 In the year 2004, Dollywood and Pigeon Forge Tennessee only had two roller coasters and was far from the destination it is now known as being for roller coaster enthusiasts from across the world. And what I see as being a very early transition for becoming the world-renowned amusement park it is today, Great Coasters International would be hired to build a new thrilling roller coaster for the 2004 season. Five years after the only other major coaster for the park at the time, the aerodynamics custom looper Tennessee Tornado opened. As it turns out, this new Great Coasters International creation known as Thunderhead would really put Dollywood on the map in a major way for thrill seekers for many years to come and this trend would continue into present day where Dollywood has built up one of the greatest roller coaster collections over the 16 years since Thunderhead's opening and the park now features many great thrill machines and some great family coasters. In this video, I am taking an in-depth look at Thunderhead where I will analyze many aspects of this ride and discuss the pros and cons. Once you enter Dollywood, you will take a left turn and walk uphill for a bit until you come up to Thunderhead, whose station is situated to the left of the midway. The way this coaster is presented in this section of the park is quite fitting having a very rustic feel and general theme as you walk through the queue and up to the station. One really unique thing about Thunderhead that sets it apart from many other coasters is the station fly-through, also the first ever station fly-through, which is just a straight section of track in the middle of the ride above the exit ramp where you fly through the station only eight feet above the platform. This is a pretty cool spectacle as you are standing in the station waiting to board and you see the trains flying by at 40 miles per hour right overhead. It's very loud as you can imagine too. In talking about the ride experience of Thunderhead, this is an older GCI, so it is definitely not smooth like Mystic Timbers for example. In contrast, I found Thunderhead to be quite a rough ride experience, and that is not to say it was painful. I didn't find the rough nature of the ride to be a bad thing, rather a roughness that is inherent with older wooden coasters. I felt as though the roughness and out-of-control feeling really added to the intensity of this ride, thus enhancing the experience in my opinion. That being said, this ride is definitely far from smooth, and being so whippy those points lead me to say that this ride is definitely not for everyone, especially if you are not a big fan of wooden roller coasters. I do have to mention though that with those super comfortable and very open Millennium Flyer trains we've come to love on GCIs, this is definitely something that truly makes the ride experience extra good. Millennium Flyers are definitely some of the best trains I've had the pleasure of experiencing. The biggest con of this ride though is due to the intensity that makes the ride so good, which is a bit of a double-edged sword. I felt that I couldn't ride this for more than about three times in a row due to how much it throws you around. It is definitely not one of the most marathonable coasters out there from my experience. This coaster has some of the craziest pacing I've ever experienced too. Once you let go from that lift hill, you hit a top speed of 53 miles per hour and you are just hauling through the course through every small dip, every twist and turn, and over every ejector moment the ride throws at you. And trust me, there are many. Thunderhead has lots of really quick pops of ejector airtime like GCIs are known for, and often you are getting quick pops of ejector while simultaneously being thrown from side to side, getting strong airtime and laterals thrown at you all at once. And before you know it, you're being whipped into the other direction or going over another small bump at breakneck speed without being able to realize what's going on. The ride time is quite good too. The length is decent at 3,230 feet of track, and the ride time from drop to brakes is about 47 seconds. It definitely feels very satisfying and complete while you are on the ride. It is a perfect length, almost to where it doesn't feel short, but is definitely not too long either, and the pacing really excels because of that. Thunderhead also stays pretty low to the ground after the first half of the ride. Basically, after you fly back out of the station after the station fly through element, the rest of the ride stays relatively low, so you are twisting and turning through small bumps at a great speed. The first half of the ride does feature a couple larger size hills and turns, which you also just fly through very quickly after the initial 100 foot drop. So the pacing from start to finish is just crazy, and as I mentioned, this makes the ride super whippy, crazy intense, and really out of control. And that's something I can really appreciate with a wooden coaster. Thunderhead is truly an awesome ride in Dollywood's elite collection of unique roller coasters. Although it is very rough and out of control, it is not a painful experience, and I found myself coming off of every ride just so amazed at what I had experienced. I was really pleasantly surprised with just how intense it was in terms of laterals and negative Gs. This ride has scored very high historically in many coaster polls ever since it opened, and I can see why. It has fallen a bit due to so many newer wooden coasters that have opened in the many years since 2004, including a certain ride that can be found at the same park, which I will cover in its own review. In my honest opinion though, Thunderhead is a truly spectacular ride in many ways and definitely one of the very best I've experienced. My final score for Thunderhead at Dollywood is a very solid 9 out of 10. What do you think about Thunderhead if you've ridden it? Be sure to let me know in the comments and stay tuned for more reviews in the future. Be sure to check out many other coaster reviews in a playlist on my channel if you found this review to be helpful. Also subscribe, like my page CoasterDaddy on Facebook, and follow me at CoasterDaddy official on Instagram. Thanks so much for watching. This is CoasterDaddy. Bye.