September 25, 2026
It’s 9/25! Get it? 9 2 5, Nine to Five! Dolly Parton day. We got stickers of Dolly today when entering the park. A LOT of people were wearing Dolly shirts today. It seemed appropriate that we visited the Dolly museum today – saw lots of sparkly clothes and fancy shoes – even some bejeweled guitar picks!
There were soooo many more people at the park today. This is race weekend – there are several races throughout the weekend, including one at 11pm tonight (cars were streaming in as we were going out at 10:15). Lines were longer and there were just lots more people around, but we had no problem getting on rides with less than 15-minute waits.
We rode the Eagle again – a couple times. Keith likes it better in the daytime, I like it better at night. Either way, it is a great coaster.
Early in the day, when we thought the lines were long (30 minutes) on coasters, we rode on this acorn ride. We had to wait about 15 minutes. It was killing the dad of three in front of us. We chatted them up. I decided they shouldn’t be there. They had 11-, 6-, and 3-year-old kids. The older were pretty reluctant to try big rides and the little was little. They were not finding anything interesting to everyone. I should run a call-in to ask about theme park vacations for parents. I could help. Keith and I FILLED the acorn.
We went on Thunderhead many, many times. A couple of kids from Georgia adopted us (Creighton and Brooks) and kept asking if we were all going again. Of course! I love this coaster – it is rattly (Keith thinks the wheels are hexagons) but it doesn’t hurt a bit! I just ride and fly and it is great. Every time it comes to a stop, I turn and look at Keith and he looks at me and he says, “That doesn’t just try to shake the life out of you?” Nope! After 6 rides in a row, he stayed back and took out picture.
We tried to ride the Dollywood autopia – they have really great little cars. We waited a little while and then the ride went down and they gave us fast passes good for anywhere. That felt like gold in our pocket!
I have to mention that we bought a refillable soda cup yesterday. It was $25 and is good for the entire year. That meant two days for us – but can you imagine the value for a season pass holder? The refill stations were everywhere – very convenient.
These punkin guys were my favorite. While I was visiting with them a couple guys asked if they could do a picture. Of course. Then one of the guys went INTO the casket. How in the world had that not occurred to us? I mean, seriously. duuuuuh.
Keith turned into a beautiful butterfly – again.
There was a woman in front of us waiting to take a tour of Dolly’s tour bus wearing a lot of rings. They were sparkling in the sun and it was wonderful. I was going to just sneak and take a picture, then I thought why not just ask? So, I told her that I thought they were lovely and had never seen anything like it before. She was quick to say that had definitely not invented it, but was delighted with the compliment and happy to pose. She said she never takes them off, unless they need a deep clean to get the sparkle going.
I had a fair amount of anxiety about popcorn with mix-ins. Why, you ask? Because I am crazy, apparently. They had a little bowl of popcorn for $12 that you could add a sauce to and two toppings. I chose caramel and M&Ms and Heath bar. For some reason I thought it might be gross, and yet I wanted it all day yesterday, and still wanted it today. When Keith found out I was interested, he zoomed right over and got it for us. It was fantastic. We were so sticky after eating it. It was almost more than we could power through. The candy tumbled through the popcorns so we had tasty all the way to the bottom – M&Ms were the last things to go.
I met Harvey the jack-o-lantern.
You can buy a stuffy turkey vulture here. Huh.
There was a dance party that had terrific decorations. We were scurrying to a coaster so we couldn’t stay to dance (And we are still us).
We rode Island Plot, which is the name I keep calling Lightning Lane – Lightning Rod roller coaster at night. You go up the lift hill and kind of over the top of that actual hill and you are away from the lights of the park and it is dark. It is a bit like riding Space Mountain. There are handles to hold on to sort of by your knees – first time with anything like that – and I was holding on for dear life on our first dark ride. It was wicked! I loved it. The second ride was a bit battering and I thought my back should take a break, so we checked the wait times. Several of the coasters had gone down after a power outage hours before, but Big Bear was back up. Big Bear is at the faaaar end of the park. Have I mentioned that Dollywood is built on a mountain? It is not hilly, it is just hill. We were on the bottom of the hill. Big Bear is at the top. We crossed the entire park, up hill, to grab a last ride. We got in line – it said 10 minutes – and thought it was much longer than that. We got out of the line and used our fast pass to get right on. Sweet! After we exited, Keith showed me phone – exactly 9:00pm. Park was closed. I said too sad, we didn’t get on a second ride. Keith said that was okay, he was about done for. We walked on. Walking past the entrance, there was no chain across it. I immediately veered and we were in! We passed (in the line) a couple looking at their phones – weird. We chatted with a mom and daughter and heard about the daughter being stuck in the dark for 40 minutes after the power outage on Mystery Mine car. The couple with the phones wandered up behind us after we saw the lady put up the chain. They were waiting to be last!! I love that. We had a great time talking with the phone people and the mom and daughter and it was an absolutely perfect end to a couple great days at a theme park!