Photo by Larry Vaught
It was a near perfect weather day — sunny, warm and dry — but then again almost any kind of day is perfect to be at Dollywood.
The Flower & Food Festival continues through June 5th and it’s impossible to describe just how scenic the park is with so many gorgeous flowers and designs.
You had the one and only Dolly Parton sculpted and overlooking colorful flowers. There were bears, turtles, frogs and a huge butterfly — and I may not have seen everything.
Food? We started with a delicious Cuban sandwich and corn salad. There were spicy meatballs with a sweet Korean BBQ sauce. What about a Mediterranean shaker salad (spinach with artichoke hearts, olives, feta cheese sun-dried tomatoes). There were more special dishes for the food festival along with all the regular goodies.
Dolly’s Butterfly Garden is a new attraction that offers an “immersive walkthrough” experience with digital butterflies that magically know how to land on your shoulder, head or outstretched hands. Of course, you got to hear Dolly Parton music the whole time.
We concentrated on seeing as many shows as we could and enjoyed them all.
I think the best Dollywood show I have seen — and I have been lucky enough to see a lot — was “Dreamland Drive-In.” The singers/dancers take you from 1950’s music mainly through the 1970’s — and no one even minded when I sang along with the songs.
I loved the way a subtle storyline was intertwined with a radio disc jockey and his friends’ time at the local drive-in.
“A Brighter Day” also got me to singing — and that’s not easy to do — with its inspirational tunes. The singers and band were high energy and obviously liked what they were doing and that came across to the audience.
“Forever Country’ was really good too. The singers did a variety of songs and mainly just sang parts of the songs so they were able to get in a lot of tunes during the 30-minute performance that had patrons of all ages — including kids in strollers — clapping with the beat.
The Smoky Mountain String Band and Wild Roots Band were also solid options.
High winds kept us from getting to see “Bloom,” an Australia-based group that combines theatre, dance and comedy into a unique act on 15-foot high flexible poles in a performance Dollywood workers told me was magnificent.
Our schedule also didn’t work out to where we could see the Hall Sisters — a terrific country music quartet we have seen before and I know Mike Pratt would like because they mix in music from the Eagles.
But I did also learn one new thing new about Dollywood. Hearing-impaired guests can request a show interpreter two weeks in advance and they will accompany the guests to shows. And let me tell you, the two interpreters that were at three of the same shows as us put their heart and soul into their signs from the musical shows. They swayed and danced with the music — and might even have sang a few tunes, too.
Maybe other amusement parks do this also, but I have never seen it and could be just another reason Dollywood was named one of the nation’s top theme parks by the National Amusement Park Historical Association.
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If you need more information on Dollywood hours, shows, tickets, festivals or anything else, visit https://www.dollywood.com.
