Wildwood Grove, Dollywood Theme Park's $37 Million Expansion, Is Finally Here

Perri Ormont Blumberg
Wildwood Grove, Dollywood Theme Park's $37 Million Expansion, Is Finally Here

Attention, theme park lovers! We've got exciting news coming out of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee from the one and only Dollywood.

Last Friday, the park opened the largest expansion in park history, a $37 million investment has gone to the creation of an area called "Wildwood Grove." This marks the first new area added to the park since Wilderness Pass in 2008. The new section of the park will include Dragonflier, a suspended roller coaster, the Black Bear Trail ride (pictured below), the Great Tree Swing, and many more rides, attractions, and even three new costumed characters named Flit, Flutter, and Benjamin Bear.

Wildwood Grove will be anchored by the presence of The Wildwood Tree, which will come to life each evening for a special nighttime experience starting on June 15th. The tree will showcase 650 lighted butterflies and almost 9,000 leaves and the guest experience will change seasonally. Bonus: Kids will love playing in the meandering creek beneath the tree's stump.

So what's Dolly gotta say about all this? “When I was a little girl growing up in the hills of the Smoky Mountains, I’d often let my imagination just run away—something I still do now—dreaming these big dreams about what it’d be like to venture off with a family of bears in to the woods or how fun it would be to hitch a ride with the butterflies and dragonflies,” Parton said in a company press release. “All us kids would splash and play in the creeks and ponds around home and have these daydreams about the world around us, and that’s what’s so special about Wildwood Grove. We’ve been able to create a new area to allow families to experience some of those exact dreams we all had when we were little."

Courtesy Dollywood
Courtesy Dollywood

The new expansion will also have a restaurant, Till & Harvest, that is slated to open around Memorial Day, Mountain Grove Merchants for souvenirs galore, and gorgeous landscaping thanks to a $1 million allocation of funds to the park's grounds.

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For more information on the park and Wildwood Grove, visit Dollywood.com.

Who's ready to plan their Smoky Mountains vacation?