Dollywood cheat sheet
Arrive for 10:00 and ride NightFlight Expedition, FireChaser Express ® and Smoky Mountain River Rampage first. The park's queues peak around 11:00 at 18 minutes and are lowest around 19:00.
Before you go
When to go
The days and months this park's rides run quietest
- Quietest weekday
- Thursday
- Busiest weekday
- Sunday
- Quietest month
- September
- Busiest month
- March
Each ride's own quietest and busiest day, tallied and weighted by how long its queue runs. For a dated answer use the crowd calendar, which scores every day of the year.
The shape of the day
Average queue across the park, hour by hour
- 10:0014m
- 11:0018mpeak
- 12:0018m
- 13:0016m
- 14:0016m
- 15:0016m
- 16:0014m
- 17:0014m
- 18:0012m
- 19:0010mquietest
Arrive for 10:00. Queues climb to their peak around 11:00 and fall back through the afternoon; the last hour or two is the quietest the headliners get all day.
Ride these first
The headliners: longest queues, worst by late morning
Straight to these from the gate, in this order. Every minute before the park fills is worth three later.
Fill the gaps with
Walk-ons at any hour, and the single-rider lines
Watch-outs
Rides that spend the most of the day not running
- 1NightFlight Expedition38%
- 2Drop Line®79%
- 3Mystery Mine ®83%
If one of these is the reason you came, ride it the first time you see it running rather than saving it. The full picture is on the reliability page.
On the day
Your day-of sheet
The same park, for one date: the forecast, the hours, and your ride order
Plus members get this sheet for a date: the crowd forecast for the day, its published hours, a ride order worked out against that day's wait curve, and a printable version to take in.
PlusThe day-of sheet is part of Plus
Here, that is a ride order for your date, the forecast and the hours, printable.
- 1Nemesis10:1015m
- 2Wicker Man11:0520m
- 3Oblivion12:3025m
Your rides, in order
Sequenced against the wait curve, so the headliners land in their quiet windows.
- quiet till 111pm · 66m
Your date, hour by hour
How the wait climbs on the day you picked, and the window it stays low.
Everything above is each ride's own recorded queue over recent weeks, sampled every few minutes through the park's opening hours - not an opinion. A ride with too little history is left out.