Dollywood and Six Flags Over Georgia TR 3/25 - 3/27

[gad198]

Overview:

Last year at this time we headed down for Season Pass Day at Dollywood and Carowinds opening day. I'm fortunate enough to be able to go to a lot of parks, so I figured that I would try and cut down on some of my trip costs by using Groupons to various restaurants near many of the places I'm likely to visit. I had been accumulating Groupons for the Knoxville and Atlanta areas in preparation for any trips I'd make down to Dollywood and Six Flags Over Georgia.

I looked at the calendar and noticed that the first day that both parks would be open together was the weekend of the 26th and 27th. Dollywood had their Season Pass Day on the 25th (Friday), and SFOG is usually much more crowded on Saturdays than Sundays so I figured that we could spend two days in Atlanta to maximize our park time. I convinced (more like coaxed!) my friend Dave to tag along. The weather forecast (which is usually the most important component of any trips we take) looked OK, but we would end up getting duped. More on this later.

I've done trip reports for both of these parks in the past, so I'll hit just the highlights. I'll also throw in some info about some of the more noteworthy restaurants we visited using our Groupons.

The Trip:

Mel's Diner - Pigeon Forge:

We stopped here Friday morning just before going to Dollywood. It's a 50s/60s style diner off of Wears Valley Rd. (near Calhouns) and is about five minutes away from Dollywood. It's a pretty no frills menu in typical diner style. The food here was quite tasty, but the thing that impressed us the most was how fast the food came out. It took no more than five minutes from the time we placed our order to the time the food was delivered to our table. We were in and out of the restaurant in about a half hour. I'd certainly recommend this diner to those of you looking for good food that's priced reasonably and extremely quick service. Grade: B+

http://www.melsdinerpf.com/

Dollywood:

We got to the parking lot around 9:45 and noticed that they were parking everyone in Lot C. They weren't parking anyone in Lot B (the closer of the two lots) yet so we were thinking that perhaps they weren't expecting it to be that busy. We got to the entrance about 10:05, and we knew from our experience last year to get a Q2Q early, schedule your shows while in the Q2Q building and then plan your day based on when you were going to see the shows.

We headed to the right, crossed the bridge to get to the Q2Q building and were promptly greeted by a line. Not just any line, mind you, but a line that must have been at least 150 people deep. Yikes. Last year the only lines that existed were for the two big shows Drum! and Imagine, so we got out of the Q2Q line knowing that we needed to probably head to one of the big shows first. Drum! has returned for a second season but Imagine did not return, and in its place is Samaia - Legend of the Caucasus. Samaia's first performance was at 11:15 and Drum! didn't start until 12:45, so we decided to head to queue up for Samaia.

Samaia is very much in line with the Festival of Nations theme. The show features a lot of "traditional" dancing from the republic of Georgia of the former Soviet Union. The costumes were very neat and to me were probably the lasting image I'll take from the show. The only real knock I have is that I think it lacked that little bit of cohesiveness that really brings the story together. I think the overall show is good but not truly memorable like the Imagine shows. Had we viewed Samaia before seeing the two Imagine shows we would have been impressed, but the Imagine shows were two of the best shows I've ever seen and set the bar almost unrealistically high for everything else. Grade: B

We headed to Barnstormer right after Samaia. The ride itself looks great in its location and was a nice addition to an area of the park that needed some more foot traffic. The line was a good ways out of the queue, however, so we opted against it. Screamin' Swings are fun but not "wait for an hour on opening day when it'll be a 15 minute wait later on the season" fun. We'll pick this up on a later visit.

Tennessee Tornado is still a lot of fun. It's Arrow's best looping effort and it's too bad that they got it right just in time for every other park in America to already have one!

Thunderhead is running well early in the season. It's already in mid-season form and those super comfy Millennium Flyer trains really make this ride a standout. It's still very much a top 5 wooden coaster.

