It’s no secret that NightFlight Expedition at Dollywood has had some up-time challenges in its early days. I experienced this personally earlier this week with it opening late and shutting down early. We may have an indication of one of the potential issues with Dollywood’s social media post stating, “As part of on-going ride rehearsal, the manufacturer has asked for additional time to adjust the timing of the ride’s turntable to ensure a quality experience for this unique part of the attraction.” It’s rare that you see this level of transparency and specificity by a theme park about a ride issue and it is quite refreshing. The post has now been removed as everything is about Dolly Parton’s passing (and rightfully so), but the bottom line remains that the ride is closed for now.

As part of on-going ride rehearsal, the manufacturer has asked for additional time to adjust the timing of the ride’s turntable to ensure a quality experience for this unique part of the attraction.

This “turntable” is the heart of the “flying” simulator of the ride. It carries three vehicles at a time, rotating them from one section of the ride to the next while riders experience the simulation. This turntable is so large and moves so slowly that it’s essentially imperceptible to riders. On Monday I was lucky enough to get a ride on NightFlight and was apparently the last boat without issue before this prolonged shutdown. The boat after mine said that shortly after entering the turntable everything went black as the ride appeared to effectively shut down. I don’t believe it ever reopened again that day or prior to this announcement about it closing.

We can glean some information about the turntable from Mack’s patents as well as comments from Dollywood personnel during construction. There were also a few pics of pieces of the turntable outside the building during installation, but the majority of it was probably assembled inside the building. Dollywood President Eugene Naughton said in an IAAPA article that it was, “the world’s largest turntable within an attraction” and there’s a tremendous amount going on during this turntable sequence. First, the vehicle needs to transfer off of tracks and onto the turntable. Then the turntable and vehicle need to connect and run the simulation. Finally the turntable must realign with the next set of tracks so the vehicle can exit. I would imagine getting track alignments, locking sequence and all the associated timing correct with the video, audio cues, motion and other effects is no easy feat.

“The world’s largest turntable within an attraction.”

-Dollywood President Eugene Naughton

The “flying” section is a huge portion of the ride, both in time and in imparting the story of “Hidden Hollow Aviation”. The water rapids may be the most anticipated moment of the ride, but the turntable is where the storytelling occurs and story is obviously something Dollywood prioritized with this ride. I very much like the tone of the post as rather than declaring the ride “open” they’re now referring to this time as “technical rehearsals”. I think this creates realistic expectations for guests with regard to uptime on a given day and is a bit of a fair warning to those potentially looking to schedule trips specifically to experience NightFlight. A new ride having some initial issues is a theme park tale as old as time, but it’s usually quickly forgotten and forgiven once the issues are resolved. Park President Eugene Naughton mentioned in a construction tour that Dollywood does more business in December than any other month, so there’s still lots of time in 2027 for this ride to shine. Hopefully Mack Rides and Dollywood can figure this out quickly and get this ambitious ride up and going reliably again very soon.