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the Island in Pigeon Forge) and Won- ders of Flight (a giant, colorful, tethered hot air balloon behind WonderWorks that takes you up 400 feet in the air).
Dollywood
Of course, no mention of area attractions is complete without describing Dollywood, the award-winning, 150-acre Pigeon Forge amusement park that opened in 1986 to showcase Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain heritage. It’s the most popular paying attraction in the state. In addition to the big rollercoasters and other crazy rides, Dollywood offers multiple music theaters, a Bald Eagle Sanctuary with a birds of prey demo show, and Craftsman’s Valley (which is filled with Appalachian artisans who allow you to watch them work).
Just a few years later, the Dolly- wood-owned Dixie Stampede dinner theater opened on the Parkway, next to Dollywood’s downtown ticket office. And in 2001, Dollywood’s Splash Country
waterpark (home to the state’s only water coaster, among other wet and wild rides) made its debut. In June, Dolly Parton announced the acquisition of the Lum- berjack Feud Dinner Show and plans to update it for the 2016 season. Dollywood has also turned its well-mascaraed eye toward accommodations. First, it built about a hundred luxury rental cabins, ranging from one to eight bedrooms, on the land surrounding its two parks. And in July, the ritzy, 300-room DreamMore Resort welcomed its first guests.
Ripley’s Rules
Down the street in Gatlinburg, Ripley’s is the major name in the attraction game. It all began with the Believe It or Not Odditorium, which has been displaying the incredulous for decades. (No matter how many odd artifacts Ripley’s show- cases, the shrunken head is probably still the most popular.) Six additional Ripley’s attractions include the Guinness World
Records Museum, the Haunted Adven- ture (not for the squeamish), the Moving Theater (which makes you feel as if you’ve actually stepped inside the 70mm action film you’re seeing), Davy Crockett’s Mini Golf, and the Marvelous Mirror Maze and Candy Factory. (For the record, Ripley’s has one more attraction in the Smok- ies—Old MacDonald’s Farm Mini Golf in Sevierville, where pigs really do fly.)
The biggest and the best Ripley’s has to offer, however, is its stunning Aquarium of the Smokies, sitting right in the middle of downtown Gatlinburg. Where else can you come nose-to-nose with a creature called the Foxface Rabbitfish? It’s hard to say whether the 340-foot underwater tun- nel, the million-gallon-plus Shark Lagoon, or the Penguin Playhouse is the high- light here—unless you like your aquatic adventures more up close and personal, in which case the Splash with the Stingrays program will allow you to actually get in the water with the rays.
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