Dollywood Day Two
Our last day at Dollywood was predicted to be a rainy one. But it was literally the last day of our trip, so we decided to give it a go.
Once again, we arrived early. This day it was just us 3 and my parents. My brother decided not to go. It immediately seemed less crowded when we arrived. We parked right around 9 am. We were held at security until around 9:15, then they let us through to wait at the gates. We were at the front of the line.
We were let inside right at 9:30 am. Melody and I immediately went to get her height measured. I did grab some pictures of it on this morning.
We immediately then went back and went towards Craftsman’s Valley. But we did take some pictures along the way.
Apparently I took no pictures for about 90 minutes, lol. I guess because we were busy riding rides. We immediately went to ride Blazing Fury. I feel like we may have ridden it several times before moving on. It was Melody’s favorite ride in all of Dollywood, I think. Then we rode Daredevil Falls. It is much like Splash Mountain at Disney World. However, the big difference is the lead to the fall. On Splash Mountain, you are not really aware of how high you are until you drop. There is a fun story and music along the way. Daredevil Falls is not this way. At moments it felt like a roller coaster the way it went “up”. We did get wet, and it was so few people they were letting people stay on if they wanted to keep riding. Melody said a big NO for that. She hated it.
We then headed towards Jukebox Junction to ride the cars at Rockin’ Roadway. Only Melody and my dad did this. Brad and I were going to ride Lightning Rod, but the wait went from 20 minutes to 50 as soon as we stepped in the line. Unfortunately the Roadway seemed to take forever even with the short wait. Once they finished, we went and rode Smoky Mountain River Rampage. This was a mistake. Now the ride was fun, but we did it right before lunch. And we were SOAKED. So we really had no time to dry off before going into the air conditioning to eat, ha.
We stopped around 11 to get lunch at Red’s Drive-In. They did have indoor seating compared to Till and Harvest our first day. I also liked that they had Coke Freestyle machines which allowed for a variety, if we wanted. The food was good, but there was also work around to make our meals cheaper if I had researched and knew. I will share all about that in a future post about the restaurant.
We finished up and then road River Rampage one more time before making it to the Village Carousel around noon. Melody rode it several times. Then we made our way over to the Country Fair area. Melody rode Sky Rider, Lemon Twist, and Shooting Star. My dad road all of those with her. Eventually with Shooting Star, she wanted to ride by herself several times. We got popcorn and ice cream and found a shaded spot to watch her ride.
As Melody was riding Shooting Star, the Owens met up with us. They were just starting their trip as we were ending ours. So at this point, Melody was done with us and focused on Lydia. They rode The Amazing Flying Elephants, Lemon Twist, Piggy Parade, Lucky Ducky, and Busy Bees.
Then poop hits the fan. It begins raining around 2:30. This leads to a thunderstorm, followed by the park closing all rides temporarily. Now we have to decide what to do. Melody isn’t ready to leave, but looking at the radar, it is hard to tell when the storm will stop. My parents road with us, but they were pretty much done with the day. After lots of yelling and arguing and a breakdown, we decided to call it and head out. I won’t go into all the details of my breakdown, but it was one for the books. I hate how the day ended at Dollywood, but it was a good day until this point.
Overall we enjoyed Dollywood, but it is not a place we will go to over and over. We did have season tickets for Melody and me simply because it made sense money wise, but I am not sure we would do it again. Now if it was closer by an hour or two, that would be a different story. But it is just too far away to day trip.
