Cora and Jasper Oakley aren’t characters from a movie. They didn’t pop out of a cartoon or video game. The twin scientists live in Wildwood Grove, an enchanted hollow within the Great Smoky Mountains with a large, gleaming tree at its center, that was discovered by their ancestor Albert almost 200 years ago. Their uncle, Ned, lives nearby, and is kind of obsessed with bears. Together, the twins spend their time experimenting with flying cars that also float on water and trying to figure out why all the plants around these parts glow. They aren’t real people, obviously, but real people play them in Dollywood, the theme park that created them, which just launched a $50 million ride about the two’s adventures.

When it comes to theme parks, two companies stand above the rest: Disney and Universal, who both draw tens of millions of visitors a year to parks spread around the globe. They’ve got the biggest budgets, the most immersive attractions, the best theming and design, and the most popular IP, and that keeps guests flooding in—despite both also dealing with a litany of controversies, from Universal still working closely with J.K. Rowling, to Disney’s shabby treatment of its employees.

A smaller regional park has stolen a lot of their spotlight over the last two decades, though, and without as much baggage. It racks up annual wins in Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket awards and USA Today’s Reader’s Choice polls, it balances a family-friendly image with a high-thrill ride line-up that coaster diehards salivate over, and, like its namesake, it even somehow threads the needle on the kind of “divisive” culture issues that stick to basically everything else in our society today.

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