Our Gatlinburg Adventure (COMPLETE!) *** Conclusion added 10-07-06 *** About This Page:

[christiejay]

Cast:

Me, Christie, 35, stay-at-home mom and the trip organizer.
My husband, Jay, 36, production line worker at Nissan, the funding source of the trip!
Our son, Joshua, 4

Experience:
Very experienced (me)
Third trip (Jay)
Second trip (Joshua)

Dates: June 30 - July 8, 2006

Lodging:
StudioPLUS, Brentwood, Tennessee (1 night)
Mountain Loft Resort (7 nights)

Transportation: truck, 10 hours from Clinton, MS

Contents:
• Introduction
• Planning
• Day 0 - June 29
• Day 1 - June 30
• Day 2 - July 1
• Day 3 - July 2
• Day 4 - July 3
• Day 5 - July 4
• Day 6 - July 5
• Day 7 - July 6
• Day 8 - July 7
• Day 9 - July 8
• Conclusion


Introduction

As you may already know, my style of trip reporting is very detailed, which means that if you stick it out, you'll be doing quite a bit of reading! This type of trip report really helps me plan better, and I hope it helps you out as well. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

You probably also already know that I am a Disney nut, but I feel the same way about Gatlinburg. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] Once again this year we took a break every day for Joshua to have his normal naptime, but we still packed in lots of activities the rest of the time!

I would welcome any and all comments or questions via a Private Message or a reply to this post. I always like to offer my assistance based on what I've picked up over my numerous trips and all the reading I do. And if things should need a little clarification, just chime in and let me know!

What I'll be doing throughout the trip report is giving you the web site addresses for all the places we visited. Then you can check out all the details for yourself, if it sounds like a place you might want to go. Plus, for the first time, I finally get to include pictures!!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] About time! (No pictures today, they'll appear starting with Day 1.)

For anybody who has the deluxe PassPorter, I would recommend getting a new set of PassPockets for your non-Disney trips. Once you're used to the PassPocket format, it's so easy to keep using them for all your big trips. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I also recommend the following books which we used extensively on our trip:

Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway - F. Lynne Bachleda (2005, Menasha Ridge Press): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0897325...4014462?ie=UTF8

Why Natchez Trace Parkway? Because I'm a nerd ... explanation to follow! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Smokies Road Guide - Jerry DeLaughter (1986, 2004, Great Smoky Mountains Association) :
http://www.smokiesstore.org/browse.cfm/4,7.htm

and Hiking Trails of the Smokies (3rd edition 2003, Great Smoky Mountains Association): http://www.smokiesstore.org/browse.cfm/4,5.htm

By the way, while you're at the Great Smoky Mountains Association bookstore, check out the other links and consider joining, it's a great cause and you get some awesome discounts - I'll fill you in on them throughout the report. And I don't know why the active link is cutting off the last few characters of those two books above, so if you try to link there, please add the other characters in your address bar.

Next up: Planning

[lauren-roxy]

Great start Christie!! Can't wait to see your pictures as well as read your trip report!! One of these days I'm going to have to learn how to add pictures. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/blushing.gif[/img]

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Christie [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img] Looking forward to the pictures and hearing all about your trip [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Meggera]

Looking forward to reading all about your trip. I have always enjoyed going to Gatlinburg.

Laura

[christiejay]

Planning

How Did We Decide to Go to Gatlinburg?

Well, after spending a busy vacation week in Gatlinburg in 2004, and a busy and expensive vacation week at Disney World in 2005, when it came time to plan our vacation for 2006 we were looking to go somewhere that would be both economical and relaxing. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] We were hoping to take advantage of being in our vacation club and not having to pay cash for lodging, so we started looking at places in our resort book. There were lots of places we had never been before, so we made a list and prioritized them as follows: Wisconsin Dells, central Virginia, either Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head Island, or coastal Florida (either east or west coast).

All these places are too far to drive in one day, so we were going to use another vacation club resort as a layover point for both going to our destination and coming back home. Again, trying to stay in our resorts as opposed to paying cash for a hotel room. Since our longest stay would still be less than 7 nights in a row, we had to wait until 6 months ahead of time to be able to call for a reservation. Finally the time came and I got on the phone with a long list of options in front of me. Problem? We had to go during the week of July 4, since that's the only time Jay knew he would definitely be off work. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

