Dollywood and Gaylord Announce New Family Entertainment Park For Nashville

In a bit of a surprise announcement, both Dollywood and Gaylord Entertainment have announced that they've paired up, 50/50, to bring a brand new combination water and snow park to Nashville.  The park will be situated on 114 acres of land adjacent to the Gaylord Opryland Resort, and just a stone's throw away from the location of the former Opryland Theme Park.

The development will take place in several phases, the first of which will consist of the water and snow park, and will cost and estimated $50 million.  The complex, which does not have an official name yet, will break ground in late 2012 or early 2013, and has a planned opening of 2014.

Once the water and snow parks are open there will still be 35 additional acres left for other attractions. No plans are being revealed, but suitable operators of attractions are being looked into.  It does not sound from the press release like plans for a theme park to set up shop are in the works, but you never can know for sure.

If you zoom into the site plans, you can get a feel for what the water park will offer - and it looks like a full day's worth of fun.  There are plenty of slides, two adjacent wave pools, a play structure, lazy river, and more.  In the expansion area more water park additions can be seen, one outline looks quite a bit like a large Tornado slide.

The snow area will provide families good times during the winter months.  While exact details on this feature were not released, it appears as though there are several areas that look to be created for tubing activities - always a great time!