Mystery Mine is getting pretty nasty in spots. The combination of tight turns and those OTSRs forces you to ride very defensively in many spots. I love the ending, but we continually find ourselves only wanting to get the cursory single ride on it and then move on. IMO it's just not a very re-rideable coaster.

The crowds weren't too bad. They were parking people all the way in Lot F (and that lot was more than halfway full) but it never felt as though the crowds were bad at all. Most of our wait times for the rides were 10 minutes or less. The shows here, particularly on opening day, seem to command the most attention so the Q2Q wasn't really necessary unless you wanted to ride Barnstormer or see the two more popular shows. I really hope that 2012 will bring another coaster addition, but it should be a nice rest of the season there with Barnstormer and Sha-Kon-O-Hey! returning for its third season. The park is already looking very nice but should look fantastic here in two to three weeks with Spring finally arriving.

M&M Barbecue - west side of Knoxville:

Dave and I are big barbecue fans, so we found ourselves at a couple of BBQ joints over the weekend. The first one we stopped at M&M Barbecue off of I-40 on the west side of Knoxville. Their portion sizes were absolutely gigantic. I'm guessing that on a regular size sandwich (they offer regular and jumbo sizes) that they put a good half pound of brisket on the sandwich. Their chicken was pretty average, but they had two standout items - the sauce and the ribs. We sampled their regular (medium) sauce and a sweet & hot sauce and both were very savory and complimented the meat nicely. The ribs were Fred Flintstone size. In most circumstances that isn't good because the meat loses a lot of tenderness and flavor but these were quite good on both counts. It's one of the few ribs on which I could actually taste some of the seasoning on the meat so they picked up extra points there. We only had one side - green beans - and those were very good.

It's only open Wednesday through Saturday, so if you do stop by make sure you pay attention to that. Grade: B

http://www.m-mcatering.com/

Six Flags Over Georgia - Saturday

The weather forecast on the Thursday before the trip called for a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms both Saturday and Sunday. By the time we woke up on Saturday morning the rain chances climbed up to 80% on Saturday, 100% on Saturday night and 60% on Sunday. We looked at the radar and there was a nice size line of thunderstorms about 30 miles to the north. The storms were moving the east, however, so we decided that we'd head to the park and take our chances and hope the rain would hold off for a little while. We did luck out and have the rain hold off until 2:30, at which point in time the skies opened up and washed out most of the rest of the day.

We had read several trip reports from their opening Saturday the previous weekend and they were all less than complimentary. There were reports of all coasters with one train operations and hour long and up waits for all of their major coasters seemed to be the theme of the day. We were at the park opening weekend last year and that wasn't much better, in fact, we only rode Goliath one time (with an hour wait) and then left to head back to Cincinnati. I was hoping that management would take some of those complaints seriously and try and make things run much smoother. I'm happy to report that operations were much better, and even though most of the coasters (except Goliath which ran two) only ran one train the ride ops were on the ball. The park staff deserves major kudos.

Crowds were very manageable on Saturday. There were a lot of busses there (senior class trips and the like seemed to be the norm), but the only waits that looked bad were the Mindbender and Batman lines. Each of those lines were at least half an hour each, so we passed on those because (1) we knew we'd be back the next day and (2) Goliath at noon was about a five minute wait, so our decision to spend most of our time there was made pretty easy.

Philips Arena:

Philips Arena is right next to the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta. We decided to go to an Atlanta Hawks basketball game while we were in town. They were playing the New Jersey Nets, one of the worst teams in the league so we knew that getting tickets wouldn't exactly be problematic.

Philips Arena is a terrific arena to watch a game. The seating areas are all pretty close to the court (or ice if you happen to be there for a Thrashers NHL game) so there aren't any bad seats. The concourses are the nicest concources in any arena or stadium I've been to, and that includes Staples Center (which is overrated, by the way) and Conseco Fieldhouse. They're full of character, color, space, and have every single amenity and concession you could possibly ask for. It is hands down the nicest arena I've been to thus far. It's just too bad the Hawks can't draw the crowds because they deserve better crowds than they're getting.

