Fun-Lover's Guide Blog

It seems that this is one of the hottest summer on record, but that’s no reason to have second thoughts about taking a Dollywood vacation. There are lots of ways to stay cool at the park this summer. One of the most obvious things you could do is visit Dollywood’s Splash Country, the world-class water park that’s next door to the original theme park. But even if you plan to stick with Dollywood, you won’t necessarily be beat by the heat.

For one thing, Dollywood is well landscaped, with lots of shady areas for staying out of the sun. Some of the less shaded areas of the park also have large fans that spray fine mists of water to help guests cool off. You can also stay cool with a cold drink or frozen dessert treat. If you’re on a budget, you can get free cups of ice water from most Dollywood food vendors.

Then, of course, there are the wet rides, like Smoky Mountain River Rampage, Daredevil Falls, the Smoky Mountain Slidewinder and River Battle—Pigeon Forge attractions that are guaranteed to give you a good dousing at one point or another! Finally, don’t forget about Dollywood’s many indoor shops, theaters and attractions, including DP’s Celebrity Theatre, the Adventures in Imagination motion-ride theater and the Chasing Rainbows museum.

And thanks again for making The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood your source for practical, usable Dollywood information!

Those spending their summer vacations at Dollywood and in the Great Smoky Mountains now have more chances than ever to locate the print version of The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood. We’ve recently expanded our distribution network, bringing the total number of rack locations to nearly 250 spots. They’re located between Exit 407 on Interstate 40 and the Gatlinburg entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Most of them are standalone Fun-Lover’s Guide racks, but about a third of them are in popular brochure rack locations throughout the region. All our Smoky Mountains-area distribution points are in high-traffic areas like attractions, supermarkets, convenience stores and area lodgings.

In addition, The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood is also being sent out to all 14 welcome center locations in the state of Tennessee, which means that visitors converging on East Tennessee are able to get a head start on taking advantage of our guide’s useful Dollywood tour information and discount coupons for attractions, music theaters, shops and restaurants throughout the Smokies!

Summer’s getting into full swing over at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. KidsFest runs through August 1, offering kids of all ages (and their parents) a wide variety of entertaining live acts—everything from jugglers to ventriloquists to unique paper artists. All your favorite Dollywood rides, shows, attractions and eateries will be available throughout the summer too, including plenty of rides like Smoky Mountain River Rampage, The Slidewinder and River Battle, all of which are designed to help you beat the summer heat. Meanwhile, Dollywood’s Splash Country is helping Smoky Mountain visitors keep cool this summer with the region’s number-one selection of water slides and water-themed attractions.

If you’re planning a Smoky Mountain or Dollywood vacation in the next few weeks, be sure to pick up a copy of The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood. Inside you’ll find dozens of tips, suggestions, recommendations and strategies, all designed to help you pick out your favorite Dollywood activities and enjoy them within the span of your visit to the Great Smoky Mountains. Here’s one Tour Tip that will help you stay cool and save money this summer: Did you know that you can get a free cup of ice water at any Dollywood food vendor absolutely free? All you have to do is ask!

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been focused so much on the printing and distribution of The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood that I really haven’t had a chance to visit the park! I was there for Media Day back when the season opened, but I haven’t had a chance to just go and play like everyone else. I’m going to remedy that tomorrow with a visit on what will hopefully be a relatively rain-free day in the Great Smoky Mountains. More than anything, I want to try out Adventure Mountain for myself and be able to pass along my report about it, both here on the blog and on our Facebook fan page.

Speaking of Facebook, if you’re not already a fan of The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood page, please go on Facebook and do so. We post weekly Tour Tips and Fun-Facts straight from the guide and also give you up-to-date Dollywood information or any news pertaining to Dollywood and Dollywood’s Splash Country. It’s sometimes a quick and easy way of getting information that will help you plan your Dollywood vacation.

