Not fussing, just telling you my first and only experience with Dollywood. So, it's spring break week and my wife and I decided to take the children camping in Wears Valley. We have children age 8 and 11. We thought Dollywood would be fun for them. Yesterday we went.. The crowds were absolutely ridiculous. From the time we got into the turning lane until we got into the park was an hour and 45 minutes. Terribly disorganized parking routine. It went from 3 lanes, to 14, them back down to 2. About like trying to get out of Talladega . Tickets were right at $500 to get into the park. 3 adults and 1 child. Once inside the park, it was decorated up nice. A few neat things to see. People everywhere. My daredevil 11 year old wanted to ride a roller coaster. It was a 2.5 hour wait in the line to ride it. They kept stopping it and doing maintenance on it. But, she really loved the big bear coaster. By this time it's getting late in the day, so we go eat pizza that was $75 for 4 slices and 3 soft drinks. Actually not as expensive as I was expecting. On to find another coaster. 2 hr wait to ride the next one, we finally got out of that coaster line after waiting for 30 minutes and found a water log type right that didn't have much of a line. Rode it once and it was time for the park to close. That's it. $600 spent and 2 rides, 4 slices of pizza and 3 soft drinks. I'm sure it would have been fun if not for the crowds, but man, what an exuberant amount of money to spend for the return. In all fairness, I think we would have really enjoyed it, if it wasn't so crowded. Not saying I won't be back, but I won't be back anytime that seems like it would be remotely crowded. Just not worth it.

I believe that is everyone’s experience at any vacation spot spring break. Especially Gatlinburg and pigeon forge area.

Wife is wanting to go to the beach later this week, told her I’m not going.

My sons are up there with their mom. My youngest said it was insane.

I never took my kids on vacation during spring break, it never sounded fun to me. Spring break for my son was baseball and turkey hunting.

About 20 years ago the was one of the best spots to vacation. We would go two or three times a year, last time I went was about 5 years ago. Last two times were absolutely a crap hole. Haven't been back since. Gatlinburg used to have the best craft type shops, now the whole town is like a Chinese flea market. Wait in line for every thing and service sucks. Used to could go into park and get away from crowds. Not anymore, Cades cove is a constant line and that's on a slow day.

We go after the spring break rush or after school starts back. It's great. 10 minutes tops in line. Most of the time, no line.

Dayum.

I'm glad I'm old and grumpy and I don't have to put up with crap like that.

We usually go 2-3 times a year. If you stay at Dollys hotel or cabins you can get free shuttle, free Dollywood tickets, and I believe 10 fast passes for the lines. We have bought season tickets before and if you go at least 4 days to the park, you are saving money, because parking is free, you can enter park an hour early, they give you a free bring a friend pass for each membership. My girls love it and they have some surprisingly good roller coasters. The lightning rod is really the only ride we’ve had to wait 30-40 minutes for. They had to slow it down because it was too fast and it was constantly not functioning properly from something wearing out. Spring break and Fourth of July are really busy. If you can pick an off peak time to go, it’s a great time.

Same here we were one of the 24,000 in Dollywood yesterday as well, the first time we have been in 4 years and it has done a nose dive of epic proportions! Similar experience here $800 for 7 of us, $37 for two chicken finger baskets and two cokes, rode one roller coaster and a bunch of fair type rides. They have gutted all of the shows, went to the back porch which use to have a top notch string band that played every hour or so to find a crap sing-a-long with 3 college kids that was absolute garbage. The park was clean lots of people working but wait times were awful,the food was equally bad. That was probably our last trip, we use to enjoy bringing the kids here every year but that was probably our last for DW.

We rent a cabin above DW basically where the train turns around, and will spend today playing, pool, cards, and games with kids, and back to the grind Thursday for me an out and back to Utah for work.

That’s more than Disney World is for a day. Ridiculous.

Same, the wife and I usually only vacation first of May and first of October. Not so hot and not so crowded.

"go at least 4 days"

Correct, we go 4-6 days of Dollywood per year. 3 different trips and bring kids friends with us. Usually do Dollys waterpark one of those days. We don’t go during peak times where there are crowd issues. It is expensive, but we ride all the rides we want to ride multiple times. 100 times better than Disney where each good ride is 1 mile away and a 2 hour line

$500 - you could go there 100 times for the price of a new truck (haha)

You should have went to used Dollywood.

I thought you could take your own food and drink? Dont they have water filling stations?

Ain't been since they took Dixie out of the Dixie Stampede.

I’m not spending vacation time waiting in lines.

Or any other time for very long.

State parks, ropes courses, fishing poles and canoes is considerably more enjoyable for us. I’ll never do anything like that but that’s just me. 😉

Agreed! We do that a lot, kayak, fish, pellet guns, squirrel hunt, lake to swim and ski, lapse in judgement won’t happen again here. We said that last time 5 years ago and it will stick this time lol.