Six Flags Over Georgia - Sunday:

Crowds on Sunday were the stuff of enthusiasts dreams. The line of thunderstorms that made news around the country had passed to the south but the skies remained very gloomy. The temperature was around 55 so it was a bit on the cool side but it was still very doable. We knew that we would have a pretty good day when there were only about a hundred people waiting for the rope to drop. We headed to Goliath and managed to the third and fourth people on the first train out. The longest wait we would encounter would be three trains waiting for the front seats of Superman and Mindbender. We stayed at the park til just shy of 2:30, and our ride count just on Sunday looked like this:

Superman - 1

Mindbender - 1

Batman - 1

Great American Scream Machine - 1

Dahlonega Mine Train - 1

Georgia Scorcher -1

Goliath - 20

That's right, dear friends; 20 total laps on Goliath on Sunday alone in four hours time. They made an announcement early that if your row was empty you could stay on the train or move to a different row with empty seats, so that made marathoning pretty easy.

Speaking of Goliath...WOW. My first rides on Goliath back in 2008 were just a little above average. We had heard the airtime was just fabulous but it just wasn't there for us. Well, all that's changed. Goliath has grown on me over the last few years and now it's firmly in my top 5 steel. There's not a dull moment on the coaster (thanks to no MCBR), the pacing through the entire ride is perfect and the airtime is in abundance on every single hill and in every single row of the train. The only thing that keeps this from potentially being my #1 steel is the fact that the trains shook noticeably (for a B&M coaster, anyway) in spots. The trains simply look like they needed new wheels. Nonetheless, I had more fun on this coaster than I've had on any coaster before, and that includes Bizarro (SFNE), Millennium Force and Diamondback. Bizarro is still my #1 for now but Goliath was just spectacular this weekend.

Bub-Ba-Q - Woodstock, GA:

This is one of the finest barbeque establishments at which I've had the pleasure to eat. They've won a number of awards and it's very easy to see why after eating there. The chicken and the ribs were both grade "A" stuff, and it's one of the few places I've been to that have done both well. They have fabulous onion rings and a side called fried mac and cheese that was just spectacular. It's basically a jalapeno popper but filled with mac and cheese instead.

The only things we had there that weren't outstanding were the brisket and the sauces but even those were still good. I still like Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City more (because they have perhaps the finest barbecue sauce anywhere) but this is one of the few restaurants now that I'd gladly pay full price for. I just can't give it a solid A or A+ because the sauce just was merely good and not outstanding. Grade: A-

This trip report turned out a lot longer than I was anticipating, but thanks for reading!

[thekidd33]

Thanks for sharing this! It sounds like you had a good time! I have only been to Dollywood once and that was when I was like 6. I really need to get down to that area again and check out these two parks.

[pkiboy]

Im glad im not the only one Thunderhead was running Amazing this weekend. Glad you had a woderful time I to was at Dollywood this weekend with Beastman Despite the Rainy weather I must say I got some really great rides on one amazing Wooden coaster this weekend.

BTW for those of you who visit Dollywood a lot like my self Blazing Furry no longer will have the water at the end they installed a new breaking system and I was told by the crew that manintence is working on a new surprise at the end.

Gad did you notice the Strobe light at the end when you rode it this weekend .

Lots of new changes at the park I noticed this weekend. Barnstormer is Amazing, its a longer ride cycle than Skyhawk at Cedar Point.

Glad my Off Season is now Over. Hello 2011 Coaster Season.

[pkiboy]

Dolly was lookin great as always!!!

One of my fav Wooden Coasters!!! Let the Thunder ROLLLLLLLL.

HMMMMMM wonder what this is??????? this fence was not there last year it right by Adventure moutain.

[standbyme]

Your trip report slipped past me...but I just finally got around to reading it all. (Yes it is long!) Thanks for sharing...it sounds like you had a good time!

[sheikra_rocks]

I quote the tram driver....

"building something that is going to put Dollywood on the map."