Pigeon Forge, a town nestled in the Smoky Mountains was our mini-spring break vacation. My husband has a job that if he doesn't work, more than likely, he doesn't get paid, so we had to stay somewhat local and short. Instead of going on vacations to the beach, we would go to the mountains, while I was growing up. Therefore, I much prefer the mountains to the beach for a vacation, so Pigeon Forge was a good choice for this vacation. My immediate family, with just my oldest daughter at age 2, went to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, but did not do Dollywood. This time, with all three kids, plus my parents, we did Dollywood. I remember going as a kid, but don't remember much, besides having fun.
When we arrived, we parked and took the tram into the park. The line was very long, but we only had to wait for two cycles before it was our turn. They had enough trams running to accommodate the crowds of people. Once we got there, there were three lines to get tickets; one for group tickets, a self-pay line, if you didn't have any discounts you were trying to apply, plus the general line if you wanted to buy a season pass, or talk to customer service. Guess which one I had to go to, the very long one since everyone seemed to be buying season passes, which if we lived in the area, would have been the best deal. My recommendation would that there should have been a separate line for customer service, since I had to wait in the long line, then wait some more until the customer service window was open.
Fast forward to entering the park, of course there's people wanting to take your picture of the group, but we just bypassed them and took our own pictures throughout the park instead. Right when you enter there is an area where the kids get measured and a colored wristband tells what they are tall enough to ride, genius. No more guessing how tall they are and what rides they can ride. The Festival of Nations was going on at Dollywood, where international acts were performing and they had specialty food from around the world. We're not very adventurous and just stuck with cheeseburgers at the diner. I would recommend if you are going to eat cheeseburgers at the diner, that you order kids meals for everyone. Instead of the $11.99 per person for a cheeseburger and fry, the kids meals are $6.99 and includes cheeseburger, small fry, a drink, plus goldfish. We couldn't tell the difference between the adult and the kids cheeseburgers, even though they did say the kids one was smaller.
After lunch, it was finally time to ride some rides. The longest line we had was for a car ride where the kids can drive and you're in old style cars. My parents sat that one out with the wagon, and told us later half of the cars were broken down, which is why it took so long. I rode with my 4-year old son, who purposely would make the car run into the track and laugh and say 'oh no'. My husband rode with my 2-year old daughter and my 8-year old daughter drove herself. All the kids enjoyed themselves on that one, and more importantly, they were all able to ride it.
Next came the train, as you can see from the picture, it was near nap time and my two younger kids are notorious for falling asleep when you put them on a train. It was a nice 20 minute ride through the park and into the mountains a little bit. Since my kids were obviously already exhausted, and we hadn't gotten to do much, we decided to skip the kiddie rides and ride the roller coasters that both my 8-year old and 4-year old could ride. My kids are thrill junkies, just like I used to be at that age and up until recently. I remember losing a tooth on the MindBender at Six Flags and literally almost falling out of the Scream Machine, but still loved it and was laughing the whole time; crazy, I know. Due to time constraints, we didn't want to be super late getting out and have to get a second mortgage to eat dinner in the park, we only rode two more roller coasters before we left. To do Dollywood justice, you would need to spend more than just the one day there. They do offer a deal where if you buy a ticket after 4 on one day, you get the next day free, so I would suggest doing that to get the most bang for your buck.
Overall, Dollywood was a blast. I loved how there were plenty of benches, shade, shows (that we didn't see), and playgrounds scattered throughout the park. The night we came into Pigeon Forge we went to McAlister's to eat, since they offer kids eat free on Fridays, and I saw a Corky's BBQ restaurant, so said we had to eat there for dinner the next night, so that's where we ended up. Corky's was around when I was growing up and we used to go through the drive-through and for $25 would get a lb of pork, 2 large sides, a gallon of lemonade, and buns, and it was good food to boot. Well, it was just how I remember it. The kids all got chicken fingers, but the fries were too spicy for them, so we substituted corn on the cobs instead. My children are weird though and don't like chicken fingers if they resemble chicken, only the fake chicken nuggets from Wendy's, etc. My BBQ sandwich was just how I remember it, and comes with coleslaw on the side for you to put on the sandwich. MMMMMM........So good. Next week, I'll talk about our day 2 adventure of seeing Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Adventure dinner show.
Note: Dollywood gave us 7 free tickets, but all of the opinions are my own.
