What the Heck, Adventure Mnt. closed

chittlins · December 09, 2012, 11:26:00 PM

From Screamscape:

Interesting developments are afoot for Dollywood that will affect the park for the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Screamscape has confirmed with Pete Owens at the park that two large attractions will not be return for the 2013 season. According to our exclusive letter from Pete...

"On the heels of five Golden Ticket Awards, including Best Shows and Best New Attraction, Dollywood announces an exciting new addition for 2013 and plans for a new major family attraction in 2014. Imagination Cinema will become a 500-seat venue for a new Dolly family show. Plans for 2014 are under way for a one-of-a-kind attraction on the Adventure Mountain site.

"When your business grows, it is important to evaluate and improve the experiences you provide to your guests," Craig Ross, Dollywood President said. "For 2013, we're excited about Dolly's new family show and its new venue. Our guests will start to see construction activity for the new 2014 attraction as soon as the park opens next season Family are going to be thrilled and excited about the new additions. They'll be like nothing you've seen before."

"Imagination Cinema and Adventure Mountain will not reopen for the 2013 season to accommodate preparations for the new 2013 and 2014 additions. "

So while I'm not surprised at all to see an outdated style sim-theater like the Imagination Cinema closed for good, I do have to admit I am very curious and somewhat confused about the closing of Adventure Mountain. Adventure Mountain, a huge large-scale themed multi-lane ropes course attraction, included for free to all guests by the way, is perhaps one of the most unique theme park attractions I've ever seen anywhere. On top of that, it also seemed to be extremely popular with the guests during my visits to the park. With a unique hillside location and custom themeing, I'm very curious how the park will follow up such a unique one-of-a-kind attraction... with a new one-of-a-kind attraction experience.

More on this as I try to dig deeper... but there has been some speculation for years about now this area of the park may evolve over the years, linked to the removal of all the trees from the upper circle of the Dollywood Express, which is located just above the hillside for Adventure Mountain. There have been a number of people waiting to see if Dollywood would expand the park to this upper section of the mountain, adding a second train station up there as well to turn the Dollywood Express more into a form of transportation instead of just a round-trip ride.

shavethewhales · December 09, 2012, 11:44:15 PM

My thinking is that they've come up with a way to fix the capacity problems on Adventure Mountain, and now they're going to rebuild it into a new and improved attraction of some sort... It just doesn't seem like they would want to tear the whole thing down after just a few years.

Unless, of course, they're being forced to by external forces such as a new insurance contract. This would be far from the first time an attraction at an HFEC park has been closed for those reasons as far as I can tell.

shavethewhales · December 10, 2012, 05:07:40 PM

Dollywood's Pete Owens talked to Robb Alvey of TPR today and apparently they are in fact completely removing Adventure Mountain.

AM opened in 2010 and cost $6 million. That's a pretty big loss for the park... I can only assume that this is another waterboggin scenario where there was a lot of background litigation over stupid little injuries. This is probably why the parks are being pushed into putting in more and more cookie cutter rides rather than unique attractions like AM, the bouncy ropes at SDC, Grandfather's Mansion, etc...

Junior · December 10, 2012, 05:45:57 PM

You probably hit the nail on the head, Shave!

chittlins · December 10, 2012, 06:42:27 PM

I don't get the waterboggin ether. Dollywood still operates mountain sidewinder. About the only difference between the two was SDC used inflated rafts whereas Dollywood uses a hard plastic. If Dolly still has it, I don't buy the insurance bit. Why couldn't SDC use the same hard plastic boggins. I really think SDC was putting in a ride there and didn't after the fact.

Photos of Sidewinder and Waterboggin

shavethewhales · December 10, 2012, 07:44:05 PM

^The waterboggin went through a huge upgrade where they basically rebuilt the entire ride to be even wilder than it was before. Not only did they make it potentially more dangerous, but they also lost whatever grandfather clause they had to protect it from insurance and other legal issues. Sidewinder is still in the original form.

A lot of the good attractions are only surviving through grandfather clauses these days. Anything where guests aren't stapled into a seat is a liability.

dwfan · December 10, 2012, 08:13:31 PM

Dollywood makes Mountain Slidewinder's rafts in a boat building shop behind the ride. They aren't hard they are a soft but it's hard to describe them. They are kind of like rubber or foam. lol. I am surprised Adventure Mountain is being removed. Maybe it was the maintenance for the attractions. I noticed when I first tried it in May 2010 that some of the ropes were getting rugged looking and were shredding at the bottoms. I would imagine they had to replace these. Wonder what they could be putting in it's place?

Swoosh · December 10, 2012, 09:39:52 PM

Well on the "bright side" - you don't have to worry about one being added to SDC anymore.

Zephon · December 10, 2012, 11:29:07 PM

SDC had a boat building shop as well. And the boats were constructed of a hard but shock absorbent rubber foam that was shaped and layered together then covered with a thick latex coating. I wasn't even aware that they switched to the rafts shown in the picture; that must have happened in it's final year or two.

Quite frankly, I'm glad, for SDC's sake, that the water-boggin is gone. From it's beginning it resulted in injuries, some severe, on a daily basis. My own daughter suffered a nasty gash on her forehead while riding on it. Good riddance.

sanddunerider · December 11, 2012, 07:24:26 AM

We will for sure have to watch that area.

See what they build, then maybe........... SDC will finally rebuild the WB area.?

Swoosh · December 11, 2012, 04:37:49 PM

Last I heard the WB area was already slated for something on the "master plan" -- however that plan seems to change all the time so who knows if that info is even relevent anymore

BackInTime · December 11, 2012, 05:11:19 PM

Would love to see what that working "Master Plan" looks like as of today. Outlaw Run hasn't even tested yet and I'm already itching for the speculation to begin on what 2014 and the years beyond might hold. That is if we're still all here 10 days from now.

MissinTheGreenTrams · December 11, 2012, 06:07:11 PM

I knew those dang boats changed! I thought I just did not remember them right. Ha! Im not crazy! As for what is going in place of the WB, I pray that it is NOT a shot tower. Please if there is any decency do not put us through a dang shot tower. I find them tacky and obtrusive. And I personally dont see SDC getting anything new for a few years after OR opens. I just dont see them dumping that much money into one park over the course of two or three years in a row. I have been wrong before though.

Swoosh · December 11, 2012, 09:17:04 PM

Quote from: BackInTime9 on December 11, 2012, 05:11:19 PM
That is if we're still all here 10 days from now.

I've already survived 2 raptures. What's one more?

shavethewhales · December 11, 2012, 10:31:17 PM

Getting back to the topic at hand, in various interviews Pete Owens is apparently making it sound like they simply needed the space back again for their expansion plans. That sounds like very poor planning on their part to suddenly need a piece of land back after spending millions developing an attraction on it... Furthermore, many people have raised the issue of poor capacity, which also seems like a case of poor planning to me...

I just can't get over them losing such a big attraction so quickly, especially after the Timber Tower ordeal. That's two ~$6-7 million attractions down the drain at DW within five years.

Oh well, it sounds like the 2014 attraction will be redeeming. Here's hoping we get a better version of whatever it is in 2015.