Mack Rides and Dollywood have revealed the ride vehicle for the park's upcoming NightFlight Expedition.
The reveal happened today on the show floor at the annual IAAPA Expo in Orlando. NightFlight Expedition is America's first installation of Mack Rides' rocking boat ride system. The ride is set to open at the Tennessee theme park next spring.
"NightFlight Expedition is a milestone in immersive ride experiences," Mack Rides CEO Christian von Elverfeldt said. "Together with Dollywood and Herschend - with whom we have a long-standing partnership - we have a shared passion for innovation and storytelling. This partnership has led us to create a world-first attraction that seamlessly blends story, technology and family adventure. The ride vehicle is not just a technical achievement - it's a symbol of what’s possible when creativity and engineering come together to push the boundaries of what a theme park experience can be."
The $50 million-plus ride will be Dollywood's largest-ever investment in a single attraction. The hybrid indoor family coaster and whitewater river raft ride will offer a five and a half minute experince in which "guests soar on a nighttime flight over the scenic Smokies, enjoy a thrilling whitewater rafting excursion through more than 500,000 gallons of surging water, traverse a mountain ridge on a roller coaster, and navigate a mysterious shimmering lake by boat," the park said.
The height requirement will be 39 inches tall to ride. And since Dollywood loves its attraction backstories, here is what the park has said about NightFlight Expedition.
"Guests set out on their expedition to find Secret Lake with the help of twin scientists, Cora and Jasper Oakley, who just happen to be the niece and nephew of Wildwood Grove’s resident wilderness explorer, Ned Oakley [from Big Bear Mountain - Robert]. The twins, who work out of a hangar at Hidden Hollow Aviation, have invented the Bioluminator, a device designed to detect and amplify bioluminescence, the biochemical emission of light by living organisms. Cora and Jasper mount the device onto their family’s one-of-a-kind amphibious aircraft to illuminate the Wildwood Tree’s glowing roots and follow them to Secret Lake."
This is definitely the biggest wildcard among next year's attractions, but I could very easily see it being on par with the E-tickets at destination parks if executed well. However, it feels like they're hyping it up a bit too much, which might result in disappointment when the ride likely falls a little short of what guests are expecting. Still, with Herschend expanding their portfolio of properties, it's exciting to see the sort of attraction that could potentially be brought to several locations across the country if this one proves successful.
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Five and a half minutes!!!! Wow, that's a seriously long attraction for a regional park that belies the size of the building that's currently under construction at the park - it's a tad shorter than Journey to Atlantis at SWO, another Mack creation. This attraction is quite possibly the most intriguing new attraction for 2025. Also, given the current state of the construction site and the unique nature of the ride, it's surprising that they're still marketing this attraction to open in "Spring 2025" (to me means by mid-May at the latest), which seems very aggressive.