So I asked if we could get a reservation in Wisconsin Dells - no - there was only one unit left and we would have to be on the wait list for another month, which meant that most likely somebody else would be in line ahead of us. Next I tried Virginia and South Carolina - no - the resort we wanted to use as our layover point for both those destinations was booked solid for the whole year. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] So as our last remaining option I asked about Florida. There were three resorts in Panama City, so I was sure that one of them would have availability for us for a layover. But alas, two of those resorts have to be booked for a full week (even though our resort book says otherwise [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] ), and the other did not have availability until the week after we needed it. Amazingly, I had just exhausted all our possibilities in only 5 minutes! Afraid we would be left sitting at home in 2006, I asked about the resort in Gatlinburg - yes - there was a 2-bedroom unit still available, but at this point in time I would have to book it for the whole week. That was fine by me, since Gatlinburg is reachable in just one day's drive from our house. Finally we had a resort - Mountain Loft, which is located on Highway 321, 2 miles from the Parkway (traffic light #3).

Time to Start the Planning Process

Now that we knew where we would be spending our vacation, I started looking up web sites for all the places we usually like to visit while in the Smokies. I made some notes as to how much the admission was, what the hours were, and whether we would have to pay for Joshua's admission - each place has its own criteria for a child's ticket. I also requested visitor's packets for Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, Townsend and Cherokee, as well as a new Tennessee map from their Department of Transportation (all FREE [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] ). Soon our mailbox was filling up! Here's the links if you're planning your own trip:

Gatlinburg - www.gatlinburg.com
Pigeon Forge - www.mypigeonforge.com
Sevierville - www.seviervillechamber.org
Townsend - www.smokymountains.org
Cherokee - www.cherokee-nc.com
TN map - www.tennessee.gov/tdot/maporder/maporder.htm

Would Anybody Like to Go With Us?

The reason we reserved a 2-bedroom unit at our resort was so that we could invite other people to travel with us. We thought this would be a pretty simple thing to do. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] First we asked my parents, since we had been taking Jay's family members with us on our most recent trips. I didn't think they would want to go since they had just been twice in the past year. Well, they wanted to go, but unbeknownst to me, they had already been discussing going on their own. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] But they wanted to go at the end of May, when my mom got out of school (she's a teacher), and before it started getting so hot. Strike one. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Next we asked some friends of ours from church if they were interested. We thought they would probably go with us, because they've never been, but mainly because we knew they were outdoorsy people like us, and would appreciate all the time we planned to spend in the National Park during the week. Unfortunately we waited a little too late to ask them and they had already told their family that they would come see them in Indiana for the 4th. But since they were going to leave Indiana coming back home on the 5th, they decided to stop in Gatlinburg instead and stay the last couple of days there with us. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] This was not optimal - how could I pick which things to save for them to see? There's just so much good stuff there. But I was excited that they would be joining us. Until a couple of weeks later, when they said they wouldn't be able to because he really needed to get on back in town to get back to work. Strike two. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Okay, so we moved on to asking my sister and her husband if they wanted to meet us up there. I didn't think they would be able to get off work, but they said yes, they wanted to go, but they would meet us up there a couple of days after we arrived. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] This didn't last very long, however, as my brother-in-law registered for his summer CPA classes and discovered they were not taking a break during the week of the 4th. The classes are so condensed that you miss a ton of material if you miss only one class, so he couldn't afford to do that. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502no_prv.gif[/img] My sister still wanted to go, and she asked if we minded if one of her friends came with her. We said that was fine, since we knew the girl she wanted to ask and we like her. Well I guess her friend was too busy with her job to do much communicating, because even though she said she would like to go, she never got back in touch with my sister about it. Then when my sister and brother-in-law got back from their Orlando trip at the end of May, my sister found out that she had several meetings to attend at work that she would not be able to miss, so she couldn't go anyway. Strike three. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Now we were left with only one option, and that was to ask Jay's dad and his wife to go with us. We thought they would enjoy it since their last trip to Gatlinburg was pretty much a disaster. We knew they wouldn't have the stamina to keep us with us on all the trails we wanted to hike on, but we figured that would just give them some extra down-time to spend at the resort. Then we could all do something together each afternoon and evening. Plus, they love to travel and are both retired. Well, by the time everybody else backed out on us, it was only a couple of weeks before the trip. And we didn't know it, but they were in the middle of doing some renovations to their house as well as a rental house they were getting ready to sell. They didn't want to put off any of the work being done by being out of town for a week, so they said they wouldn't be able to go. Is there such a thing as strike four? [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Now, remember we had reserved a two-bedroom unit to have space for other people to go with us. And now it was just going to be the three of us. This particular two-bedroom unit was made up of two one-bedroom units that just happened to be next to each other - one small and one large. It would have been really nice to have kept both bedrooms, so that Joshua could have slept in a bed instead of on the sleeper sofa. However, these two units did not have a connecting door between them. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] And Joshua, being 4, is not old enough to stay on one side all by himself, so we called back and canceled the smaller unit. We would just have to fool with the sleeper sofa every morning and every evening. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

Other Stuff ...

