Dollywood – – the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee theme park that celebrates the late, great Dolly Parton – – is one of the most popular theme parks in the U.S. In fact, the park has been named the country’s top theme park numerous times by various publications over the years, including topping Disney numerous times!

Truthfully, we can see why, as there are several things that Dollywood just flat-out does BETTER than Disney, at least, for now.

Height Wristbands

Is there anything more depressing than a youngster excitedly approaching a Disney World ride to be measured, only to be turned away if they’re just an inch or so TOO short? Now, imagine that happening multiple times a day? Ugh. Talk about HEARTBREAK.

That’s why we LOVE how Dollywood handles height requirements WAY more. The park gives you the option to have kiddos measured RIGHT after they enter the park, then they won’t have to get measured again for the rest of the day. When you enter the park, you’ll find a centralized measuring station. A Dollywood Team Member will take a child’s height and assign them a color-coded height wristband to wear that day. This wristband’s color will let other team members know IMMEDIATELY if they are tall enough for a certain ride, so you don’t have to worry about any back-to-back tears and screaming fits.

All Day In-Room Dining (INCLUDING CINNAMON BREAD)

Once upon a time, Disney World had in-room dining resort-wide, but after the COVID closures, in-room dining is now strictly reserved for the deluxe-level Grand Floridian Resort guests ONLY, with breakfast being served between 7:00 AM and noon, and dinner being served from 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM. On the other hand, Dollywood’s hotels not only have in-room dining, but they have in-room dining pretty much ALL DAY LONG, starting at 7:00 AM and wrapping up at 11:00 PM, with no downtime. The Dollywood Resorts even make in-room breakfast SUPER easy on ya by providing doorknob hanger ordering cards in each room. All you have to do is fill out that card and hang it outside your door the night before to let the team know what you’d like sent up to your room for breakfast, and what time in the morning you’d prefer to have it delivered by. Best of all? You can even have Dollywood’s FAMOUS GRIST MILL CINNAMON BREAD sent up to your room FRESH, which is an unbeatable way to kick off your morning! Just make sure you’ve got that card placed on your door BEFORE MIDNIGHT the night before.

EXTRA Hotel Perks

Dollywood’s special hotel perks don’t stop with their in-room dining, as the hotels offer additional perks that Disney guests either have never received, or haven’t for ages:

• Daily Housekeeping: Compare this to Disney World, which used to do this across ALL of their hotels, too, before the COVID closures. However, since the resort reopened, Value and Moderate Tier Resorts provide housekeeping every other day, while the Deluxe resorts still offer daily service.
• Free TimeSaver Passes: At Dollywood’s hotels, each person under a given hotel reservation receives FREE standard TimeSavers, which’ll give you 5 skip-the-ride-line TimeSaver entries to use across select rides. Compare that to the exactly zero Lightning Lanes Walt Disney World hotel guests receive.
• Golden Hour: Once again, Disney World USED to offer all of their hotel guests one extra hour of park time on select mornings before these select parks opened up for the general public. However, these days, Disney World has split up their Extra Magic Hours into TWO separate categories: Early Entry continues to be available for ALL of Disney’s hotel guests (value, moderate, and deluxe alike)  EVERY SINGLE DAY across EVERY SINGLE PARK, but only offers a 1/2 hour. Meanwhile, Disney’s Extended Evening Hours are for Deluxe Tier Resort guests ONLY, giving them up to two hours of extra time in select parks on select nights. Dollywood’s hotel guests? They’ve got GOLDEN HOUR at their disposal. That gives hotel guests an EXTRA HOUR of park time in the morning, and they can freely use the rides’ Timesaver entrances during that extra hour across all their attractions without using any of their 5 complimentary TimeSavers!
• Complimentary PREFERRED Parking: While Disney World’s hotel guests do still receive FREE parking at the hotels AND theme parks, Dollywood kicks this perk up a notch. Not only do hotel guests receive free parking at the hotels and theme park, but they receive free PREFERRED parking at the park right near the entrance!
• Complimentary Hotel Delivery: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Disney World USED to have complimentary hotel delivery services for their resort guests before the pandemic, but the service has yet to return. On the other hand, Dollywood hotel guests can have their park purchases (over $25) delivered BACK to their resort, free of charge!

