Photo TR: Lake Winnie, Dollywood and Pigeon Forge Area

Ok so .. Day 1 & 2 of this trip .. last night was a LONG day and fell asleep early, plus didn't have high speed internet at the hotel.

Landed at Atlanta .. and drove up to SFOG to look and say is it Sunday yet? Got to Lake Winnie around 12:30ish .. had some fun trying to get in since the 21+ requirement .. they didn't like my Texas DL. Lake Winnie is really neat, but there was alot of school groups there. They all left around 1. Cannonball is a fun little ride, Wacky Worm is well a Wacky Worm. Wild Lightnin' was closed and will be closed for several weeks according to the staff since they are waiting on parts from L&T to arrive, they were painting the cars however. The Fly-O-Plane .. wow .. I made myself sick. There was no one in line so I got a single ride and flipped like mad .. got very sick afterwards.

Day 2: Dollywood! .. well more school groups, GREAT! It started raining right as we stepped inside the park. Bought a poncho and rode Thunderhead in the rain, front seat too. Ok Thunderhead is amazing, but rain hurts. After that hit Blazing Fury and Tennessee Tornado. Blazing Fury I must say is better than Fire In The Hole at SDC .. vey similar, bu different ending. Tennessee Tornado .. very very nice. The loop is a bit odd since it changes direction kind of in the middle of the vertical part and in the "Iron Butterfly" I got some grey out action and then some head bashing. Damn Arrow! The new L&T kiddie coaster was complete, but does not open until June 17th (My birthday, how ironic), so that's credit #2 missed. Dizzy Disk (Disk'O) was very fun. Now I love Dollywood, but had issues that they had a 35min wait for Thunderhead because they would not put on two trains at all. Tennessee Tornado put on two trains and everything else was running at full capacity.

After Dollywood .. got gas next to the burned down hotel with the indoor water slide near Diie Stampede, creepy. Hit the go-kart track with the Screamin' Swing, this was a surpise. It's $20 for a ride, the guy gave me a ride for $10 and double cycle. We talked a while and he said they've had it for about 1 1/2months now and really enjoy the ride and service they get from S&S. After that, headed toward Death Raceway, I mean Rockin' Raceway .. got photos of the abandoned park .. very creepy, then hit NASCAR SpeedPark. Ok .. I feared for my life since I didn't speak "Mountain" and we all thought the NASCAR stuff was a bit "much". I mean this thing is FULL of everything NASCAR you could imagine. Got the kiddie credit and promptly left. I got a park map and it says a new ride in 2005 and looks as if they are renaming the coaster from "Daytona Draft" to "Speedway Draft". Still says Daytona on the ride, but the map shows Speedway.

Now I'm sitting in the hotel in Charlotte and hitting Carowinds tomorrow and maybe Heritage USA. Hopefully more tomorrow night .. if I survive.

View from our hotel in Pigeon Forge

The "WigSphere" for all you Simpsons fans .. (SunSphere from World's Fair in Knoxville"

FEED ME TRASH !

The Water Chute mill chute ride .. with the long dark stinky tunnel

Lake Winnie ... yeah

The new Wave Swinger

mmm Fly-O-Plane .. goodness

Cannonball .. good ride

More Photos:

View from I-40 in the Smoky Mountains

ugh .. yeah

It's scary ..

NASCAR ScaryPark ... credit tho

Poor little coaster

It's umm empty

Death Raceway ..

New Screamin' Swing

Good ride tho .. very good for Arrow

Big wierd loop .. still bugs me

Very cool flume ride

Thunderhead .. goodness

Getting ready for ACE in 2 weeks

hmph .. #2 credit missed

New Dizzy Disk (Disk'O)

Blazing Fury ... FIRE IN THE HOLE!

ZOOOOOM!

Nice Pics! I love the ones from Dollywood. Where did you take the pictures of the Thunderhead and the Tennessee Tornadoe? It looks as if you were right in front of them. Do the roller coasters still run as good as last summer. I heard the Thunderhead is already starting to ride rough but I don't believe it. Is the Tennessee Tornadoe still running 2 trains or just one. When I went in the summer last year one of them was disasembled. I know they added new rides to Dollywood but I didn't know they added the Disco ride. Did you go to the water park too?

