After being closed for two days because of winter weather, Dollywood opened Wednesday for the final day of the 2017 season.
"It's pretty chilly, it's freezing," said Chris Sellitti who was visiting the park from Florida. "But it's not cold enough for us not to have fun."
Hundreds of people walked through the gates of the park Wednesday for the final time until it reopens in March. Dollywood will close for a couple of months during the winter to make improvements to the park.
"Dollywood is a really busy place when the gates are closed to the general public. We'll be doing a lot of maintenance projects around the park," said Pete Owens with Dollywood. "We'll be preparing for the 2018 season all weekend, until we reopen."
While many of the park's attractions were closed Wednesday because of the cold temperatures, the 1938 steam locomotive that takes people around the park was not.
"We've been wanting to come all week so we were really excited that the park was open today. They were really excited to come this morning," said Samantha Barksdale, who was visiting the park with her family from Louisiana. "Our son has always wanted to go on a train ride so he was really excited to take this train ride."
One of the warmest jobs in the park today was undoubtedly the train's crew, who burned coal all day long to keep the train moving.
"Any given day we'll probably burn between three and five tons of coal and use 5,000 gallons of water in this thing," said BJ Romine, the fireman on the Dollywood Express. "I would say today it is definitely the warmest job. I'd also say it's the warmest job in July and August. It gets pretty toasty up here."
More people visited Dollywood in 2017 than in any other year. The new attendance record tops a previous record set the year before.
Dollywood plans to invest more than $1 million in 2018 to improve the entertainment options the park offers.