A few weeks ago I briefly mentioned the “Dance To The Music” show at 
Dorney Park. I still think that this is the best show I’ve ever personally seen at the park. In fact, I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen the show so far this year, but I know that I’ve seen it more than I’ve ridden either Talon or Steel Force. I’ve sort of become the cast’s groupie, as I’ve shown up so many times. It is probably to the point where my mere presence freaks them out, but I hope not. I’m just acknowledging talent.

Dollywood Trip Report
Friday & Saturday, July 26 & 27

I had no idea what I was going to do on the Friday of my three-day weekend. I was to arrive in Pigeon Forge at about 2:00 pm, giving me most of the day to do the local attractions. However, since I was traveling alone, there really isn’t much to do for me in the area. 

It wasn’t until the day before I left that I read in the Dollywood brochure about the “Arrive After 3:00, The Next Day’s Free” offer. That worked out perfect for me, so I gave myself a day and a half at the park, which ended up being a good thing.

It had been about fifteen years since I had been to the park and there was very little that I remembered, and the few things that I thought I remembered were nothing at all like I was expecting so it might as well been my first trip to the park.

I might as well say this right up front: Dollywood was, in my opinion, the most beautiful park I’ve been to. It seemed to me that every building, attraction, and tree was exactly where it belonged. I learned at the park that I do not necessarily dislike theming. It’s more that if a park is themed toward something I don’t necessarily care for then it will affect my overall opinion of the park itself. For example, since I don’t care about comic books or dinosaurs, Islands of Adventure held no interest. But, since I am a country guy at heart, Dollywood held my interest well.

My first ride at Dollywood was Daredevil Falls. I was only planning on riding this if I had time, but it was the first ride that I came to that didn’t have much of a line, so I hopped on board. Daredevil Falls was much better than I anticipated and definitely got a thumbs up. I was surprised that the end came so soon after climbing the lift hill, especially since there are tunnels up on top of the hill, but once I got over that fact I realized I enjoyed the ride. As with most other aspects of Dollywood, the sheer beauty of this ride overwhelms the experience itself. The final drop is spectacular to look at.

Blazing Fury’s line was outside of the building. Not knowing what that meant (the sign that shows the wait times out front was still set at zero) I chose to walk on and wait for the next morning. Instead, I moved on to Tennessee Tornado, something I was looking forward to riding. The wait was about seven minutes, with one train running.

Tennessee Tornado is short. It is also slightly rough, something that has apparently changed from its opening two seasons. However, the vertical loop of the coaster is enormous and offers an amazing experience. Now, when I say the ride was slightly rough, I will not compare it in any way to other Arrow Development rides that are known to be rough. But, I did bang my cheek off of the shoulder restraints two or three times during the short ride. Take it for what its worth, but Tennessee Tornado deserves to be called a good ride, but not much better than that.

You could call the County Fair section of the park the least themed area of Dollywood, but that is what it is supposed to be. Calling this part of the park an “overgrown carnival” would not be an insult like it is to other regional theme parks. The more standard rides of this section each had long lines, suggesting that perhaps Dollywood should install a few more rides. 

I was in line for the bumper cars when four cars got jammed together, blocking all the cars behind them. The operator, whom I would estimate as a 55-year old woman, could not pull the cars together. Understandably, she would not allow any of the patrons to try to pull the cars apart either and she called maintenance. 

There was a group of three college-aged students who were very vocal about their disgust of the wait. They asked several times to get out and pull the cars themselves, but the operator followed park rules as she should have. One of these guys was in a car in one corner, while the others were in the pack with every other car in the jammed section. For some reason, the guy in the corner wanted to join the rest of the group, so he used his hands on the floor to push his car over to the rest of the group despite the calls from the operator not to do that.

A few minutes later, apparently still in disgust over the fact that he had to wait ten minutes for maintenance to arrive, this guy makes a fuss again and then puts his hands over his face and groans to signal his displeasure. Now, I said before that this group of people was college-aged and not necessarily college students, because I think any college student would have realized there was grease on his hands from pushing on the floor before wiping his face like he did. But, this clown did not. He removed his hands and said something to the ride op (something along the lines of “this sucks”. The operator saw the guys black face, turned back to the line, and gave us all a huge smile.