The White Noise Machines

Speaking of the Dollywood hotels, each room at the Heartsong Hotel has a white noise device that features 255+ sound combinations, mixed between eight soothing sounds that include whirring fan blades, chirping insects, a crackling bonfire, the pitter-pattering of rain, ocean waves, a trickling stream, Tibetan singing bowls, and chirping birds. Each sound has its own volume control, so you can make them as loud or as soft as you want them to be. This device also serves as an ambient night light — featuring four brightness levels, as well as a soothing breathing-light mode that gently cycles through each brightness, and features a built-in auto timer for 60, 120, or 180 minutes – and will turn off for you once you’re fast asleep.

Refill Cups That Work ALL YEAR

Disney’s refillable mugs cost about $23 and last for the length of a guest’s stay for up to 14 days, and offer beverages only at the resort’s hotels. Each mug features an RFID barcode, which enables the mug to deactivate when the designated time is complete. Meanwhile, for $25 at Dollywood, you can get a mug that’ll not only give you free soda refills (and discounted $5 ICEE refills) across the theme park AND hotels during your visit, but it’ll continue to give you free refills for the REST OF THE SEASON. Meaning if you decide to come BACK to Dollywood before the end of the year, your free refill cup WILL STILL WORK.

Education Over Everything

Unlike Disney, Dollywood doesn’t just cover “tuition for its employees pursuing an education.” They give certain employees who want to go far in the culinary industry an opportunity to do so. Back in 2020, Dollywood teamed up with the Tennessee Department of Labor AND Walters State Community College to create a very specific (and paid) apprenticeship opportunity for culinary students. These students are hired on at Dollywood for a three-year, hands-on program that gives them the experience needed to take on future roles in food and/or hospitality service. (PLUS they’ll receive a full benefits package as they pursue their degree, too!) After a student successfully completes the program, they’ll have the college credits needed to help ‘em reach a technical certificate or an associate’s degree in hospitality management/culinary arts. On top of that, if these students have been enjoying their time working in Dollywood, they won’t get the boot right after graduation. In fact, they’ll actually have the option to accept a leadership position in The Dollywood Company, setting them up for success, right from the get-go.

EXCLUSIVE Dippin’ Dots Flavors:

Disney’s not really big on Dippin’ Dots, as the only place to find the “ice cream of the future” inside the Disney World bubble is at the water parks. However, what Disney lacks in Dippin’ Dots, Dollywood makes up for in DROVES. There are SEVERAL Dippin’ Dots kiosks ALL around Dollywood to satiate your inner Dippin’ Dots desires, and along with the standard Dippin’ Dots flavors like the Mint Chocolate and the Rainbow Ice, Dollywood also offers a specialty Big Bear brownie batter EXCLUSIVE to the park.

Furthermore, there are special seasonal Dippin’ Dots flavors too during their different festivals. These have included the Strawberry Cheesecake from the I Will Always Love You Festival, and the Summer Celebration flavor made with cherry, blue raspberry, and vanilla Dippin’ Dots in honor of America’s 250th birthday. Dollywood also sells refillable Dippin’ Dots cups that allow guests to refill their cup at a discounted rate.

