We were at Dollywood on Monday. What a wonderful, lovely park! Also, the emptiest I have ever seen a theme/amusement park ever, and I loved it, even though some things were closed, including Lightning Rod, most of the day, but I'm not sure I would have ridden it anyway.
The shows at this park are unsurpassed anywhere I've been, and the Dreamland Drive-In Show could easily be on a cruise ship, and was actually better than most shows I've seen on a cruise. The other thing about their shows is they are long-30 to 55 minutes, far longer than what we have in Orlando, there are a LOT of them, and all outstanding quality. In fact, one could easily spend a day just seeing shows.
We didn't go on many rides, and I'm ok with that. The train was closed all day, much to our great disappointment. We rode Blazing Fury (cheesy as hell, and I loved it), the carousel, the car/highway ride (don't recall the name), I rode River Battle and got a lot wetter than I expected, and after some extended down time, was able to go on Thunderhead. What a fast, rough ride that was! Not a lot of air time, just a lot of super tight turns, and FAST! Didn't go on any other coasters or rides, just walked around and enjoyed the park.
I love the handcrafted souvenirs. They have the usual assortment of t-shirts, hats, stuffed animals, etc, but they also have a pottery (where I bought a lovely ceramic jack o'lantern candle holder, made right there), a black smith, a leather store, candles, and many other unique gifts.
The food was outstanding! So many choices, and not all your typical theme park fare of hamburgers, fries, and turkey legs, although those could be found as well. There was a fried chicken place, a BBQ joint, a venue that sold ham and beans, fresh made cinnamon bread, ice cream, Dippin' Dots, and the Main Stage restaurant, a sit-down venue where we had a delicious, reasonably-priced, southern meal of fried catfish, baked beans, cole slaw, chicken salad, and cheddar biscuits. Everything was fresh and delicious and made from scratch right there.
This park doesn't have big, multi-million dollar rides and attractions like Universal or Disney, but what they do have is a nice variety of rides of all kinds, from big thrills to gentler rides for the entire family, a load of fantastic shows, wonderful food, friendly staff, beautiful landscaping, and a relaxing atmosphere. This goes down as one of my favorite theme park days ever.
There are LOADS of things to do in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area, first and foremost of those being the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We spent 2 days there. There are also loads of mini golf courses, alpine coasters, dinner shows, etc.