Maintenance arrived a few minutes later and with seemingly little effort was able to pull the cars apart and the ride went on. Mr. Black Face was seen running to the restroom after getting off of the ride.

I ended my Friday evening at the park with “Randy Parton’s Nightshift”, a special show that starts thirty minutes before the park closes but lasts until about forty-five minutes after the park is closed. It is a great way to end the day, featuring Dolly Parton’s brother and niece and a good group of talented singers, musicians and dancers. It was much better than I expected, and the fact that the park has been closed for forty-five minutes by the time you get out means that you missed most of the traffic trying to get out of the confusing and odd parking lot.

I started the day Saturday morning by getting lost on my way to the park. The main road in Pigeon Forge had two of three lanes closed for a race of some sort, so I figured I could find a back way to the park. I was actually heading in the right direction until I got to a particular stop sign. I just wasn’t certain which way to go and after turning left I broke cardinal rule number one and stopped to ask for directions. Turns out that if I had made the right I would have only been three miles from the back entrance of the park. 

That’s the one thing my uncle taught me: If you are ever driving on roads you don’t know, just remember what direction you want to go in and go that way. However, these back roads were so twisted I couldn’t remember. I was close, though, and still got to the park a minute before it opened. Those familiar with Dollywood will know that that still means I got into the park ten minutes after it opened.

My first ride Saturday morning was Mountain Slidewinder. This was once voted the number one non-coaster ride in the country, so I was looking forward to the unique attraction. I wish I could find a nice way to say this, but Mountain Slidewinder is a horrible and boring ride. I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in a ride. It is about one-quarter as much fun as the tube slides that most parks tore down over the past five years. Slidewinder is a horrendous waste of a mountainside.

Blazing Fury was next. It was still early in the morning and this was a walk-on. This is a fun ride in all aspects. The theming is good and the surprises of the coaster portions of the ride make it exciting to some degree. I rode Blazing Fury two or three times before moving on. There is something to be said for the uniqueness of an attraction in adding to the enjoyment of the ride itself. Blazing Fury is a good example of that.

I found it interesting, though, that the ride operator always called it “Fire In the Hole”, which if I am not mistaken is the name of the Silver Dollar City ride in Missouri. Even the ending includes a recording shouting “Fire in the hole!” I could not find anything in any Dollywood material that called this FITH, though. Pretty unusual. Can anyone give offer any insight why the crew would have picked up on its sister park’s name for the ride?

The Dollywood train is an awesome sight, and the longer version of the ride includes a stop for some criminal activity. I enjoyed this, but found the show portion of the ride hard to follow, as it was hard to see the people involved. No real complaints, though. Every park should have a train.

I spent most of my Saturday at Dollywood wandering the park, drinking (it was hot) and eating. Dollywood has some of the best food anywhere. By 4:00 pm I had done just about everything I wanted to do and seen it all, too. I could have easily done it again without getting bored, but I was starting to get excited about the concert in celebrity theater that afternoon, Jessica Andrews. Jessica is my personal favorite artist. 

I had a ticket for the 8:00 show, but couldn’t wait anymore. The box office said that both shows were sold out, but I went to the theater anyway hoping I could pick up any extra ticket. I was able to do so from a guy I would later see wearing a “VIP” badge and sitting with Jessica’s family. I’m not sure who he was, though.

So I go to see two Jessica shows that night, but I’ll have more on Jessica Andrews in a little bit.

To suffice, my two days at Dollywood were in a word fantastic. This is perhaps the most underrated park in the US and the most beautiful to boot. I think the small number of rides may prevent some enthusiasts from jumping on the Dollywood bandwagon, but that is not what the park is about. I did mention that I think a few more rides would be nice, but as County Fair showed, these do not have to be multi-million dollar attractions. Just a few more rides for the family would be the perfect fit for the near-perfect park.

