Until recently I had never even considered Dollywood as a place that really existed, much less a place I would plan to go, but everything changed with one YouTube video.

Am I a tiny bit embarrassed to admit an Eat the Venue video by Keith of the Try Guys made me want—scratch that, need—to go to Dollywood? Potentially, but it’s still the truth. And I guess to a certain degree that’s what videos of that nature are supposed to do, influence you, grab your attention, make you want food, and maybe that was a bit of what inspired me to bite the bullet and finally start a coffee based blog and social media account.

It’s infectious, sharing what you enjoy online, and my boyfriend can only stand to listen to me talk about coffee for so long, considering he doesn’t even drink it. But back to Dollywood.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into with Dollywood, even after the Eat the Venue video. I have been to Pigeon Forge before, the oddball town just outside of Dollywood, where we hopped on a trolley for $3 a person to get into Dollywood because my cheap ass was not paying for the parking at Dollywood.

The trolley was a bit packed at around 10:30 am, but was a relatively short ride (~10 mins). I can’t find it in myself to fully justify the $95 ticket price per person for Dollywood, but I know it could be worse, and I’ll leave it at that.

The looming threat of rain and/or thunderstorms lurked for most of the day we were there, but there were only a few bouts of rain. The first thing we did was ride the steam train that went on a five mile, 20-minute excursion around the perimeter of the park and through the surrounding landscape. It was quite enjoyable, up until the point where they blew the train whistle for a painfully long amount of time. I haven’t had a lot of up-close experiences with the business end of train whistles up to that point, and now I never want to again.

I will say that with the price it is nice that nothing inside the park costs additional money (except food). While in the park we were able to hop on a handful of rides, catch a musical, and wander around a few Dolly Parton focused museums.

I am not built with the patience needed to have a good time waiting in line for rides, but overall they weren’t too bad. Only one line waiting experience around 2:00 pm took me out, and that was mainly because of the sun.

If you aren’t thinking about where you’re going you will end up walking so much. Personally, I enjoyed the walking, there is always something to look at and we were there during the food and flower festival so there was even more to look at with the landscaped flowers and plants scattered around multiple areas of the park.

I especially enjoyed watching the giant koi fish near the bridge that crosses into the Dolly Parton experience area and catching a glimpse of a park cat in a flower bush.

The main ride that is worth mentioning is the Lightning Rod. We didn’t get to this ride until later in the day due to long wait times, and I could immediately tell why this ride was so popular. The speed was top tier, and compared to some other rides it was very smooth until the hard stop at the end. I would go back just to ride the Lightning Rod again and again and again. Maybe I’d splurge on a fast pass, maybe.

The musical we saw was called Play On! a 45 minute musical mashup that paid homage to previous shows produced at Dollywood throughout the years. There were eight singers/performers and a live band backing them up. All of the performers were skilled singers and they were constantly moving and dancing and changing outfits. It was a great time and change of pace from being outside in the hot sun trying not to run into children.

Well this is it, the end of the blog and I’m here to share some groundbreaking revelation about my time at the nation’s best theme park, and the revelation is that I wouldn’t go back again…at least for a while. I think I’d need a year break from Dollywood, but I’ve also never been built for amusement parks and the like. We can blame it on the fact that the only time I went to Disney I was 4 and remember nothing and I’ve never been since, or we can blame it on the cost of amusement and that I hate the way my ears pop incessantly while driving through the Smokys. Either way I scratched the itch of big hair and fast rides and I will simply Play On…