By the way, Nascar Park did look kinda spooky! :shock:

Hit the go-kart track with the Screamin' Swing, this was a surpise. It's $20 for a ride, the guy gave me a ride for $10 and double cycle.

What! That is insanity.

// Didn't stop at the Nascar park on my last visit. I am horrible at this whole credit whoring thing :?

How is the Disc-O? I thought it looked like a kiddie ride. It's kinda weird looking. What else is new @ Dollywood? I'm going there for the ACE Spring Conference.

Nice TR:

I love the pigeon forge area. I had a blast there last year.

DW is amazing. Seeing that pic of food made me hungry. lol

i went to the Nascar tracks. the other go cart tracks there are better.

No lack of stuff to do in that area and prices aren't bad.

Yeah the prices on the Screamin' Swing were a bit much, but decided to be nice and give em some money. Forgot to mention the let both of us ride (Courtney and I) for the $10 .. so yeah wasn't too bad.

Woking on photos from today at Suckowinds .. I mean Carowinds, it actually started out horrible then got better after I got my 10 straight rides on the flyers with awesome snapping.

Ok so I;m home, but I'll be posting photos from Carowinds. Heritage USA, SFOG and others soon .. need to unpack first and get my head straight .. would of the other night but the hotel didn't have any free high speed internet .. well they did, just wouldn't connect because of low signal and wasn't about to upload on dial-up.

Great pics! Seems like while we were at SDC, you were at their sister park!

Too bad the kiddie credit wasn't open. =(

--Robb "Who hates missing out on credits!" Alvey

Yup missed two credits on the trip .. got lucky at Carowinds, the guy let me on the Taxi Chase or whatever its called now and Melinda got me on the kiddie at SFOG, then it broke after I rode .. damn electric wheels .. more TR to follow later tonight .. I'm hungry and sunburned .. dammit.

Ok so here ... well here's the rest:

Got done with NASCAR and Dollywood around 630pm, left for Charlotte .. after getting a bit turned around, took I40 in .. got to the hotel around 9pm, after stopping and such. Got some food and watched TV and surfed the net, as obvious by the start of this. Carowinds, got there .. pretty empty parking lot. Got my season pass, upgraded to Platnium for free too .. kinda neat. Hit Vortex first .. what a mistake .. my crotch and head are still bashing me for this. Then hit Hurler .. wow .. I heard bad things, this thing delivered. Hit Super Saturator next, water was off .. kinda glad but upset at the same time. Then the rain hit .. rode it out in the new "Happy Days Diner". After the rain, hit Top Gun .. my 300th. WOW ... I really like this ride, it's a great ride. Hit the flyers next .. awesome snappage, scared people in the line .. ended up with about 15 rides. Hit Scooby .. I mean Fairly Odd Coaster next .. cute ride. The guy at Taxi Chase let us ride .. credit whoring it up! Did Reptar and Thunder Road next. Skipped Borg Ass-sitmulator since I rode it in California .. it's pretty too look at tho. Hit the Skytower next and then left .. it started getting really crowded and ghetto .. so yeah.

Hit Heritage USA next .. kinda a shame .. They have alot of fences up now and you can't get to anywhere around the shops, hotel or the water park island anymore. Ran into some people out there from Morningstar, they were really really nice and were telling us about what they are doing and such .. kinda cool.

Got into Atlanta around 9pm .. check into the hotel near the airport .. ordered in food since I was too lazy to drive anywhere .. mm Steak and Ribs .. good meal. SFOG was next .. woo, Sun FINALLY! Got free parking actually and got into the park early. Ran into Melinda (Park GM), she walked us around and I saw Deja Vu running, she got us on up the exit .. but there wasn't any line at this point. This one was a bit rougher and shakier than SFMM's .. but still kicks. After that got the kiddie credit in .. then it went and broke. Something was wrong with the advance/lift wheels into the station .. at least I got the credit. After that we rode pretty much everything else, Superman got several rides and the crowds were stacking up. Luckily we didn't have to wait since Melinda was escorting us around and then we got a free gold q-bot since I have personal friendships with people from Lo-Q. Atfer that we left before the flight for downtown. Did the CNN Center and Underground. Courtney had never done the World of Coke, so we hit that and gave her the Beverly .. I promptly got slapped. Headed home and after making our way through the horribly designed Atlanta Airport, got home around 11pm ... and slept... Photos!

fenced off .. tis a shame

creepy ...