THRILL Rides

Disney has plenty of thrilling rides. But even Disney World’s biggest coasters still don’t necessarily compete with Dollywood’s from an adrenaline standpoint. Sure, the resort offers the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring the Muppets, Expedition Everest, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, and TRON: Lightcycle/Run, but those rides are spread out across the four theme parks. Meanwhile, Dollywood WILL give you that back-to-back adrenaline rush that your older kids and teens might be craving more of, including:

• Wild Eagle is a suspended coaster that dangles you in the air, featuring a 135-foot drop, four inversions, extreme banking, and maximum speeds of 61 mph.
• Thunderhead is a wooden coaster ride with a 100-foot drop, 22 accelerating quick turns, extreme banking, and maximum speeds of 55 mph.
• Tennessee Tornado is a multi-loop steel coaster with a 128-foot drop, three inversions, and speeds up to 70 mph
• Mystery Mine is a steel coaster featuring an 85-foot drop, a 95-degree drop, two complete inversions, extreme banking, and maximum speeds of 43 mph.
• Lightning Rod is yet ANOTHER wooden coaster that takes you up a 20-story lift hill, where you’ll face twin summit airtime hills before racing down its 165-foot drop.

Affordability

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Dollywood is more affordable than Disney World. Now, that’s not to say that Dollywood isn’t PRICEY. It is still a THEME PARK vacation destination, after all, but it’s still cheaper than the domestic Disney properties. Let’s do some price comparing for a minute: For two pick-a-day tickets to Dollywood, prices start at $124.99, while Disney World prices start at $128. While that price difference doesn’t SEEM very drastic YET, the SURGE PRICING is where things change. Even if you decide to get a two-day ticket for Dollywood’s PEAK SEASON TIME, prices only tend to go up by a few dollars – from $124.99 to $129.99. On the other hand, Disney tickets (minus any bonus discounts that you might come across on the Special Offers, Deals, and Discounts page) are gonna spike up WAY more than that, with peak prices getting as high as $194 per day.

It’s not limited to just park tickets either. Average prices for Dollywood’s resorts tend to cost around the same as Disney’s Moderate Tier Resorts.

Then there’s food prices: We watched our friends Emma and Quincy from AllEars actually STRUGGLE to find an in-room dining meal that cost over $30. One of the MOST expensive items they found on that menu was the $49 family meal deal – but FOR that price, you’re getting a Large Cheese or Pepperoni Pizza, 12 Wings or 6 Chicken Tenders, AND Garlic Cheese Bread, which, again, will feed an ENTIRE family without anyone having to leave the room at the end of a long park day once everyone’s already settled in.

Of course, to be fair, Dollywood doesn’t have as much to offer their guests as the domestic Disney parks do. So with the prices that you’re paying in Disney, you’re receiving more theming, more attractions, and more potential park experiences overall. But if you’re looking for a cheaper theme park alternative for your next family vacation, Dollywood might provide you with a financial silver lining.

No Gameplan? No Problem.

It’s no secret that a trip to Disney World these days requires A LOT of planning. Advance Dining Reservations, Lightning Lanes, etc. To be fair, we love strategizing and finding the hidden tips and tricks to share with you. However, not everyone feels the same way. And that’s fair. It can be daunting to wake up at 6:00 AM ET to secure popular dining reservations, or create a Lightning Lane game plan, or figure out how to get around a theme park property that’s the same size as the city of San Francisco. When it comes to Dollywood, you don’t have to do NEARLY as much planning, and you can still have a great time. Granted, it is still a high-end theme park with lots of great rides, shows, and restaurants, so you’ll still want to do SOME research to make sure you don’t miss out on your top priority experiences. But honestly? Getting Dollywood knocked out in a day or two isn’t too difficult to accomplish. TimeSavers are just a band that you can scan for rides at any time; table-service restaurants are first come, first served; and since Dollywood isn’t NEARLY as big as Disney World… getting around doesn’t have to stress you out.

Dollywood is one of America’s most popular regional theme parks for a reason, and there are some things that the Pigeon Forge destination does EVEN BETTER than Disney! Stay tuned to DFB for more on Dollywood!

REVIEW: Come to This Hotel for Your Love of Dolly Parton, Leave With Some of the Best Food Imaginable

Have you been to Dollywood? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!