Dollywood announces NightFlight Expedition hybrid attraction for 2026

What an incredible time to be Dollywood. You're not attached to a publicly traded corporation, you have competent leadership, you have an employee base that seems to genuinely love their jobs, a dedicated life-long investor in Dolly, and a park that is simply thriving.

And a log flume.

Aquatrax?

This ride sounds like it could be amazing. But with all the hype, there is a small chance of anticipointment. All the details tell me that this is probably the real deal.

This ride sounds like it could be amazing, but, I also have to think back a bit to Buzz Saw Falls at Silver Dollar City which was, shall we say, not tremendously successful. I hope we've come a long way in this water coaster space since then, as my only experience with this type of coaster was Dive to Atlantis in the Wisconsin Dells.

Have you seen the video of Mission Bermudes at Futuroscope? If it is anything like that, I think they are on to something.

I think Mission Bermudes covers more space. It definitely has more track length than this is going to have.

Although it’s a decent size building, it may be limited what they can actually do given the size of the track and the ride vehicle vehicles .

Hopefully this isn’t another Lighning Rod. Sometimes their necessity to be the first ever backfires.

Hopefully this isn’t another Lighning Rod. Sometimes their necessity to be the first ever backfires.

More case in point to me is “Mystery Mine” the theming and the area are all top notch, but man talk about a big investment aging poorly.

What aged poorly about Mystery Mine?

Terrible screen quality and sync and sound, insanely rough eurofighter harnesses, and then bonus aging eurofighter track, I had half as leas pain on my last ride on Corkscrew at CP.

Weird. I rode it 3 years ago and had none of those issues, and thought it was one of the highlights of our day at the park.

The one thing that makes me more excited from the boat reveal is that the vehicles have speakers, you don’t put electrical equipment in things you expect to get soaked. I really hope this ride delivers only a light splash so it can truely be a year round ride.

There are speakers and electricity on boats. No reason it couldn't be done for a water ride.

Touchdown:

you don’t put electrical equipment in things you expect to get soaked

Don’t tell this to Mack, because the entire ride is propelled by LSMs that are under the water.

I'd be very curious to know if part of the electrical safety systems on these rides is a robust water softener. Water on its own is not the dangerous conductor most people attribute it to be, it's minerals in the water that are.

I was referring to the speakers mainly because as hard as it is to make electrical systems waterproof it’s even harder to make something waterproof but not sound dampening.

I think almost every pleasure boat I've been on has had speakers in a prone spot. I'm sure it's a solved problem.

Hard Rock at Universal Orlando has speakers in the pool.

TL;DR: you're getting soaked, pal.