You may believe that since we live in the area and own a lodging business which is literally a couple miles away from Silver Dollar City, it’s natural that we help market this attraction. That’s partly true because some of our customers do stay with us for our close proximity to the park. However, we would like to explain to you why we think Silver Dollar City is a better choice than Disneyworld.
We travel quite a bit as a family and there are only a handful of places where we haven’t been to in US. When we lived in California, we visited Disneyland several times and as early as 2 years, we decided to take our little ones to Disneyworld after a 2 week vacation in the Gulf Coast. Orlando was our last stop before returning home to Branson. We figured that we would have the best for our kids the last. We found decent accommodations close to the park and got up early the next day to take our twins to the happiest place in the world! Or so we thought.
After paying more than $400 for four of us, we grabbed a map and tried to work on a plan to enjoy the most rides possible. Remembering from our visit to Disneyland, we decided to locate the fast pass lanes. Wow! Lines at the fast pass lane had more than 100 people at a time. By the time, it was our turn, we saw that most of fast passes were not available anymore except a few rides. Disappointed by determined to show our kids a good time, we tried to get in lines and almost every of them had more than an hour of wait. It wasn’t until after dark where the lines started getting thinner and we were able to ride some rides after less than an hour of waiting at each. While we thought that it was a success that we could ride some of these rides, our kids were in no humor. Waiting, waiting and more waiting took all the fun away from everything and turned them into cranky little people. We, the parents didn’t mind the exhaustion of running around, smelling the full diapers all over the park and seeing many more cranky, hungry, tired kids all around us; after all, this is the happiest place on earth. At the end of the day, we stuck around to watch the fireworks which was the best fun. This at least put a little smile on our twins face.
Perhaps, we should have been better prepared, done more planning by figuring out what to do every minute of our visit. Frankly though, a family trip shouldn’t have to be this complicated and certainly not that expensive. Spending your time trying to make your little people happy shouldn’t have to be this hard.
This is why we will always prefer to visit Silver Dollar City. SDC is nothing like Disneyworld, Disneyland, Six Flags or any other theme parks. It’s a unique park in its own category. Originally built around a cave, the park has grown tremendously to comfortably compete with Disneyworld. The variety of rides is amazing and they keep adding the wicked rides one can think of. I do not dare riding these rides but I watch as one of my twin daughters hop on some of them and scream, laugh and wows like no end. The wait for rides definitely less than what they are in Disneyworld. You don’t see cranky kids at this park. There are different sections. Rides for small kids, rides for older kids and rides for adults and anyone who’s tall enough to ride them. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes. Over 60 stores that offer unique local art and other items. There are cooling stations in the hot months of summer. The park is built on the hills with beautiful landscaping and enough trees to provide shade. It’s clean and there are so many staff to help with questions, directions and anything else. Staff who welcome the visitors with Ozarks hospitality talking and joking with the people. You do not get the feeling that you’re one of the thousands of people just there to visit the park. You feel that you are among old friends who are happy to have you there.
You also do not have to break the ban when visiting Silver Dollar City. The annual passes are cheaper than a one day pass at Disneyworld. You can visit the park as many times as you’d like to March through December.
The park offers different festivals throughout the year. Blues and BBQ fest, the new Wonder Fest, Star Spangles Summer, Moonlight Madness, Southern Gospel Picnic, Craft and Cowboy Fest and several more are available for people with different interests. The one our family enjoyed the most is the “An Old time Christmas” This is actually very popular with visitors. Parades, Christmas shows, over 5 million Christmas lights and a 5 story tall Christmas tree with special sound and light effects. In our Facebook page for Hunter’s Friend, we provided pictures of this event if you’re interested in seeing them.
In the end, everyone would like to visit the “happiest place on earth” at least once in their lifetime but if you’re looking for a place that you can visit over and over again, Silver Dollar City is your park. Southern hospitality, affordability, competitive rides, amazing shows and a time well spent with family are what you will find at Silver Dollar City.
Don’t forget! We are only a couple miles away from the park located on the same peninsula. When you drive to the park from one of our 3 locations, you do NOT fight the traffic. You arrive at the park literally within minutes while everyone else coming from Branson is stuck on Hwy 76 or Hwy 465. Why wait when you can start having fun right away?
What are they building at Silver Dollar City ? We don’t know yet but we are sure whatever it is, it’s going to be amazing as they proved in the past that they are always ready to make it more fun for their visitors. We hope that you get a chance to visit this park at least once in your lifetime too and make everyone in your family happy.
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