June 21, 2022 - Updates to this post are underlined.
8/5/2022 - Official Announcement from Dollywood - link here.
8/4/22 - Teaser update from Dollywood
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| All will be revealed soon! |
8/3/22 - Let's take a look at some other Vekoma motorbike coaster trains....all from RCDB (except Tron train at WDW).
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| Booster Bike @ Toverland |
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| Chimelong Paradise |
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| WDW's Tron will feature a typical coaster car on the end of its train. Wonder if ''Big Bear" will have a similar arrangement? |
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| Tron @ Shanghai Disneyland |
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| Happy World |
8/3/22 - Teaser update from Dollywood
8/2/22 - Teaser update from Dollywood
8/01/22 - Teaser update from Dollywood
7/30/22 - Teaser update from Dollywood.
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| Interesting: "Ned - he's been too busy doing exactly what he loves, setting out from his Smoky Mtn Wilderness outpost each day to study nature. FROM TIME TO TIME, HE EVEN TAKES CURIOUS RESIDENTS OF THE GROVE ON FIELD EXCURSIONS IN HIS OFF-ROAD VEHICLES SO THEY CAN SEE THE WONDERS OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL SMOKY MOUNTAIN HOME THROUGH HIS EYES'' |
7/26/22 update - An announcement date has been set by Dollywood and it is Friday, August 5th at 11am Eastern. I will try and get an update published as soon as I can after the announcement, so stay tuned for that. Update to the Update - link to the announcement blog post here - Big Bear Mountain
Let's talk about this giant project going on in Wildwood Grove. The construction process has gotten underway after a long period of clearing the land as far back as 2018 for the first phase of Wildwood Grove that opened in 2019. They wisely cleared the land for Phase 2 and perhaps Phase 3??
Dollywood is hard at work building their new roller coaster for 2023, and there's some information that is out there, so that's what I would consider ''known''. But, of course there are more questions than there are answers at this point. Until Dollywood makes an announcement, then I would consider any information already ''out there'', to be subject to change. In the past, they make announcements in the Summer. So, with that said, lets dig into it!
Dollywood goes through the local planning commission before beginning construction on projects. Some of the information gets out to the public and that is how the layout for the roller coaster was discovered. Now, this may not come to fruition as it is seen here. I consider this firm, but still subject to change. This colorized version was created by @sketchyattractions (instagram), so special thanks to them for letting me use it here and in my video.
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| courtesy @sketchyattractions on instagram |
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| Potentially 3 Launches? |
In the above image, we see what is believed by many experts on Reddit to be three launches. It looks like a sort of booster launch #1 out of the station will lead into the #2 Launch. To me, that may rule out Mack as a manufacturer. Most, but not all of their launch coasters come to a stop for their main launch. Helix is an exception with its main launch being a rolling launch. Link to rcdb/Helix here. I would completely rule out Intamin. Herschend has never purchased any Intamin rides or coasters and the only Intamin ride I am aware of that Herschend owns is the Flying Dutchman at Kentucky Kingdom, which they acquired in 2020. Furthermore, A long time ago when Herschend was offering management services for Darien Lake, the Superman coaster had a passenger with an amputation fall out of the coaster and passed away...and that was maybe the first week or two of Herschend managing the park. Intamin has many well-known safety concerns and for that reason I don't see Herschend going with Intamin.
There was a post on Reddit that Dollywood took possession of a large shipment of roller coaster pieces from the Netherlands, where Vekoma is headquartered. I have not been able to verify this, but it seems like a strong possibility. Vekoma is the manufacturer of the awesome Dragonflier coaster, which is right next to this construction site. Vekoma's LSM launch coasters typically do not stop for their main launch, unlike Mack, so having this booster launch out of the station makes more sense to me. Why would they have a booster launch to run into brakes pre-launch #2? I don't see that happening.
Then you can see that launch #3 is about halfway through the ride and leads into a curvy second half of the ride before a dip below grade and into the brake run.
As far as the type of roller coaster this will be - if these plans hold then this looks to stay close to the ground. So no big drops and it doesn't appear to have any inversions either. I've heard rumblings it may be themed to ATV's...so it could resemble the Harry Potter-Hagrid's coaster at Universal, ironically made by Intamin. Vekoma has a motorbike style coaster that they've been making for years, so this could be along those lines.
Theming! Wildwood Grove is already full of examples of theming to compare, so I imagine they'll stay in that lane. Recently the construction walls near Till and Harvest Restaurant were painted with bear paws and bear scratches, which gave us our first clues about theming.
Then on July 20, 2022 Pete Owens, the head of Publicity at Dollywood, released a clue on his facebook page with a phone number to call. Check out his teaser campaign here - I recorded it for playback.
It looks like Bear theming is its thing, and that's another great tie into the overall theming of Wildwood Grove.
That's what we know, or think we know. Like I said, it's all speculation until Dollywood makes their official announcement about it. I expect that they will continue with their teaser campaign and make an announcement sometime in August or September. I'll continue to monitor the construction site and post any details I see. I doubt we'll see any vertical construction until after the announcement happens, but you never know.
Below are some pics of the station area of the construction site from this year.
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| Here is the layout superimposed over the Dollywood map. |
What else could go in Phase 2 or 3 of Wildwood Grove? I have no idea, lol, but past guest surveys have included an immersive dark ride, a 200-foot coaster and a few other ideas. Those sound great to me. What I think may happen is that River Battle could re-appear with a Wildwood Grove appropriate re-theme. Dollywood really needs another water ride, and this ride has not re-appeared at Wild Adventures and def not Kentucky Kingdom, so there's hope it could come back. Silver Dollar City has an even nicer version of this same ride. Given that the train is one of Dollywood's most popular attractions, I would love to see a C.P. Huntington train weaving in and out of Wildwood Grove. They make an all-electric version of their train these days. That's just my wishful thinking, but I'm excited to see what they decide to do. Another great option would be kid-propelled hand crank cars that run on tracks. Those would be great opportunities to wear kids energy out. I loved that ride as little kid. Here's a pic of the ones that I frequently enjoyed at Fair Park in Nashville.
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| hand crank cars at Fair Park in Nashville, probably 1960's |
Videos about this project:
On my youtube page I have covered this a few different times. If you would like check those out, you can see the cued-up videos here.
- From opening day on March 11, 2022 - Construction site on Opening Day 2022
- From April 22, 2022 - Construction Site on April 22, 2022
- From June 21, 2022 - Construction Site on June 21, 2022
Thanks for reading. Its fun to try and figure Dollywood's plans are, but they do a great job of keeping things under wraps, so I feel like my guesses are often incorrect - but its fun anyways. Let me know in the comments any thoughts you may have about the new roller coaster. Until next time!
