Dollywood's Splash Country — Attraction in Pigeon Forge

I had the greatest time ever. I originally bought the passes to both parks and was planning to go all in one day but unfortunately I had gotten rained out before i could go to Splash Country. The workers were beyond kind about the rain and gave us “Rain Check” tickets for the next day for Splash Country AND tickets for both parks lime we originally bought; plus they expire next year. The free tram service had me a little stressed but it was amazing. There are multiple running at once and the people on them are beyond kind. Throughout the parks were help desks and the people… actually helped! Many workers I talked to told me how they have worked here for 5+ years and love it.

The app is amazing too. It only shows wait times for Dollywood, but at Splash Country there are TV throughout the parks displaying times for water rides which was great; also the times were accurate if not less.

The parks themselves were amazing maintained. Every trash can I used was not near full nor gross to touch. When ordering food it came out almost immediately and was very good and at a semi good price for amusement park food. In every line I went in there was shaded areas provided which was amazing; I didn’t get one burn while waiting in line. The queues also feature fans to keep cool alongside misting machines. The misting machines where also just around the park. At other brands of parks I’ve gone too they just play the same songs over and over but the music was very enjoyable here, if you like Dolly Parton and The Beatles.

I have nothing bad to say about the park itself but I did have one bad interaction with an employee at Splash Country. I had rode a ride with my sibling and when we made it too the bottom of the slide for the SECOND time she, Erica, stopped us and basically said “You cant ride this one because of your heights”. We had rode it before and at Splash Country they have a system of like you wait in line for a float and then they send you up to the line which is very short. She then got very rude and said “Well this is why you don’t grab your own tube”. When we waited in line for it, it got handed to us, and we had rode it once before with no issue. Also, I don’t get what she means by height since I am 5’5 and the other rider was 5’6. I’d get it if it was a weight thing but we both weigh ≈220 combined, so I am confused about that. After she had told us this we didn’t say anything telling her we didn’t know what she meant so we just said sorry and walked away. But after that, she went to the dude standing in line and screamed at him about not watching the floats good enough; funny thing is.. it wasn’t even the same guy who handed us it. Later in the day we returned back to that slide just to see her condescending little girls for not getting out of the water quick enough. They weren’t even going that slow and they were also like 6 so they couldn’t swim that well. It was weird..

Otherwise that, I see why it was voted America’s Favorite Park. It was GREAT!

(Also, the lines are very short just get the app and go to the ones with little wait time, parking is $25, there are showers at the waterpark, and the gift shops all sell different stuff so wait to buy...

Meh. I expected a lot more considering how well ran and staffed Dollywood is. Kids mostly wanted to stay in the wave pool because it was the only thing without a wait. We went on a Monday and weren't expecting 30-80min wait times for water slides. There is a board that updates you about wait times by the lazy river.

Pros Lots of trees and beautiful landscaping Lifeguards were very attentive Wave pool was fun (but allows inner tubes which could be a con if you get plowed over by them) Lazy river was nice and mostly relaxing (except for kids allowed to just run through it without an inner tube and shove people out of their way chasing each other) Free cup for water offered at food vendors

Cons HOT pavement and stairs leading up to rides. Announcements warn you of this and recommend keeping shoes on at all times, but there are no shoes (even water shoes) allowed on most rides. Inconsistent rule enforcement. My son was made to take off his water shirt on the small butterfly slide even though the next ride worker on a larger slide said water shirts are fine, they only care about regular shirts. Not a single cubby or place to actually put shoes when you're constantly required to take them off. Piles of shoes are EVERYWHERE and random single shoes just kicked around waiting to trip people. Good luck finding your shoes again! The tall slides (1 orange one by green tube slides, and 2 tan ones by wave pool) will rip the skin off your back. Highly recommend wearing a swim shirt (if workers are feeling nice enough that day to let you keep it on) No wristband option to link a credit card. You have to either carry your wallet around or constantly go back to your locker. Large lockers sold out so we were left with the tiniest locker ever to shove everything into. Rude food service workers. None of the workers really seemed like they enjoyed their jobs. Just chucking food at people, no customer service skills, and out of stock of simple things like water bottles that is still posted on their menu (it really isn't hard to put a sold out sign on a board so people don't wait in line for no reason). The dippin dots worker by the wave pool could not have hated her job more. She just glared at everyone with contempt. The credit card machine is kept up high, I put my card in and waited to hear a beep, but she just stared at me. I asked, am I good? She looked at the machine and just said "You didn't hit the credit button!" Uh ok? If I have to reach above my head to insert my card and can't pull the machine down to my eye level, clearly that is your job to either tell me that I need to push a button or do it yourself. She also ran out of everything and just shouted at people "IM SOLD OUT OF EVERYTHING. GO TO THE OTHER ONE!" But the other dippin dots vendor wasn't even open, and she ended up getting a restock within 5 mins. She could have just told everyone the wait would be about 5. Everyone in that park was used to waiting for everything anyways.

Overall not happy with this place. I'm glad I got a discount on the ticket because of Dollywood bundle. The park has great potential, but after my experience I will...

Wow. First time coming to Dollywood. Came here from Nashville just to spend the whole day at Splash Country as a family celebration. Really disappointed in this experience. Most of the staff we encountered were short tempered and rude or just unhelpful. The lady at the parking booth, Jackie, got snippy with us when we asked where to go to park like it was a personal insult to her that we asked where we were supposed to go. She snapped, with an impatient and angry tone, “I’m getting to that!” She knew we were there just for splash country, but told us to go park in lot C, which then brought us to the trams to go to Dollywood, when we got to the stop, there was no tram to splash country, and we asked 3 people before anyone knew where we were supposed to go next. They said It was going to be “a while” before another tram came for splash country, so they just took us back to lot C and told us to drive to splash country and said Jackie should have told us correctly where to park. It took us 30 minutes from the time we paid for parking to finally get to into splash country because Jackie purposefully told us to go to the wrong place because she was annoyed by our very simple question. We got in and they’re scanning tickets. I had a canopy ticket and the lady didn’t scan it and just filed us in. I asked if she needed to scan the canopy ticket and she just waved us on and said “you go to the canopy counter,” as if I’m supposed to just know that having never been here before. Just not amazing costumer service. At lunch we ordered pizza, and when they called my name, I was filling up my cup, and took 10 seconds for me to get to the counter and they were angrily YELLING my name into the speaker a second time as if having to wait 10 seconds for me to walk up to the counter was an extreme inconvenience for them. Then popup thunderstorms happened and they closed the rides. We had a weather guarantee on our canopy, which we only purchased less than 48 hours before, come to find out, we would have had to cancel due to weather before we even knew there would be weather, and the information for the weather guarantee is very hidden on the website. Why would you sell a weather guarantee that I can’t even use? I have rain checks for our tickets, but am hesitant to even come back because this was a pretty crappy experience. Everyone says how amazing Dollywood is, but I’ve never had such poor customer service at a park. Oh, and the wave pool was broken for half the time we were there, which was what my youngest really wanted to do, which is just icing...