In the meantime, remember that you can get The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood three different ways. You can pick it up at any of our 200 area brochure and rack locations, you can download the PDF version from this Web site, or you can request a hard copy be sent to you by mail. Generally, you should receive it in just a few days.

I’ll be back on soon to give you my full report from Dollywood!

This has been a busy time of year at The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood. Our first edition was delivered just a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve spent the past several weeks making sure that this vacation guide to Dollywood and the Great Smoky Mountains can easily be found throughout Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and Gatlinburg. Right now, we’re in nearly 100 high-profile brochure slots throughout the area as well as in nearly 100 of our own rack and drop locations. So whether it’s at a hotel, overnight rental office, convenience store, supermarket, music theater, attraction, outlet mall or restaurant, your chances of finding the print version of our vacation-planning guide are getting better all the time. After all, we’ve got 250,000 copies to get into the hands of excited Dollywood vacationers this year!

Meanwhile, we’re also working on our advertising sales effort, which gives you, the Smoky Mountain visitor, even more vacation-planning options, both in the printed guide and at our Web site. And of course, we’re working on marketing ourselves as a publication. You can even help us in that effort. If you plan to visit this Web site again this year, please bookmark it. That will make it easier for more Dollywood visitors searching for vacation information online to find our site in a Google search. And you can also become a fan of our publication on Facebook, which means you’ll get several posts a week featuring Tour Tips and Fun-Facts from this year’s guide as well as up-to-date information about new events and activities going on at Dollywood. And if you do become a fan on Facebook, be sure to share that page with all your friends, especially the ones you know are headed to East Tennessee this year for some Smoky Mountains travel.

Finally, I’d like to thank several people who were very supportive in helping me get this guide off the ground. First, my wife deserves endless thanks for her patience during the ups and downs of launching this publication. She was a great encourager when things looked tough and a great sounding board for a bunch of ideas, both good and bad. Thanks also go to Tim Berry and Pete Owens in the Dollywood marketing department for their cooperation and access to what’s going on at the parks. Also thanks to some colleagues in the publishing business—Mike Smith of Touring Publications and Tom Irmen of Everything Knoxville Magazine—for their suggestions and experienced wisdom that helped me over more than one hump along this bumpy road that runs through the publishing world.

While you’re at our Web site, www.funloversguide.com, be sure to click on the Bonus Dollywood Info tab. That’s where you’ll find additional tips, strategies and Dollywood information that you won’t find in our printed guide. This content changes every couple of weeks, so be sure to bookmark that page and check back regularly to learn even more useful ideas for planning your Dollywood vacation.

For example, one of our first posts on this page gets down to the basics with information about how to drive to Dollywood by car, motorcycle or RV. We provide easy-to-read directions and landmarks for approaching the entrance to both Dollywood and Dollywood’s Splash Country, whether you’re driving in from Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge or Sevierville. In future posts on that page, look for ride, show and attraction descriptions that are more in-depth that what we have space to cover in the print guide as well as more helpful strategies (Tour Tips) and Dollywood trivia (Fun-Facts).

While The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood is packed with useful tips, strategies and information designed to help you get the most out of your visit to Dollywood and Dollywood’s Splash Country, the guide does much more than that. In it, you will also find advertisements and coupons that will help you save money at other area vacation destinations, including music theaters, Smoky Mountain attractions, restaurants and shops.

When you’re ready to start making plans for your Dollywood vacation, start at www.funloversguide.com. You’ll find all our great advertisers represented on the site (including some cool video promos), so all you have to do is click on a banner ad and go directly to that business’s Web site to arrange for tickets, scheduling information or just see what’s located where. On the Coupons page, you can download and print individual coupons before you travel to the Smokies, and we even having lodging advertisers on our Web site, so you can make reservations for hotels, motels or cabins in the Smokies by starting at The Fun-Lover’s Guide Web site.

And if you bookmark this Web site, www.funloversguide.com, you can check back throughout the year as we add even more advertisers and more options for you when it comes to planning your Dollywood vacation in the Smokies!

