Our Visit to the Smokey Mountains

Last Summer 2016, we visited the Smokey Mountains.

We drove about 14 hours to Sevierville, Tennessee.

We stayed in a cabin in the Oak Heavens Resort and Spa and did several activities during our four days there.

We like renting cabins. We usually do it about twice a year in Oklahoma. We like it because you can fit more than one family in them and still be comfortable. It becomes a home away from home. This resort had about 100 cabins inside its gates. Yes, it is a gated resort. The steep roads made me a little nervous, I confess, but it was nice to access them through a paved road and be able to look down the mountain from the back porch. Also, it did have a resort pool and game room.

Our cabin was three stories and had three king beds. There was a room with full bathroom on top, a room with tub and full bathroom on the main floor, and a room with full bathroom on the bottom floor; there, it also had a sleeper sofa. For entertainment, the cabin had a pool table, ping pong table and arcade. It also had a hot tub outside. It looked neat, but the heat (it reached almost 100 F in the afternoon) prevented us from using it during this trip – we used the swimming pool instead. The cabin had a full kitchen, a grill and three dining tables: one downstairs, one inside the main floor and one outside the main floor. Where the grill, dining table, ping pong table and hot tub were, there was mosquito netting on the windows, which made it nice… what wasn’t nice was the July heat (I was told this heat is unlikely, but I guess it was waiting for us).

The city of Sevierville had a lot of amenities – and by amenities I mean, it had a Starbucks and a Kroger. We bought groceries the first day and were ready to live there for four days.

We did a lot of things and could have done many more if we had stayed longer.

Day 1 – We enjoyed our cabin in the morning and went to Dollywood in the afternoon.

Day 2 – We went to Dollywood.

Day 3 – We went to the Forbbiden Caverns and to the pool in the afternoon.

Day 4 – We went tubing, to the Lumberjack Adventure show and to the “Tomb” escape the room.

Dollywood (http://www.dollywood.com):

Dollywood is awesome!! I am a Disney fanatic. I have been to Disney World and Disneyland more times that I can remember and Dollywood exceeded my expectations. First of all, they had this thing where if you got there after 3pm they let you in the next day for the price of a 1 day ticket. That was the best thing they could have done. We got there the first day at 6pm, the weather was great, the crowds were low… if it weren’t for my son, who doesn’t like fast rides, we could have ridden half the rides in that park. We only did the baby swap thing with him once (he’s not a baby, he’s almost 7), the rest of the time we split in to parties and we waited for the other party to ride. Most rides didn’t even HAVE a line! It was the middle of July!! Disney World would have been packed – but not Dollywood. It had a lot of rollercoasters, too! Of course, it also had kiddie rides and carnival type rides, but we didn’t ride those. And then, the next day we got there a little late, like 11am… it was still pretty empty. We still waited 5 minutes to get on the Wild Eagle rollercoaster (the best there, in my opinion, although I didn’t ride all of them). It was hotter than the evening before, but since it’s full of tall trees there’s a lot of shade everywhere! Also, I don’t think the park is so big to be walking as much as other parks. I really enjoyed it. Since we had seen the fireworks the previous night, we left early (around 5pm). We would probably had seen most of the park in two and a half days, but our 12 hours were awesome.

The Forbidden Caverns (http://www.forbiddencavern.com):

The Forbidden Caverns were about 30 minutes from our cabin. We went inside a building, bought our ticket and waited for the next tour to go inside. We waited for about ten minutes and then we went through a door with a ramp taking us down under that we followed. The caverns are said to always be 58 F. We came prepared with pants and sweatshirts, so we were good. Our guide was a young lady who was very relaxed, but seemed to know what she was doing. She told us she was the ticket lady’s granddaughter. We liked her. The caverns were alive, so we weren’t allowed to touch anything. We went down man made hallways, stairs and enjoyed watching the underground river. At the end of the tour they showed us the place where Indians used to live and a big rock that had fallen nearby where they were. All of their tools had been collected a while back and taken to a museum. After the tour, we visited the gift shop and then went home. There were a lot of rocks for sale in the gift shop.

Tubing (http://www.riverromppf.com):

We went tubbing to the River Romp. It was also about 30 minutes away from our cabin. I had never been tubing before, but it was an interesting experience. At first, I was afraid I would be very uncomfortable all the time with the cold river water, but I got used to it pretty quick, so most of the time I was ok (where the rapids were I did get wet a little and that water was COLD!). We went in with only our bathing suits and flip-flops (you needed to have something on your feet and began our 2 miles way down the river. The kids (ages 7, 9 and 11) had a great time, although sometimes they went ahead and we got a little nervous, but they were fine. After about 2.5 hours in the river, we came to the stopping point .The people from River Romp helped us back to shore and out of the river. After waiting for a few minutes, their van came to pick us up to take us back to the car. Back there, we used their changing rooms before continuing our day.

Lumberjack Adventure Show (http://dollyparton.com/lumberjack-adventure):

I have been to Medieval Times a few times and I was told to expect something similar. It was. The venue was great. It had great seating because it seemed that no matter where you were you had a great view of the show. The show is basically about two families of lumberjacks (and jills) who compete to get a sawmill. The food is very similar to the Medieval Times one (except the chicken is fried and you also get bbq pulled pork). Overall it was a fun show, although I have to say I rather go to Medieval Times again. Even  when I enjoyed the show – and food – I don’t think I’d want to visit again during a next visit. It was still worth my time.

The Tomb – Escape the Room (http://www.tombadventure.com/)

Also about 30 minutes from our cabin, there is a place called The Island. This is basically a place where there is a lot of entertainment, dining and shopping. We went there because the Lumberjack show was in that area and also, because the Escape the Room we wanted to experience was there. We had reservations for 8pm. The place looks great on the outside (big pyramid), which made the kids excited to get it, although, just a few minutes into the show, the lights went out, the place went completely dark, loud thunder and creepy noises began and the two 9 year olds and the 7 year old wanted OUT. For the rest of the experience, the little ones only watched and stayed close to us while we tried to complete the puzzles to get out of three rooms. At the end of 45 minutes, we were out. It was a lot of fun. This was the first Escape the Room I’ve been to and it made me want to go to more in the future.

By the end of our trip we were exhausted. The kids slept in the car for at least 3 hours on our way back, but we had a great time. Would we come back to Tennessee? Definitely!

cheers!