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Dollywood 2016


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I'm happy to see that the coaster is moving closer to opening.  The thing I worry about with this ride moving forward is its reliability.  I can't think of many coasters that were delayed like this that eventually went on to become reliable later.

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I'm not suggesting that RMCs are unreliable.  I've simply observed that for whatever reason they seem to be prone to small bits of downtime more frequently.  The delays typically haven't been too long - 20 to 30 minutes on average - but we've personally witnessed them on multiple coasters. 

 

Iron Rattler seems to run the best of the bunch, but New Texas Giant, Outlaw Run, Wicked Cyclone, and especially Goliath seem to have issues with this.  I asked a Silver Dollar City maintenance worker what ride in the park gave them the least trouble, and he without hesitation he said "Wildfire", the B&M sitdown coaster.  The word he used to describe Outlaw Run was "finicky", and I think that sums up the RMCs pretty well.

 

The launch on Lightning Rod does come with a benefit - increased capacity.  RMC lift hills are normally really slow, so the quicker launch will help the capacity out quite a bit.  I just really hope that the launch doesn't hurt the ride from an uptime standpoint, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Lightning Rod has some teething issues for a while after opening.      

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Thanks for your reply. 

I think many coasters have the occasional delay of 20-30 minutes long, doesn't matter the manufacturer.

 

I don't think Dollywood has a lax'd maintenance department and I'm sure that if there are delays during testing, they'll get the ride up as quickly as possible.

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Most new rides have trouble their first year. I remember Banshee used to shut down a lot and it got annoying. However some rides happed to have almosg no downtime their first year. I know my comparisons are both b&ms since they are the only things Cedar Faif invests in. Fury 325 was up the entire time when I went go Carowinds. Also I only remeber seeing Rougarou down once the entire time I was at Cedar Point out of my 8 visits there.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Has anyone on here heard or know of any Lightning Rod updates they would like to share? I'm headed down there in mid June for my first visit ever and the lack of updates coming from either RMC and/or Dollywood are making me think Lightning Rod may not be opened in the next month.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Went Monday, basically saw a line to the side at the ride exit. Waited a few minutes then realized that the people around me had a card. I asked the people around me about the card and they pointed me to the guy handing them out. He was asking for fun facts about the coaster. Of course most of the facts I would've jumped on were already taken by those in front of me. Also he ran out of cards, but he gave a few people a "passphrase" then he told everyone to come back later since the line was getting too long. So I said hey man it's just me I won't add too much to the line. So he asked for a fun fact and I just mentioned it was a Rocky Mountain Construction coaster and with my passphrase I was off. While waiting to be ushered up the people in front of me were confused about the cards people had so I explained the situation but as this was all done poorly I just let them in on the passphrase and let them join me.

While I didn't get to go through much of the que it was pretty nice, and the views from the station are amazing. Had a 3 train wait from there and was assigned row 6. Off I went.

Oh, you want to know about the ride? It has one element that blew me away, and probably not the one your thinking about. Other than that you'll just need to get down here and form your own opinion. I need a few more rides and hopefully in a different row to fully develop my own complete opinion and ranking, it's great just trying to decide how great it is.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G530AZ using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...

Isn't that ironic.

Don't cha think?

Its like rain on your wedding day! Its a free ride!!!!!! When you've already paid...!

 

Sorry couldn't resist. :)

 

I saw that unauthorized(not going to post the link) POV, the. ride. looks.... amazing! 

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From what I've seen and heard the lightning strike hasn't been confirmed by the park. That said there was a pretty significant storm hit the park last week, search Dollywood Flood on Facebook to see some crazy pics. So it's definitely possible. However the next day a visitor reported seeing workers trimming trees around the non-inverting half loop so to me it seems just as likely that on a recent construction site on a hillside with lots of trees nearby they could just be trimming trees and possibly removing more that may pose a danger to the ride/riders.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G530AZ using Tapatalk

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Isn't that ironic.

Don't cha think?

Its like rain on your wedding day! Its a free ride!!!!!! When you've already paid...!

Sorry couldn't resist. :)

I saw that unauthorized(not going to post the link) POV, the. ride. looks.... amazing!

Well you went alot farther than I was going to. :)

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