TV Review: PCN Tours Knoebels

We continue our look at the Pennsylvania Cable Network’s tour of Pennsylvania amusement parks with my favorite PA park, Knoebels. The tour was hosted by Public Relations Manager Joe Muscato.

There are many Knoebels stories roaming around and I thought that I had heard most of them, but there is just so much to say about the park that I realized I haven’t even begun to hear the stories that can be told about Knoebels Amusement Resort.

Joe started the tour of the park with the swimming pool, which was for so long the main draw to the park. Joe spoke with pride of the park’s carousel, emphasizing the brass ring and the ring catching. The carousel is not the original park carousel, which was a steam-operated machine that ran into the 1940’s before being sold to Toby Park in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. That carousel was destroyed in a flood in 1955. But, as we would find out later in the tour, at least one horse from that carousel was recovered in the woods in Tobyhanna, restored, and now resides in the carousel museum at Knoebels. They call it “Mel” in honor of the gentleman who restored the horse, Mel Heibner, who at the time managed Bushkill Park in Easton, PA. There is another horse in the museum that may have been from the original carousel at Knoebels, but they are not certain.

The current Grand Carousel was purchased from a New Jersey park ten days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. If they had waited two weeks, they may have never purchased the carousel. As it is now, each winter Knoebels removes and refurbishes about a dozen of the 1913 Carmell horses on the carousel so that the entire ride is refurbished over a period of a few years. 

Sklooosh is the park’s shoot-the-chutes. I never realized it was spelled with three “o”s until the tour when Joe emphasized that fact. The park was told when they bought the ride to expect each rider to remove about a pint of water from the ride.

The ferris wheel, the tallest in PA, replaced their classic Eli wheel so that there was something large and lit up at night near the parking lot so that patrons had something specific to remember as thy left the park. 

The three dimensional figure in front of the Galleon was done in-house, as was most figures in the park. Mr. Muscato noted what most enthusiasts always knew, that the Hi Speed Thrill Coaster has more “oomph” than people think. He said that the operators will turn up the speed when there are all adults on the ride, citing the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain specifically as being fans of this ride.

Joe told a great story of running the Satellite (Salt-and-Pepper Shakers) several years ago when an elderly lady got in line. He asked her if she was sure she wanted to ride. Her reply, “Sonny, today is my 80th birthday and you never know which ride is going to be your last so it better be a good one. And besides, I have my priest along with me.” She reportedly enjoyed the ride.

No tour of Knoebels would be complete without showing off the bumper cars, which Muscato did. His pride in the bumper cars was obvious by the way he was talking about it. Playland the arcade is one of the few things in the park that is not done in house, as another family still operates Playland for the park. 

You may have known that the kiddie sky slide used to reside where the Galleon is now as a space travel simulation ride. Well, to move it from that site to the spot it is now they had to lift it on to a truck bed by crane, welded to the truck bed, and then driven to the new site. That seems like quite a project just to move a slide, but if you’ve ever been on the slide when the person at the top is willing to give you a good push you’ll know it was worth it.

I never knew that the kiddie cars in the kiddie section of the park used to be located elsewhere at Knoebels. That’s because there are so many trees in the area that it looks like the ride was designed specifically for that site. Perhaps there is a different layout now than in its original location by Playland. Anybody know?

The children’s carousel in the kiddie section of the park includes portraits of some famous scenes of the area, but the rounding boards in the center of the ride also include portraits of the first two generations of Knoebels to run the park: Henry and his sons Lawrence and Hartman, something I’ve never noticed.

The Haunted Mansion was built in 1973 as a statement after the flood of ’72 when the park was damaged seriously. That is one heck of a statement. As most of you probably know, the entire ride was built in house.

Many of the buildings in the park used to be cottages, including the ice cream shop, candy shop and the sports shop. However, one interesting note I never knew is that the Christmas shop was the last cottage to be inhabited. The owner was Bob Willard, who is still an engineer at the Pioneer Train.