OUCH!

Wow .. simply WOW

Yup .. Hang 'N Bang in training

Kinda nice .. brakes weren't on too hard

Woo SNAPPAGE!

Awesome .. great airtime

Yup .. same as all the others

Aww .. no wet water action

Yay Scooby Doo! .. I mean Fairly Odd Coaster

Well at least I won't have to pay for PKI!

Kinda a ghetto nice park .. it's a shame

Hmm .. well got it before it closed!

Ow ... shame.

Yup .. it's green and black ...

Ass-simulator!

More photos:

Me going in for the full flavor of the wonderful Beverly! (I puked later .. ok not really)

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

World of Coke counter thing, that's alot of soda

Dowtown Atlanta ... word

I done and broked it

Yes .. the awesome Pretzel Loop

Penguins in Atlanta!?

Still a nicer Vekoma .. nice placement too

Aww .. closed!? isn't that Deja Vu's job?

Nice new Wave Swinger .. better than the old "UltraZone"

Mmm what a great ride

Yes it is .. HOLY CRAP JESUS CRAP CAKE!

it's working!? OMFG!

Best Batman out there

It's spinning now!

As close we could get to the old water park

Hmm, weird about Mindbender...it seems to be the problematic ride at SFoG this year.

Bummer!

Elissa "all these deja vu's working are starting to worry me!!!" Alvey

Yeah, no train on transfer or the track .. really odd since it WAS running .. maybe they traded a train for a working Deja Vu train ... it's possible!

WTF!?!?!?

I'm trying to decide if I'm more dissapointed that I missed Deja Vu by a week or Acrophobia spinning by a week. Damnit!!!

Nice TR BTW. Looks like you had an awesome time.

Yes it is .. HOLY CRAP JESUS CRAP CAKE!

Greatest Photo caption ever!

Also, with the beverly, you can see more people were interested in Beverly and that far right soda then the Fanta crap you can get here in the US.

Great photos and TR

The Fanta Fruit Punch from Brazil or wherever was scary looking .. was bright orange and smelled like Strawberry Fanta .. but was very good tasting.

Nice pictures! Is the Borg's trains the exact same ones from the Stealth? They kind of look different to me. Borg is nice to look at!

As far as I know .. have that creepy rattle sound too .. much like X-Flight. Nice looking ride .. the sound track surrounding the ride gets kinda of annoying after standing there for a few minutes .. I wanted to get photos and get out of there.

Prepare to be Assimilated!

Resistance is futile!

Ugh ...

Just when I finally got that commercial with those slutty girls singing "Wanna Fanta? Wanna Fanta!" out of my head, I see your pictures! Damn, dude, that was harsh. I'm gonna be singing that awful jingle for another week!

"Wanna Fanta? WANNA FANTA!"

-kip-

Great TR!

Congratulations on riding Deja-vu! I haven't been on it in over two years. But I did get to ride the one at SFMM last year.

I know they are both flyers but what type of flyer is better Borg or Superman at SFOG?

Superman by far is better. Vekoma flyers just plain suck IMHO. The pretzel loop alone is way intense and fun.

http://www.lonestarthrills.com/updates/05042005/page.php?page=page001

All photos are up there .. for anyone who cares to look that is

Oh yeah also finished the Blazing Fury onride .. Monster Plantation is next .. hopefully!

http://www.lonestarthrills.com/features/videogallery.php

Suckowinds? I guess from reading your TR and my experience there I don't really understand where that name came from. I see that you said it rained, but Carowinds is one of the FEW parks that will run coasters in the pouring down rain. You seemed to like a good amount of the coasters there, you noted how nice most things looked, you raved about Top Gun and the flyers, yet it was a ghetto park? I can only assume you meant the clientele, because IMO Carowinds is one of the prettiest of the Paramount parks. :-/ Maybe I mis-read something.

Brian says, don't be SO sure that some of the "off-limits" areas at Heritage are actually that.