This ride sounds great, Sounds like a great new water ride, and very interactive.

Way to go Dolly wood: So now the question is ? Dollywood the Water ride capital of the world???

Jul. 19th, 2007 -- Via Press Release - A battle is brewing in Dollywood’s Timber Canyon area as work begins on River Battle, the theme park’s new water adventure ride set to open in 2008.

The $5 million River Battle is a themed water raft ride equipped with powerful soaker guns. Nine rafts, each with room for eight passengers, follow a 500-foot channel. As the rafts navigate the waters, the battle begins as passengers, each armed with a soaker gun, take aim at each other and more than 100 targets along the way, including large-scale “talking animals”—beavers, skunks, otters, bears and more. Some of the targets shoot back while others display a variety of special effects, creating surprises at every turn and ensuring that no two rides are ever exactly the same. River Battle also engages park guests along the ride’s banks. While rafters are soaking each other in raft-to-raft sparring, they also can “shoot” observers along the way in “raft-to-shore” fun. In the park’s ongoing effort to provide opportunities to bring families closer, River Battle is yet another ride addition that allows parents and children to ride together.

“When I was a kid, me and my brothers and sisters used to sneak away and start up a river battle of our own, but I never dreamed that kind of childhood fun would end up creating a great ride like my new River Battle,” Dolly Parton said.

With an hourly ride capacity of 800 passengers, River Battle will be located just beyond Dollywood’s Mystery Mine steel coaster, which was just named 2007 Best New Attraction by www.themeparkinsider.com. The project also includes a new 750-foot walkway that provides a direct route to the park’s Craftsman’s Valley area from Timber Canyon. The new connector represents the largest earthworks project since the Dollywood Express train’s track bed was completed in 1960. The connector project entails moving 170,000 cubic yards of soil and rocks—the equivalent of 8,500 truck loads.

“The addition of River Battle continues to expand on the award-winning attractions we offer in the Timber Canyon area,” said Ken Bell, Senior Vice-President. “In addition to creating a fun new ride for our guests, we will improve the flow of traffic as guests will be able to access two vital areas of our park via the new connector.”

Dollywood is a 130-acre family adventure park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Open nine months a year (March 31-Dec. 30), Dollywood offers more than 40 rides and attractions; award-winning live entertainment featuring country, bluegrass, gospel and mountain music; and a dozen crafters authentic to the East Tennessee region. For more information, call 1-800-DOLLYWOOD or visit www.dollywood.com. Operating days and hours vary.

I just read about the new ride for Dollywood last night over on Coasterbuzz. Sounds like a really good addition for them. They are becoming a well rounded park. This may warrant a trip there next year.

I'll be at Dollywood in a little over 3 weeks. I'm looking forward Tennessee Tornado and Mystery Mine. I always wanted to ride TT cause it was the last Arrow Looping Coaster ever built.

This new ride sounds really cool. I may have to go back next summer to try it out.

Dollywood just continues to impress.

They really are becoming a standard setter.

Don't forget Thunderhead, PKIVortex! I hear it is not to be missed.

In the park’s ongoing effort to provide opportunities to bring families closer, River Battle is yet another ride addition that allows parents and children to ride together.

“When I was a kid, me and my brothers and sisters used to sneak away and start up a river battle of our own, but I never dreamed that kind of childhood fun would end up creating a great ride like my new River Battle,” Dolly Parton said.

Dolly Wood must have a different insurance carrier than Cedar Fair!! Some how Dolly Wood still lets their families ride the River Rapid rides as a family.

In all actuality that ride sounds like a blast.

Wow 2019 looks great, for Dolly woods rides, a coaster, Restaurant, 5 acre expansion, good for them.....

What a great thibg to happen, a couple more resort hotels, a couple newcdark rides,  this Park is becoming a true destination, bigger than anyone could have imagined from its humble beginnings as Silver Dollar City, when Pigeon Forge was a Fraction of its size. 

 

http://www.wate.com/news/local-news/dollywood-planning-5-acre-expansion-for-2019/1018029422

 

 

 

 

Great!!! We had already decided on going here (and Carowinds) in 2019... Hoping it lives up to the hype!!!

