Dolly Parton’s DreamMore Resort Review (plus all things Dolly in Pigeon Forge, TN)

My husband was out of the country for a week and the rest of us needed something fun and different to do. We love the Smoky Mountains and love Dollywood, but haven’t ever stayed at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort. This was the perfect time to do so. So, we headed to East Tennessee.

We checked in to grab our room and immediately fell in love with the resort. Why was it so great?

The quiet entrance makes you feel like you’re at home: You can tell from the moment you pull on to the property that attention to detail hasn’t been overlooked. The grounds are beautiful, landscaping is pristine, and the white fences give you that down home, country feel. The parking is free or valet is an option when checking in. When booking a hotel with your family, saving money on free parking is huge!

The Lobby takes your breath away: You know there are some hotels and resorts where you can say, “That’s a nice lobby”. Well, the lobby in the Dollywood DreamMore Resort really does take your breath away. You walk through the door and see floor to ceiling windows of their outdoor pool area and immediately realize you’re on vacation. 

The staff at the lobby desks are eagerly waiting your arrival and make you feel like the most important person when you first arrive and check in. They aren’t stuck behind a counter, they walk out to meet you and get you all checked in and ready to stay. Once you’re all set, on the other side of the room, sit down, grab some of Dolly’s pink lemonade that is served from 4-6pm daily and start planning your evening activities or the rest of your trip. Isn’t the sitting area lovely?

The family friendly atmosphere: Dolly and her team thought of everything family friendly when it came to planning out this resort. From the indoor and outdoor pools, to the game room, to corn hole boards outside, to a fire pit (where they have s’mores available every night for roasting), to storytelling areas, a spa, amazing restaurants, and more! Every corner you turn, you’re more amazed at the details that went in to making Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort one of the best family friendly resorts.

The family friendly rooms: When you have a larger family like we do, staying at hotels/resorts can get pricey because usually you have to purchase more than 1 room. A lot of the rooms have a king bed + bunks, which is what we stayed in.

The resort also has all other types of rooms and suites including the Family Suites, Patio Poolside Suite, Junior Suite, Reunion Suite, 2 Bedroom Suite, and the Dolly Parton Suite (which is absolutely stunning). Location, location, location: It’s always nice to find somewhere to stay when you’re traveling that is centrally located to attractions and places you’ll be going while vacationing there, isn’t it? Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort is right next to Splash Country and Dollywood (more info on this + more resort perks below). It also is very close to restaurants, dinner shows, and shopping.

Resort / Park Perks: The perks of staying at the resort are huge!

One of our favorites was the shuttle that took you from the front doors of the resort to a private entrance just for resort guests of Dollywood and Splash Country! Talk about feeling special and skipping lines. This was fantastic. There is a special ticket counter at the park for just resort guests to pick up tickets, purchase, or rent strollers/scooters. Meanwhile, all the others were still waiting in line at the main gate. The shuttle runs the entire time the park is open and will bring you right back to the resort. Free parking + no planning on your end with where to park.

Another great perk is the TimeSaver passes they give to resort guests for free! Yes! Get to the front of the line at the most popular rides. Normally, these are $25 per person if you purchase inside the park, but completely free if you are staying at the resort. This allows you to schedule your times on many of the rides making your waits much shorter or nonexistent. However, the day we were there, we didn’t have to schedule. We just took the Time Saver pass with us, went through the special Time Saver pass entrance on the rides we wanted to use the pass on, and found ourselves at the front of the line in no time.

Some other resort perks include:

• Early Saturday entries at the parks
• Package delivery
• Complimentary Wi-Fi
• Free parking

Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort gets 2 thumbs up from us! We cannot wait to go back.

Dollywood Park:

As you know, we love to visit Dollywood. For a couple of years, we had season passes and it was wonderful. We’d go several times a year when our kids were younger. Having season passes worked out to be cheaper than paying full admission price those few times we went a year. It makes for a great weekend trip from Nashville.

This time, we went for the day on Labor Day. I was expecting it to be super crowded, but we were pleasantly surprised it wasn’t crowded at all. 

We love everything about the Dollywood atmosphere:

• The location
• The food
• The short lines
• The vintage, fully functioning, coal burning steam engine
• The one and only Dolly

If you’re looking for some budget friendly ideas, I’ve got a few ways you can be budget conscious at Dollywood, including some travel tips to the park.

Dolly Parton’s Celebration Dinner Theater

This venue is no stranger to us. We have been to this theater several times before when Lumberlack Feud had their show there. It was so neat to be back in the building, only this time we were seeing one of Dolly’s shows. We have been to Dixie Stampede a few times in the past and loved it, so we knew Dolly Parton’s Celebration show was going to be fantastic.

We arrived about 45 minutes before the show started and it was the perfect amount of time to mosey around and check out all that was happening even before the show began. Once you arrive and go through the green screen photo ops, you can explore the Outpost area which includes different family activities and games like corn hole (which our kids love!), Magical Makeovers where kids can get a new “look” and transform into a princess or other characters, the gift shop which our kids loved, or grab specialty drinks and snacks at the bar before entering Celebration Ridge where you’ll be directed to your reserved seating for dinner and the show.

Once you find your seat, the staff comes around and introduces themselves. Let me just say, Caesar was the best waiter there! From the moment we sat down, till the time the show was over, he was extremely friendly to our entire family, made sure we had everything we needed (and then some), and went above and beyond to make sure we had a great time. If you are thinking about reserving a show at this theater, make a request for Caesar!

Before the festivities begin, your waiter/waitress will come by and take your drink order. My favorite is the sweet — 1/2 sweet, 1/2 unsweet is the way to go. They’ll start bringing out your food (which is all you can eat by the way). Our favorite at all the Dolly Parton’s dinner theaters? The creamy vegetable soup (which is available to purchase in the gift shop if you want to stock up and take it home like we did). If you love it as much as we do, ask for seconds, or thirds. No joke. The food was great. Fried chicken, ham, sweet potato casserole that was amazing (and I don’t usually like sweet potato casserole), yummy macaroni and cheese, buttermilk biscuits, and a fried peach pie for dessert. Ya’ll, you will not leave hungry, I promise. We even were given to go boxes for the kids with a brand new meal in the box since they were so engrossed in the show to eat. How nice is that?

On to the show…

Think a mix of Dixie Stampede and a Cirque du Soleil show, but Dolly Parton’s Celebration is narrated by a Smoky Mountain storyteller.

Our boys loved the show but one of their favorite parts were the comedian duo’s that come out throughout the show to entertain the entire family. They were bent over laughing at these guys which was so fun to watch.

The performers were amazing! We love a good Cirque show and the boys had never seen one, so this was the perfect show for them to be introduced to acrobatics events like this. The visual effects were state of the art, which definitely enhanced the show. 

We don’t want to give away the entire show and what is included, but check out this little sneak peak from our experience — including one of our boys being a part of the show:

Our Dollywood experience was so, so great! We are already planning our next trip back. Have you been?