Dollywood

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MostMagicalCat
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just looking around coaster sites and ended up looking at some site which gave me this dollywood park, new ride

http://www.dollywood.com/press-room/pre ... aspx?id=83

sounds great, sadly i will not be going to dollywood.erm.ever!
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Anonymous

The spread of the Gerstlauer Eurofighter seems to be accellerating with a press release detailing the superb looking, Disney-rivalling £10m Mystery Mine opening at Dollywood next year.

2004's Thunderhead really put Dollywood on the map, but the amazing themeing of Mystery Mine looks set to knock Dolly Parton's Tenessee park into the big league.

Damn, I want to get over there sometime soon!

Mystery Mine website

:D
Craig

Ooooh that looks a bit good! It's hardly recognisable as a Eurofighter looking at that promo video. Should look absolutely amazing when it's finished.
Anonymous

I reckon it ought to be themed like a giant pair of tits! :D
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Liam
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This looks excellent! The theming on these new coasters are improving all the time at a furious pace and this is certainly not an exception!
It gets better and better; I hope Alton Towers are wacthing. A fantastic theme does wonders!
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CGM
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http://www.themeparkreview.com/dollywoo ... od2007.htm

Some early construction photos.

This looks like it's going to be great. It will be very well themed, it should have brilliant effects, it's got a great story line and at 17.5 million dollars it will have a lot of money ploughed into it.

I think that we could be seeing a lot more from Gerstlauer in the future
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caffeine_demon
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[quote=""Shockadelica""]I reckon it ought to be themed like a giant pair of tits! :D[/quote]

or at least shape the track that way!

and call it the dollywood bra ride!
AstroDan

The website has the kind of flair and punch that marketing for rides like Oblivion had when new.

I wish Alton Towers would do such wonderful promotion and themed developments such as this.
oldgitBEN

i was reading about this the other day and saw the web-site - I dont know what a eurofighter is (googles after the post) it looks superb tho, I love the tag line of
"what if theres no light at the end of the tunnel" - theres some serious thought and effort going into this.

I have thought about visiting Dollywood but will only do it for a day, didnt realise it was a dry state! Jebus me a whole 24hours without a beer? Id be off a cliff!
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CGM
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Sorry for bringing up an old topic but they're certainly making progress- there are going to be two lift hills (if not more) and there seems to be space for what looks like a holding brake at the top of the main drop. There's also a bit of work done on theming such as gears.

http://www.themeparkreview.com/dollywoo ... od2007.htm
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Thomas
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There's lots of nice pictures of this Amazing new attraction, to me its seems to be one of the most extensively themed rides i have ever seen!

Really sorry to bring up this dated topic

Thomas
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Ash
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Wow, this ride looks truly fantastic! I wish there was a way of me getting there, well done Dollywood.

Shame Alton cant produce something with theming as good as that anymore, and its only a small park!

Makes me sick! :x
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Ketchup
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[quote=""Titler""]Shame Alton cant produce something with theming as good as that anymore, and its only a small park![/quote]

Dollywood isn't that small. It's practically financed by Dolly Parton's bank balance. I'd put it on level without about Thorpe, the park also has the legendary GCI Wooden coaster Thunderhead as well as apparently the best Arrow looper Tennessee Tornado.
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Ash
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So Dolly Parton obviously has more skills to make a well themed ride than the likes of Tussauds?
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Ketchup
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[quote=""Titler""]So Dolly Parton obviously has more skills to make a well themed ride than the likes of Tussauds?[/quote]

Dollywood only has money pumped into it by Dolly Parton, all she apparently does is approve of things once planned. The park are owned by the Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation the same company that own both Silver Dollar City and Celebration City.

And by the looks of things by what there parks have done over the last 10 years they certainly look like they can run a park better then the mediocrity Alton Towers has become in the last 5 years.

Let's compare Dollywood to Alton Towers for the past 5 years.
This is assuming that Wikipedia is correct

2003 Kidsfest, a new summer children's festival, premiers. Buddy Baxter's Bandstand USA also premiered in the Pines Theater. Seems a hell of alot better addition then the LED factory known as Duel.

2004 A new area of the park, "Thunderhead Gap", opens featuring the Thunderhead Wooden roller coaster - Hmmm Top 10 Wooden Roller Coaster or that ugly monotrosity which eclipses the views of the towers, and they also get a cheap commercial retheme of a dilapidated log flume.
No Contest.

2005 The Country Fair area is renovated to include 10 new rides: Dizzy Disk, the Amazing Flying Elephants, Lemon Twist, Shooting Star, Sky Rider, Veggietales Sideshow Spin Kid's roller coaster, Waltzing Swinger, Piggy Parade, Busy Bees, and Lucky Ducky. Alton get Rita: Queen of Mediocrity, I mean even if these rides are merely small if even some of them are half decent. I'd rather have it then the dinosaur race themed coaster that destroyed UgLand.

2006 The new Timber Tower ride, along with Lil' Loggers Landing, Beaver Creek, Beaver Creek Boat Float, and the Lumberjack Lifts, open in a new area adjacent to Thunderhead. Also new for 2006 was Dreamland Drive-In, performed daily in the Pines Theater. - Alton get CATCF, prehaps the worse dark ride in a major theme park i've even encountered. Compared to a well themed decent HUSS Flat Ride.

2007: The Mystery Mine steel coaster, a Gerstlauer Eurofighter coaster with two vertical lifts, a 95 degree, 80 ft drop, a heartline roll, and a loop. It will be heavily themed as an old abandoned mine. - Alton get a little walk through. Once again, Dollywood wins.

