reported hearing that Silver Dollar City was purchasing a large plot of land a bit to the west of the theme park? As we reported at the time, this large land purchase was to clear the way for Silver Dollar City to follow in the footsteps of Dollywood and begin to build and operate their own Resorts.
Today that rumor about a large land purchase was confirmed as the local news reports that Silver Dollar City had just acquired an 800-acre plot of land near a failed “Indian Ridge” resort community project. The “Indian Ridge” project has become famous not only for the plan’s failure, but because of a street where a number of large homes were built and abandoned and left to rot, giving this block a creepy apocalypse looking feel.
Silver Dollar City has confirmed the land purchase, but also confirmed that the section of the property that contains the abandoned mansions is not part of the parcel that they purchased. The news article also confirms that Silver Dollar City LLC also owns ‘multiple parcels of property” between the theme park and this latest land purchase, which makes me wonder if they will have the ability to directly connect the theme park to this new property if given the chance. While the future intent of the property was not open for discussion, we have only to watch how the company has set a huge future masterplan of growth for future resort projects in Tennessee to get an idea of how they will transform the Silver Dollar City theme park into a true resort experience.
(12/4/21) Screamscape sources have sent in a rather interesting update regarding the future of Silver Dollar City. Much like how we’ve been seeing plans for increased growth at sister park, Dollywood in Tennessee, the rumor is that SDC is preparing to build their very own resort complex.
While I don’t know the exact site, I’m told that SDC’s parent company, Herschend, has purchased a large plot of land to the west of the theme park for this very reason. Currently the theme park only has a campground property to offer overnight accommodations with, but if the trend here works the same way as it did in Dollywood, adding an official resort to the theme park could be a huge success and possibly just the first of many such resorts to come in the future. While the terrain around the park definitely isn’t flat, this is also familiar terrain that Herschend is used to in their various developments and resort projects around the mountainous terrain that surrounds the Dollywood theme park.
More on this rumor as it develops!
Screamscape Review -
2024 - FIRE IN THE HOLE
(3/29/2024) Screamscape was invited to attend a special preview of the all new FIRE IN THE HOLE attraction at Silver Dollar City this week. While I wasn’t able to attend myself, I was able to send our good friend Randal out to give it a spin for us. This worked out great as Randal has also visited Silver Dollar City many times in the past and was very familiar with the original Fire version of Fire in the Hole, which this has now replaced. I’ve got his review of the ride below along with an official on-ride video provided by the park that mixed POV with Reverse POV footage of them riding, giving us our first look at the all new state-of-the-art dark ride/coaster experience.
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The new Fire In The Hole at Silver Dollar City does not disappoint. When the original ride was reaching the end of its service life, the park started making plans 10 years ago to build a new version and one of the first steps was to create the new Fireman's Landing. With the opening of the new Fire In The Hole, the area has been renamed the Fire District. Nearby the entrance are two new shops, Sadies Pretzel Cafe which features foot-long pretzel dogs and brats, pretzel sandwiches and of course, hand twisted pretzels. Around the corner is Flanders Dry Goods, which sells a variety of souvenirs based on Fire In The Hole, including for fans familiar with the ride, Red Flanders famous pants. An assortment of other items including candy, snow globes, t-shirts, stickers and magnets are among some of the new offerings. And an all-new live character, Sadie Flanders joins the cast of existing Silver Dollar Citizens. She'll be out and about at different times in the Fire District and near her Cafe and Flanders Dry Goods.
The ride itself is all new and glistening, but retains an almost identical layout, including the three drops the original ride was known for. The storyline is the most improved new feature of the ride, with a clearer tale of the night the Baldknobbers set the town on fire. This is achieved through new dialogue from the characters inside the ride and with onboard audio. There are three main Baldknobbers characters now in the storyline; Patches, Bugs and Wiley. They are not as intimidating as the original Baldknobbers were for younger children and definitely give that bumbling, slapstick type of villain feel that the park was going for, but you still get the feeling that they are a bunch of trouble.
The drops are much more family friendly and smoother, but still fun and thrilling and have been enhanced. The Kinney Bridge has had its "collapse" restored so that when the train goes down the drop, the bridge appears to collapse. The second drop (the train scene) now makes sense in the story line, as a mischievous Baldknobber throws a switch and sends the rescue pumper train headed straight for it. The locomotive of the train actually looks like a locomotive now and steam bellows out, obscuring the second drop, adding to the thrills. The third and final splashdown drop makes sense now too, as the townsfolk send a charge to the water tower, blowing it up to put out the fire. Coming out of the splashdown as the pumper wagon train makes its way to the unloading platform, you see the Citizens of Silver Dollar City celebrating on a screen. Yes, this ride now uses a FEW screens on the ride, but there are only three, and they add to the experience and enhance it instead of being the sole focus.
Overall the ride is solid. My only complaint is that some of the dialogue leading between the fire scene of the cabin up to the Kinney Bridge is hard to hear. There's just a tad bit too much going on. Fans of the old ride will recall hearing the "Fire In The Hole Song" a couple of times during the ride. This is my only complaint. It is not present anywhere in the new ride. I think instead of ALL that dialogue on the track between the Cabin and the Kinney Bridge, they could play it for say about 5 seconds. There is some dialogue necessary to set up the scene as you come up on Kinney Bridge, but other than that, I'd personally love to hear the updated version of the song that was created for the ride in this area.
Other parks looking to recreate or update an older, beloved attraction should look to Silver Dollar City and the New Fire In The Hole for guidance. They kept the ride basically as it was and really enhanced it with today's available technology. If you're going to call a beloved ride a name that evokes the past and nostalgia, it needs to be that ride in feel and spirit. With this new version, fans of the old ride and new riders will all be hollering "Fire In The Hole" as they drop on the ride's last plunge. And that makes me very happy.
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