One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve talked to more and more folks about the concept behind The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood is that people are not always clear about what the purpose of this Dollywood guide is. So I thought I’d share a quick overview of all the Dollywood information our first edition will include when it rolls out in less than two weeks:

• Quick overview of what to expect at Dollywood in the spring, including tips on the weather, what to wear, spring events and the best day to visit.

• Information on what’s going on during Festival of Nations at Dollywood this year.

• A section-by-section tour of the park, featuring recommendations about must-do activities, highlights and Tour Tips that will give visitors the advantage when it comes to saving time and money at Dollywood.

• A preview/introduction to Dollywood’s Splash Country, which will just be opening as we wrap up circulation of our spring issue.

• A two-page Tour Plan—a suggested itinerary that will help guests pack the most fun into one day at Dollywood.

• Fun-Facts—little nuggets of interesting Dollywood-related trivia.

• Tour Tips—hints, tips and strategies for managing your day at Dollywood and Dollywood’s Splash Country.

• Advertisements and moneysaving coupons for Dollywood and other area music theaters, attractions, shops and restaurants. Participants include Titanic Pigeon Forge, WonderWorks, Country Tonite Theatre, Stages West, River Romp tubing, Bent Creek Golf Course and many others.

With tons of useful Dollywood information and coupons for all kinds of area activities, The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood is the ultimate planning tool for those taking a Dollywood vacation in 2010. See you soon!

Our very first edition will be going to press in a little over a week, and we’ll start distribution around the second week of March. That’s a couple of weeks before Dollywood kicks off its 25th season, but we wanted to allow plenty of time to make sure we’re in enough locations throughout the Smokies so that we’ll be easy to find. First, you’ll find us in approximately 100 high-traffic brochure racks in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and beyond. And we’ll start off in at least 50 of our own Fun-Lover’s Guide racks in similar high-traffic locations. You’ll also find the guide at the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism welcome center on the Parkway in Pigeon Forge as well as the Dollywood information center on the Parkway and at some 30 local hotels, motels and Smoky Mountain overnight rental companies that sell Dollywood tickets as a service to their guests. Check back regularly on the Web site and look under the Get A Guide tab in the main navigation bar to get the latest PDF download of all our Smoky Mountain-area distribution locations. Of course, you can always download a free PDF version of The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood from our Web site, www.funloversguide.com, or you can request that we send a free copy by mail by filling out our online request form. And remember that however you get it, The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood is the area’s only guide devoted to providing user-friendly Dollywood information to Smoky Mountain visitors.

Good question. First of all, it’s the only visitors’ guide in the Great Smoky Mountains area devoted exclusively to providing useful information specifically to Dollywood visitors. Considering that the theme park and Dollywood’s Splash Country combined get several million visitors each year, this guide is important because it’s the only source of such information for a substantially large market.

Second, this isn’t the type of Dollywood information you typically find in the brochure and tour guide racks. Whereas Dollywood’s brochures and other materials have more of a marketing focus designed to attract you to Dollywood (after all, it is an attraction), The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood already assumes you’re at least already interested in visiting the park, and it goes a step further by offering real-life user-friendly tips, hints and strategies for how to maximize your time and money. You’ll learn the best ways to avoid waiting in lines as well as recommendations on the rides and shows that are most worth your time, suggestions on the best order in which to do specific activities and even ways to save a little money along the way. There’s also lots of fun Dollywood trivia.

Of course, like any good Smoky Mountains-area tourism publication, The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood features advertisements by other attractions, music theaters, shops, restaurants and outdoor activities. The guide puts you in touch with these businesses, and it’s full of coupons with price discounts on admissions, food, merchandise, etc.. That makes The Fun-Lover’s Guide to Dollywood a one-stop resource for anyone planning a Dollywood vacation or a Smoky Mountain vacation.