Five Things To Know Before Visiting Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO

Silver Dollar City has been on our “Theme Park Bucket List” for years and this year – we finally made a visit happen – for Derrick’s birthday!

Silver Dollar City (a sister-park to Dollywood) is located out in Branson, Missouri. From where we live, it’s about a 14-hour drive to get there (roughly the same distance as it is for us to drive down to Orlando, Florida). Needless to say: Silver Dollar City is quite the distance away and not a park we can visit over a weekend-trip.

Even though we did our research in planning this trip, we still learned a few things after spending two full days in the park –

Here are the FIVE things we wish we’d known before going to Silver Dollar City:

1. PARKING: It’s FREE!

There aren’t many theme parks with free parking anymore – so this is a huge benefit!!

Just be aware: you cannot see the park entrance from the parking lot. Depending on how busy the park is when you visit, Silver Dollar City has several parking lots that are very untraditionally situated. It’s simply due to the terrain that the park sits on, but if you are expecting a big, flat, “Kings Island” or “Cedar Point” style parking lot – you won’t find it here!

You can take a tram or walk to the park entrance. It’s about a 5-10 minute walk, depending on which way you’re walking! It’s almost all downhill to get from your car to the park entrance, but that means it’s almost all uphill to get from the park entrance to your car! Speaking of which..

2. HILLY TERRAIN: Bring your hiking boots!

This park is the most challenging to walk of any of the parks we’ve ever been to (and we’ve been to quite a few).

Hersheypark & Busch Gardens Williamsburg have their challenging hilly sections, but ALL of Silver Dollar City is either walking downhill or walking uphill – there is very little level ground. And it’s not just a slight grade – these are STEEP, sometimes super challenging grades to traverse!

We obviously have two little kids, so we bring a double-stroller with us to amusement parks and WHEW – let’s just say: we (but mostly Derrick) definitely got our work outs from pushing that stroller up and down Silver Dollar City’s terrain!

3. SOUVINIER CUPS: Skip them.

We almost always buy souvinier cups, especially when we’re going to be at a park for multiple days, but we did NOT buy them at Silver Dollar City.

Part of the reason for this was the initial price (which was higher than most parks), plus then you still had to pay a small fee for each fill up afterwards. (Normally, souvinier cups are a one-time fee & then free to fill up – at least for the first day/week of purchase.)

Another reason we decided to skip the souvinier cups was that they were an awkward design: they did not have handles (like traditional souvinier cups)! They were shaped more like a mug with a handle on the side, instead of a handle on the top. Every other souvinier cup we’ve ever bought has had a removable handle we could use to hang off of our stroller – but not these ones!

For that reason, we just opted to stick with bringing water bottles.

And on this front – the staff at Silver Dollar City wins the award for being AMAZING – not only because would they give us cups of water for free, but they happily offered to fill our entire water bottles for us! PLUS, there are multiple water bottle filling stations around the park (so you don’t have to stand at a water fountain for a year filling up a large water bottle).

In other words: even though their souvinier cups were kinda on the meh side, their water policy is the best we’ve ever encountered!!

4. BIRTHDAY DISCOUNTS: Happy Birthday!

If you (or anyone in your party) is celebrating their birthday while you are at Silver Dollar City, in the 7 days prior to your visit, or the 7 days after, you can stop at the General Store for a birthday button!
This isn’t just a fun little (free) souvenir to wear so people wish you a ‘happy birthday’ – it actually has VALUE!

Your birthday button gives you a free small bag of kettle popcorn + discounts on food and merchandise at select locations (and not just any discount, but a 20% off discount!)

Derrick’s birthday was the day before we visited Silver Dollar City and my sister Ruby’s birthday was 4 days before. We did not know about the “birthday button” until we were leaving the park on our first day. Needless to say: picking these buttons up was our first stop on our second day! What an incredible, fun way to celebrate birthdays!

5. PARENT SWAP POLICY: A big heads up!

Do you know what “parent swapping” is? Every park has some rendition of the same policy: if a family has a small child who is too short to ride a ride, one parent can wait through the regular line, and after riding, the other parent can “swap” spots & ride the ride, skipping the regular line and either walking up the exit queue or the “fast pass” queue.

I should write a whole post about “parent swapping” (Disney’s parent swapping is the smoothest, whereas Sea World Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa’s parent swapping is tied for the BEST), but for now, just know this: Silver Dollar City’s policy is strange & a bit challenging to navigate.

It is clearly designed for a Mom and Dad and ONE child and it follows Silver Dollar City’s strict “no second rides” policy.
Let’s use Outlaw Run as an example. Following Silver Dollar City’s parent swap policy, Dad will get in the regular line and ride the ride. Mom and the too-short-to-ride child will walk up the exit ramp and wait for Dad to get off the ride. When Dad gets off, Mom will take his seat on the ride and be able to ride the coaster while Dad waits with the too-short-to-ride child.
This sounds normal, right?

Where Silver Dollar City splits from the “norm” though is – they will not allow anyone to ride the ride twice. Our experience at every other park has always been, if Dad can walk through the regular line with a partner (in our case, our daughter Braelynn – because she is tall enough to ride Outlaw Run), Braelynn can then ride AGAIN with Mom (because, there will be an empty seat beside her anyway – why not fill it?)

Silver Dollar City will NOT allow this to happen though. And, this was not clearly explained to us when we asked about their parent swap policy, which caused a bit of a (let’s call it a) “discussion” on the ride platform with a ride op who was (unfortunately) not-so-nice to us.

In other words: Derrick, my Mom, my sister, and Braelynn waited through the regular queue to ride a roller coaster. When they got off, I was going to “parent swap” and ride with whoever wanted to ride again.
No.
I had to ride the ride alone. Even though there was an empty seat next to me.

Silver Dollar City’s policy is that no one can ride twice in a row. (A policy we later encountered when we rode Time Traveler, and came back into a COMPLETELY EMPTY station. We asked if we could simply ride again, and the ride op said, “No, no one can ride twice. You have to exit the ride & go back through the entire queue.”)

But, here’s where things get weird (and how we learned to “cheat” the system). The waiting parent can have a partner wait with them at the exit to ride with. So, in our case, Derrick, my Mom, and Braelynn would go ride a roller coaster. My sister Ruby & I would wait at the exit with Leander (who is too short to ride any major attractions). When Derrick, my Mom, and Braelynn got off the ride, Ruby & I would swap with them and get on – meaning I would have a partner to ride with (which beats riding alone!)

Does this make any sense? No, not really. Have we ever encountered this scenario at any other park? No. In fact, at a lot of parks, they will allow the entire party (minus the one parent swapping person) to ride the coaster again!

Unfortunately, our experience with this policy at Silver Dollar City is a bit tainted, mostly because we had such a poor first experience with it and the ride op who was not-too-happy that we didn’t understand how the policy precisely worked. It was hot, maybe he was having a bad day, but so his attitude in explaining things to us was not the best (it was downright hostile).

After we figured it out, we had no problem at all, but we wish we had known the logistics of their parent swap policy before going to the park.

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And there you have it – five things we wish we’d known before going to Silver Dollar City! It truly is a beautiful, lovely park. The atmosphere is filled with mid-west charm, the attractions top-notch, and we truly had a wonderful, super fun time!

Here is our family’s vlog from our trip!