All parks / Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Today's crowd forecast
A busy day, so plan around the headliners.
Independence Day
From the strategy guide
Rope drop
FireChaser climbs +38 minutes in its first operating hour. By 11am the wait is 70+ for five hours. Walk straight through Showstreet and Country Fair to Wilderness Pass before the crowd organizes.
Read the full play 02Evening rebuy
Lightning Rod drops 43 percent from its 2pm peak by 7pm. Thunderhead drops 40 percent. The other coasters barely move. If you only have one re-ride, Lightning Rod's 70 to 40 minute decay is the bigger time save.
Read the full play 03Best time to visit
Across 222,000+ samples, September averaged 17.4-minute waits. Roughly 40 percent shorter than October. Schools are back, summer is over, and Harvest Festival has not yet ramped up. Tuesday through Thursday are the quietest days.
Read the full playTop rides at this park
Typical wait ranges from 240,000+ historical samples, the model's best dip windows, and the alert thresholds Skip will pre-fill if you set this park as your home in the app.
Jukebox Junction
RMC hybrid coaster · chain lift since 2024
Marquee thrill. Original 2016 LSM launch swapped for a high-speed chain lift in 2024 for reliability. Climbs fast in the morning. Legitimate evening rebuy: drops 43 percent from the 2pm peak by 7pm.
Wildwood Grove
Vekoma family multi-launch · 3,990 ft
Dollywood's longest coaster. Three LSM launches, onboard audio, 39-inch minimum. Every age group can ride it, which is why the line builds fast. Hit it by 11am before the family crowd settles in.
Wilderness Pass
Gerstlauer dual-launch family coaster · forward + backward
The single biggest sustained bottleneck in the park. Tops 65 minutes most afternoons and climbs +38 minutes in its first operating hour. Must-do at rope drop or accept a 70+ minute wait for five hours.
Wilderness Pass
B&M wing coaster · 210 ft
First wing coaster in North America, riders perched outside the rails. Tops around 50 minutes on peak days. A 35-minute alert is the sweet spot. Wilderness Pass clears out around lunch.
Timber Canyon
GCI wooden twister · 3,230 ft
Aggressive woodie with 32 track crossovers. Cleanest evening decay target in the park. Drops about 40 percent from the 2pm peak by 7pm, every operating day. If you want a walk-on woodie, this is it at 8pm.
Timber Canyon
Gerstlauer Eurofighter · indoor · 95° drop
Heavily themed haunted mine dark coaster with a beyond-vertical first drop. The indoor portion is a heat-relief draw, so the wait holds high through close on summer evenings. Hit it before noon. Don't save it for the end of the night.
Crowd calendar · next 7 days
Full month →We analyzed 240,000+ wait samples to find every dip window across all 6 attractions. 12-minute read · refreshed weekly.
Hidden secrets · easter eggs
The details the designers slipped into the queues, mosaics, and themed environments. Each one rewards a closer look.
Park-wide
Lightning Rod
Craftsman's Valley
If you only have one day
Don't try to ride everything. Skip will help you sequence based on the dips you flag.
Pre-fill Skip's defaults from the cards above. Tighten as the day unfolds.
Then pivot lands when the next alert pings. Buffer with shows or food.
Crowds often soften late. Tighten thresholds for a second wave.
FAQ
No. The wait ranges on this page are typical/historical, refreshed weekly. For real-time waits and alerts, download the Ride Ready app.
We score it 1 to 10 from 240,000+ historical wait readings for Dollywood, then check each day's call against the waits the park actually posts and retune weekly. It's a planning baseline, not a live readout, so use the app for same-day waits.
No. They're high-probability windows, and the model is right about 3 of 4 times for top headliners. Skip's real-time alerts (in the app) catch the rest.
No. Ride Ready is independent. We use publicly posted wait data and our own ride database.