I am in Dollywood for the weekend and have ridden Mystery Mine a few times.
On my arrival I was excited about MM, when I went to the ride I could see the mine sitting next to lake silver, it looks great, the theming is fantastic, cool animatronics outside and sound effects ext.
Then I rode the ride.....
MM is a great trip through a troubled mine, effects are great with 2 good drops and a small one to enter the ride, curves, upside down heart line rolls, some cool track twists
but there is 1 big problem I have not seen addressed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D42Sc43HCi8It a nutshell your head is to far from the track. The ride " Can" do all these tight moves because of its design BUT, should it? If you watch that vid when they slow the car you can see the heads of the rides throw forward, when you see the POV of the ride you will notice that the ride goes down a hill and then abruptly pulls up, this is very very hard on your neck.
There were 4 of us on the ride, adults in upper 30s lower 40s and 2 kids 12. The first day I thought it was me, I was tired and this was the cause of my discomfort. The second day the kids both said Oww when we were going threw the first outdoor section of track. I was all about a MM when I first heard the rumor but now I hope that if they do go through with the ride they pull some of the turns out of the track and consider this glaring error in design..
This ride went upside down beautifully but the extreme curves were to extreme for me.
1 think I will tell you about Dollywood is they dont have PowederKeg, that is a wonderfully smooth fun coaster, that is the coaster to be jealous of, and we have it.
Now as an after thought a suspended coaster would be a smooth ride