The story that Knoebels demanded that as few trees as possible were cut down when building the flume ride has been around for a long time. Joe Muscato said that the park had to “teach the manufacturing within the trees rather than just bulldozing the trees.” He said that some trees had to be cut, obviously, but that the trees that were cut down were milled and eventually used in the construction of the flume’s loading station. To me, that is remarkable dedication.

It is amazing that this park advertises itself in part as the home of two top twenty wooden rollercoasters. While this is certainly true, there is so much more to the park than that, as is evident by the fact that I just went through a review of this tour by skipping over a lot of material, including everything on the Phoenix and Twister.

I was supposed to have a review of the PCN Tour of Dutch Wonderland in this issue, too, but the Knoebels tour ran long and the DW tour was also long and interesting, so I’ll wait until next time so that I can give it the space it deserves. I’ll get back on track from there in the next issue with a review of the PCN Tour of Williams Grove as well. PCN is also scheduled to tour Hersheypark on August 18, but that may or may not be included in the next column (August 22, 2002) depending upon its own length and how much room I have next time around.

Coaster 3:16’s Musical Review

I guess this really isn’t off topic since the shows all took place at amusement parks, but I had the absolute privilege of seeing country music singer, and 1999 ACM Best New Artist, Jessica Andrews in concert twice on Saturday, July 27 at Dollywood and two more times on Sunday, August 4 at DelGrosso’s Amusement Park in Tipton, PA. 

I’m not a music expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve seen my share of concerts from the Four Tops to the Dave Matthews Band to Faith Hill to Garth Brooks. 

Jessica Andrews is quite possibly the most talented singer of any genre to be introduced in the past ten years. Her voice is extremely strong and shows incredible range. I first saw Jessica in concert about a year ago at Hersheypark (another park reference) and immediately fell in love with her as an entertainer. I purchased her two albums, listened to them about seventy percent of the time I was in my car and waited patiently for her 2002 tour schedule. The first date I could get to was in February in Scranton, PA and then to the four I got to see over the past few weeks. 

I joined Jessica’s fan club this Spring after being so impressed with how kind she was in Scranton by signing autographs for well over an hour and still having a smile and kind word for the last person in line. Select shows feature a meet and greet either before or after so that her fan club members can get a chance to say hello. The Dollywood date did not include a meeting session since a local radio station had eaten up too much of her time. I was disappointed, especially since I had traveled so far to see her, but the more important thing was seeing her shows, which I did.

The next week at DelGrosso’s there was a meet and greet. I have to admit that I was nervous meeting her, which surprised me. I mean, I do the radio spot in Philadelphia once a week, have done interviews with CBS radio in the past, and have met several celebrities and been able to joke around with all of them. But I’ve grown to be such a big fan of Jessica’s that it made me nervous when I finally got to meet her. I had forgotten the monologue I had prepared to use and ended up just asking for her autograph and a picture.

(Click for larger picture)

A few hours later, Jessica would put on her second show of the day in front of an enthusiastic crowd. It became my single favorite show of any genre of all time. She hit every note she sang, including an absolutely incredible rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain Of Fools” and another perfect performance of my favorite Jessica Andrews song, “Helplessly, Hopelessly”. By the end of the show the aisles were filled with fans standing and trying to get a closer look, and we were all singing along to her biggest hit, “Who I Am”. It was something that I’m certain most of the people in attendance were not expecting from a talent so young. Instead, Jessica earned hundreds of new fans with that incredible performance.

I apologize for going off-topic like this, but I cannot emphasize enough how talented I believe Jessica Andrews is and how much I admire her for that. I used to say that I would rather visit my least favorite amusement park than do anything else besides spend time with my family. Now, that statement becomes “I would rather visit my least favorite amusement park than do anything else besides spend time with my family or see Jessica Andrews in concert.” 

Even if you are not a country music fan (and I know most of the people reading this are not), if you find yourself in a position to listen to Jessica on the radio, buy one of her albums, or see her in concert, please do so once for me…


                                                                                 Coaster 3:16

Have a comment or question for Coaster 3:16?
You can reach him at:  Coaster_316@yahoo.com