Is anyone from here going to be at opening weekend at Dollywood this weekend?

Opening day swag

And 1st 1500 given a chance to meet Dolly 

On 3/9/2018 at 9:21 AM, Honorarius said:

Great!!! We had already decided on going here (and Carowinds) in 2019... Hoping it lives up to the hype!!!

I would strongly suggest going to Dollywood on a weekday as you'll easily be able to ride everything multiple times with very minimal waits.  My experience the last couple years a lot of the rides are walk-on during the week but some of them can easily get up near an hour on the weekends.  Because of the parks smaller size the crowds can be more noticeable.  Also because the season pass is such a good deal if you are going multiple days you might want to consider it.

Thank you, we will for sure look into that as we will be in the area honeymooning for several days...

View from Mystery Mine line. The hull across from it is about gone.

It's almost 70 degrees here today. 

 

Just got back from the park about 2 hours ago.  (Long day).  I will post some pix and comments when I can.

I asked around about Thrills in the Hill 2018, even went to guest services.  No=one seemed to know anything about it.

Checked on line and bam.

No details but here is the link

https://www.dollywood.com/themepark/Festivals/ThrillsintheHills

Your opinion of lightning rod?

12 minutes ago, Tera Ryzing said:

Your opinion of lightning rod?

Its a fun ride.  The loading is not the best, but I think a good part is a lot of folks are still new to the ride.  I much prefer the front to the back .  We got 6 rides on it over the weekend.

Lightning Rod and the area of the park it is located in are amazing.  The only negative thing i can say is even last season which was its second season they still seemed to have operational issues with it.  I hope they finally have this resolved for this season.

There was a few months of downtime last year that later ended up returning to operation and as far as I know has been at least consistent and has been able to stay open longer. I don't know still though cause I haven't been paying attention.

It went down a couple of times over the weekend but not for long.  Mystery Mine was down the 1st day but up the rest of the time.

On 3/17/2018 at 2:04 PM, Gannersdaddy said:

View from Mystery Mine line. The hull across from it is about gone.

It's almost 70 degrees here today. 

 

Thanks for the pic.  It is crazy to see how much additional ground has been moved since I was there in November.  Opening up the park with additional lands and pathways is a great idea.

Just poking around Youtube and found us.  3rd row.  I am still trying to figure out how many cameras this guys had.

https://youtu.be/LM3Se9GFsXo?t=2m53s

https://youtu.be/LM3Se9GFsXo?t=3m14s

I visited Dollywood for the first time in my life back at the end of May. I loved it! In fact my thought on here is I would love to see Kings Island get a topper track wooden roller coaster like Lightning rod someday. I also have some pictures to share from my experience there.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58502725@N03/albums/72157696415013901

Great story, Herschend 

https://blooloop.com/features/jane-cooper-herschend-family-entertainment/

I'm hearing rumors on Facebook (100% unconfirmed) that Lightning Rod's LSM launch may be replaced with a chain lift.

This may or may not turn out to be true, as there has not been a reputable source on this yet that I'm aware of. But if you care about such things and haven't ridden it yet, I might suggest considering a trip down there this year just in case it does get confirmed.

That really would ruin the pacing of the ride. 

That really would ruin the pacing of the ride. 

Not necessarily. RMC chain lifts are pretty fast. I’m sure they can make them faster.


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If they can run it reliably with two train operation with a lift chain, I would be good with that.

I'd would hurt the launch experience but don't think it'd hurt the ride as a whole. The launch doesn't go the whole way up the hill so it slows down a lot before cresting the top. I'm sure a chain lift could match the speed it ends up at to keep the remainder of the ride the same.

Could they get a third party company like Premier or some other company more familiar with launch tech to come in and fix up the launch?  I mean, this was RMC's first launch coaster.  

There's a big assumption being made that the launch is even the issue. It was rumoured before and the park said there was no issue with the launch. Granted this round they have been fairly quiet but many of the rumblings recently has been with actual track work where the "pothole" developed at the base of the main drop. Given the terrain the ride was placed in its possible some spots settled more than expected. They addressed and spoke of addressing a similar issue before but more recent ride reports express the jolt in that spot had become more pronounced.