Riding Dollywood’s NightFlight Expedition: A scene-by-scene experience

A first trip aboard Dollywood’s NightFlight Expedition

NightFlight Expedition combines a traditional dark ride, motion simulator, whitewater rapids and roller coaster elements into one continuously evolving experience. Here’s what riders can expect from each portion of the attraction, along with practical advice for experiencing it during its opening season.

Note: NightFlight Expedition has a 39-inch minimum height requirement.

Important note: Dollywood did not allow any devices on board the ride itself during the media preview; our story contains photos of the areas we were allowed to photograph.

Location

NightFlight Expedition is located in the back corner of Wildwood Grove, Dollywood’s newest and largest lands, at about the furthest point possible from the park entrance. You’ll need to hike up a steep hill through Timber Canyon to reach the land’s entrance. When you do, you’ll find that unlike the rest of the park, which is lushly shaded with massive mature trees, Wildwood Grove looks like they clear-cut the mountaintop and re-landscaped with saplings.

(Concept art shows the area looks adorably aglow after dark, but the park closed over an hour before sunset during my stay.)

Queue

Just past the rustic boarding station for the Big Bear Mountain family coaster, guests will pass down a newly paved pathway to an impressive stone archway wrapped in purple tree roots, which marks the entryway to NightFlight Expedition.

The warehouse-like show building lies just beyond, painted green and marked with the logo of Hidden Hollow Aviation. Inside lies a maze of switchbacks amid corrugated metal walls lined with props and posters that subtly prepare us to search for the mythical Secret Lake.

Wooden crates full of glowing seeds and advertisements for scenic tours of the Smoky Mountains soon give way to maps, engineering diagrams, and scientific experiments related to bio-luminescence, a natural phenomenon that makes certain plants and animals generate their own light. The theming in this final room is exceptionally well done — I especially like the steampunk terrarium that occasionally illuminates in vibrant colors, as well as the retro “Everybody should Be a Friend to Fungi” poster.

However, beyond inferring from the decor that we will be boarding a “Smoky Mountain Tracer Vehicle” (a.k.a. flying boat) to trace the source of the Wildwood tree’s glow, the specific details of the story aren’t explicitly laid out.

For example, you may spot a name plaque for botanist Cora Oakley and inventor Jasper Oakley, the explorers we’ll be following on our adventure, but they never appear in animatronic form and are only visualized in CGI videos during the ride itself. There appears to be a brief audio preshow in the final portion of the queue, which is timed to the glowing lights, but despite standing in that room for over an hour, I was unable to understand anything being said.

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Boarding

After the final themed area of the queue, riders enter an unadorned hallway and ascend a dark set of stairs to the loading platform, which features a bank of cubbies for loose articles and a blacklight “Follow the Glowing Roots” mural. The green and bronze boats — which seat 2 people across in five rows (four of which were in use during the press event), with a large divider-mounted speaker in the middle — do not stop moving as guests climb on and off, and there is no moving sidewalk like on other continuous-loading attractions.

Be aware that the surfaces become very slick, and several members of our party found it very difficult to step down into a moving boat off a stationary dock. (Reportedly there is an alternate stationary dock for accessibility, but it was not yet available during the press event.)

NightFlight Expedition ride experience

Part 1: Dark Ride

Once seated and secured under the individual lap bars — which should be relatively accommodating for most body types — the ride vehicles move into the attraction’s first portion, a brief dark ride along a fairly flat track past vistas of the Smoky Mountains. It’s always wonderful to see practical sets, and there’s some lovely lighting in this first portion, but it is instantly evident that this ride doesn’t achieve the same level of immersion expected from a modern Disney or Universal dark ride.

Scenic elements are mostly flat with visible support structures; there are wrinkles in the opening backdrop, and the environment overall lacks realistic detail. That may be an intentional choice to create a stylized “storybook” aesthetic, but the result remains incongruous with the design language established up until this point.

Part 2: Simulator

The ride vehicle soon takes a turn and stops in front of a large curved screen, signaling the start of the ride’s simulator section. A motion platform makes the vehicle pitch and yaw in synchronization with the screen as you appear to soar above the treetops before splashing down near Secret Lake.

The good news is that the screen itself is pleasantly sharp and bright (aside from a few unfortunate malfunctioning segments in the center), the simulated aerial acrobatics feel dynamic yet smooth, and the rotating mechanism that allows for multiple boats is cleverly concealed. On the other hand, the screen isn’t quite tall enough to prevent its top from being a distracting border, and the computer animation displayed on it is a few steps below the infamous Fast & Furious Supercharged in terms of rendering quality.

Part 3: Whitewater Rapids

At the conclusion of the simulator segment, vehicles unexpectedly slide backwards into near pitch-darkness, with some faint purple objects overhead, as a voice tells us we’re in a cave (in one of the ride’s few lines of intelligible dialogue).

Suddenly, boats are thrust forward into the whitewater rapids section, which is the signature first-of-its-kind element that sets NightFlight Expedition (and its predecessor, Mission Bermudes in Futuroscope) apart from earlier water coasters like SeaWorld’s Journey to Atlantis. The boat thrillingly bounces about the churning waves in a way I’ve previously experienced only in round raft rides, and the sculpted rockwork that you rush past is also superbly executed.

For those few moments, NightFlight Expedition is fully a world-class E-Ticket attraction, and this one scene alone is why guests will want to ride it again.

Touring Tips

NightFlight Expedition was operating with limited capacity during the media event, and may continue to be constrained in the days and weeks after its official debut to the general public on Aug. 19, following four days of passholder previews. Even at its best, it handles a theoretical maximum of about 1,000 riders per hour, compared to 1500-2000+ for a typical Orlando E-Ticket dark ride. So if you plan on riding it during its opening season, here’s some touring advice:

• NightFlight Expedition offers a TimeSaver lane, but not every TimeSaver option includes access. The complimentary TimeSaver for guests at HeartSong Lodge & Resort and DreamMore Resort & Spa generally includes NightFlight only during the morning “Golden Hour,” so check the details carefully.
• Guests with mobility or other accessibility needs should visit the accessibility office near the park entrance and obtain any required paper pass for alternate entry routes, ramps and elevators.
• Park gates may open 30 minutes or more before the posted opening time, so arrive up to an hour early and head left toward Mystery Mine. Guests may be held there until about five minutes before opening, then released toward Wildwood Grove.
• Prepare for delays and a potentially long wait. Bring sunscreen, snacks and a portable charger, especially if the line extends into the unshaded outdoor queue.
• Expect minor splashes, not a Popeye-style soaking, although front-row riders may leave with damp shoes.
• Even if NightFlight is unavailable, Dollywood’s live entertainment, old-time atmosphere and attractions such as Blazing Fury, Thunderhead, Big Bear Mountain and Wild Eagle make the trip worthwhile. And don’t miss the famously gooey cinnamon bread.

For all its first-flight turbulence, NightFlight Expedition still gives Dollywood an ambitious new adventure with flashes of something truly extraordinary.