Lesson Learned

What a difference!! None of my family wanted to go back to Dollywood today after the horrible experience last week - except for Abby. So she & I headed down there this morning for the 11:00 opening.

We got to the security point just after 10 AM and only had to wait about 10 minutes before we started moving through the metal detectors. We sailed right over to the ticket gate and had to wait just a couple of minutes there. Once inside the park, we had the place to ourselves for the walk to the "rope drop" waiting area. We decided to stand next to Dolly's house and head towards the train and Country Fair area. The rope dropped at 10:55 with hardly anyone waiting near us. We quickly walked up to the train, got the times for the first couple of trains, and headed over to the Country Fair. 90% of the other people we saw in the area (which wasn't many) were making a beeline for Santa. We bypassed them and headed to a ride, and walked right on to it with no one else there.

We were on the first ride at 11:00 on the dot, and went on 9 rides in a row with absolutely no time spent waiting in line. We decided to grab a snack and walked right up to the counter, got our food, paid and were on our way. We got back to the train at 11:58 AM and waited about a minute before the line moved and we got on the first train ride of the day. We noticed there was absolutely no line for the cinnamon bread as we passed by on the train! What?! We got off the train, went to grab a slice of pizza, walked right up to the counter, grabbed the food, walked to the register, paid and sat right down at an empty table in the restaurant. There were several people wondering "where IS everyone?!" It was so empty.

We grabbed our stuff, headed over to the Blazing Fury, walked right on to the front row of that ride, even though it showed a 20 minute wait. It took maybe 5 minutes from the entrance to actually getting on the ride - in the front row. We headed up the hill and to Wild Eagle. Walked up the stairs, got to the landing as the gate opened, walked right onto the ride and rode. Got off that one and walked towards Wildwood Grove - and noticed more of a crowd. We did a few other rides and began walking back towards the entrance. There was definitely a line for cinnamon bread then, so we skipped out on it today. It got more and more crowded as we went, but we just casually stopped at shops along the way and then headed out. In the four hours in the park today, we had a million times better experience than we did last week.

I spoke to a security officer while we were waiting on the rope drop and he said Fri, Sat, and Sun have been ridiculously busy, and he bet that by 3 PM it would be packed today. Accurate. As we were leaving they were parking folks over at Splash Country because A-G were full. He also said that on Wednesday night the place was empty. He strongly recommended we come back on a Wednesday or a Thursday night this month - because then we could see all the lights and not have to deal with the crowds. We are definitely going to consider doing this.

I am SO glad Abby & I had an amazing day, and we totally rubbed it in everyone else's faces when we got home. On top of the "no lines, no crowds, no waiting" for a full 4 hours, the weather today was AMAZING and the staff just seemed so much nicer and happier today than last week. We were thanking all of them at every chance. I don't think we will ever go during Thanksgiving week or Christmas week again, but it's good to know we can still have some low-crowd times with our passes and head out feeling like we got our money's worth.