To be completelly honest I think I know which park has made the better decisions in the last 5 years.
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Hello!!
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Alton's recent development since the departure of Ralph and his management team has been pretty shocking for what is apparently the U.K's leading resort, especially when you compare it to Dollywood, which is the U.S equivilant to Oakwood.

But I have a good feeling about next year, which, in my opinion, will be make or break time for Alton.

:)
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iriderides101
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Dollywood, which is the U.S equivilant to Oakwood.
That sentance is completley wrong. Dollywood spend most of their money on themeing its a great park. Oakwood spend hardly anything and your only saying that because they both have a woody and a eurofighter. But dollywood has so much more
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Dr Pop Rocket
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It's open, well it's soft opened, and all I can say is "wow"...

Photos

Videos

I highly recommend downloading the spoiler version to see the spoiler at the end, all I can say is, what a way to start a Roller Coaster...

Not only that, but the ride overall looks superb with the theming putting a lot of Alton's rides to shame.

Apparently there are talks that there is a turntable in the building and a third inversion... As well as a lot of other surprises, but everyone that has been on it is not saying a word. :P

Well done Dollywood, what an attraction, if Alton could pull of a Eurofighter like that, then I would certainly welcome it to the park! :)

Edit:

Spoiler Alert, a review of the ride, in detail...
The park opened up around 9:30, a little ahead of schedule. We made our way up to Mystery Mine. The ride is very impressive the way it is situated atop the hill, overlooking the Timber Canyon area. A queue had already formed in front of the ride...we were told it would open at 10am. A little after 10, they opened the ride. We wound our way through the entire queue and up the stairs into the station. Once inside the station, you can enter the single rider line or the general line. There were four of us so we chose the general line. They have the ability to load/unload two cars simultaneously, however today it was one at a time. The cars are very easy to get in and out of, and are very comfortable in my opinion. They have the typical horse-collar style restraint - no seatbelt to mess with. We were given the thumbs up and off we went. We were the third car of the GP that left the station.

Immediately out of the station, you take a small but quick dip. There is a lot of scenery to take in such as birds with red l.e.d. eyes staring at you, sound efx, etc.. The pacing at first is very slow, but heavily banked so that you can take it all in. After going around a corner, you come to "The Crusher" and a lot of mist and fog. You take the little dip under the crusher and then whip around a 90-degree turn and come to a stop as you approach the first lift. Off to the left side you see the giant gears that are featured in the videos. Two ravens engage a lever which activates the lift, so to speak. It's all very well designed and cute. You begin the first vertical ascent, which is a strange feeling if you're not accustomed to it. At the top, you take a dip before going over the trestle, then you get your first 95-degree drop, which is another surprising feeling. The horshoe turn is great as well. You continue through some tight turns, then the block brake, more tight turns and high banked curves, then you enter back into the building and once again come to a stop before the 2nd lift. There you find more great theming, lighting and music. After a short pause, you go up the lift. On the sides are more birds with l.e.d. eyes, and at the top of the ceiling is the screen with the scene of the lightning hitting the windmill. Unfortunately the screen was kinda small. It could have filled the entire ceiling, but it didn't take away anything from the experience. At the top of the lift is the big surprise. The fireball scene was not functioning the first two times we rode it, so on the third ride it was very shocking. After you ascend the 2nd lift, the taller of the two. you go out a little bit and pause once again. Directly in front of you is a scene with dynamite and the explosion. There are fiber optic 'fuses' that are lit and go to the dynamite. After the dynamite is lit, there is a pretty big natural gas explosion about 10 feet, maybe, in front of you. You could feel the heat on your face and it was very scary to me that it was that close. I wondered for a minute if my face was singed. After the 'explosion', the brake released and you are faced with the big 95-degree drop, which is breathtaking to say the least. You fly out of the building and you are immediately in the heartline roll, which is intense on the outer seats, not as much in the middle seats, then you find yourself upside down, and not going very fast, you come down, then you have another pop of airtime before hitting the brakes, and finally you're back in the station.

For the first day of operation I think the crew did a fantastic job. Loading and unloading seemed very smooth to me. The only problem I heard was from a friend of mine who said that one of the kicker wheels leading to the lift did not work properly, and they had to manually push the coaster onto the lift...so pretty good for day one.

Overall impressions are great. The theming exceeded my expectations both inside the ride and the exterior of the ride. The ride is very novel. It had a lot of blocking in it, so we hit the brakes quite a bit. The 2nd half of the ride is very fast paced. I found the right side of the coaster car to be smoother than the left side. On the left, I noticed a bit of head banging. To remedy that, you should extend your head out in front of the horse collar. After doing that, there were no banging issues.

Believe it or not, towards the latter part of the day Mystery Mine was a 5 minute or so wait, so we took advantage and rode it at least a dozen times. Each time we discovered something new and different about it. I'm not sure if all the theming was on today, but there may be more to discover. My friends said they saw some some things that didn't look functional, so they're probably keeping some things off until 4/13. So you should all get to Dollywood this year and ride it. It's full of a lot of very unique elements that none of us have seen before. This is a credit worth getting. Hope you enjoyed my t.r.


Sounds just awesome, imagine something like that at Alton, would be stunning, but we can always dream...;)
Craig

Wow, looking very very good and the video doesn't really show the themeing elements inside the actual building. I would absolutely love to visit the place, going to attempt to get over there next year depending on money and things. It just shows again, as Phantasialand and Europa have shown recently, what a huge effect themeing has on a ride.
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Matt 125
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That ride looks amazing. So well detailed and every inch has been made themed. I really want to go there now. Imagine if that ride wasn't themed, there wouldn't be such a big thing about it... shows what amazing themeing can do to a ride!

Matt :D
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