In the meantime, I had already found us a place to stay on the road the first night: a StudioPLUS. I had never heard of this resort before, but I had found a good deal on the www.reservations.hotel-guides.us web site (Hotel Guides). They were offering a room with a queen bed, sleeper sofa and kitchen for the same price as a plain hotel room (2 double beds, no kitchen) at the Best Western in the same town (Brentwood, TN)! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] I didn't think it would be too much of a risk, especially since it was just for one night. Anyway, I had read good reviews of the place, and it was part of the Extended Stay family of hotels, so I figured it was a safe bet.

Okay, so I guess you're wondering why we were spending the night in Brentwood, which is just south of Nashville and not on the way to Gatlinburg. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] Especially since I've already mentioned that Gatlinburg was a one-day drive from our house. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] Alright, I'll explain myself - and this will tie in to why I was recommending a book on the Natchez Trace Parkway in the last installment. Simple answer: I'm crazy! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Full answer: I am a sucker for touristy stuff. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] I have always lived near the Trace and known that it was out there, 444 miles full of "stuff" to visit, read about, look at and see and do. But I've never had the opportunity to drive the Trace any further north than Jackson - only the first 100 miles. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] So when we went to Gatlinburg in 2004, I somehow convinced Jay to let us drive all the way up the Trace on our first day, stopping at interesting sites all along the way. I'm not sure why, but he agreed, we did it, spent the night in Athens (south of Nashville), and drove the rest of the way to Gatlinburg the next day. And we had a great time! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img]

As you might imagine, 444 miles of stuff (well, 344 miles from here) is too much to do in one day. And, yes, there were plenty of things that we had to drive past and leave for some other time. So this time we were going to go the same route, but just stop at some of the sites we missed previously. I didn't want to stay in Athens again (bad hotel experience), so I started looking at either Franklin or Brentwood. And when I found my good room deal, that decided our destination for the evening. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Next up: More Planning from the Planaholic!

[lauren-roxy]

I would have gone with you guys in a heartbeat Christie, I love the way you plan things!! I think Joshua would have been scarred for life by my three kids though! Can't wait to read more of your planning!!

[fan of pan]

Christie:
I stayed at the MountainLoft resort last weekend. It was really nice. Quiet, relaxing. We had a 2 bedroom unit with a King in one room and twins in the other. Worked out great for us. There was actually 9 of us in there. But there was plenty of room.
Helen

[Meggera]

Great planning! I'm looking forward to more!

Laura

[rileysmommy]

Christie, sounds like we're on the same vacation circuit.....we went to Gatlinburg in 2004, DW in 2005, and Gatlinburg again this year....plus, I also live in MS. I'm enjoying your TR --Keep it coming!

[christiejay]

[ QUOTE ]
Christie:
I stayed at the MountainLoft resort last weekend. It was really nice. Quiet, relaxing. We had a 2 bedroom unit with a King in one room and twins in the other. Worked out great for us. There was actually 9 of us in there. But there was plenty of room.
Helen

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, so you were one of the lucky ones who got a townhome/chalet! That was our first request, but they were all booked up for the week of the 4th, so we were in the villa instead. One of these days we'll get one...

[christiejay]

[ QUOTE ]
Christie, sounds like we're on the same vacation circuit.....we went to Gatlinburg in 2004, DW in 2005, and Gatlinburg again this year....

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] So where would you like to go next summer? We're hoping for north Georgia, with day trips to Chattanooga and Atlanta, and the rest of the week down time. Gotta rest up and save money for WDW again in '08!

[RobDVC]

So far your plans sound great! Sorry the first choices fell through, though.

[christiejay]

One day while at Barnes & Noble (I was actually looking for a 2006 PassPorter to see what it looked like - but they didn't have ANY! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ), I discovered a book about the Natchez Trace that I thought was interesting. It gave lots of general information about the Trace, such as history and info on what can be found in the nearby towns. Then it listed all the sites along the way - kind of an expansion of what you can find in the official brochure from the National Park Service. What book could be better for a crazy soul such as me? [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] So I bought it of course, and immediately set to reading it. While I already knew most of the information listed, there were quite a few notes I made as well.

In addition I ordered two books about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When I requested my Gatlinburg information packet, I was put on the mailing list for the Great Smoky Mountains Association and they sent me a catalog. I read up on the information regarding all the discounts that members received, and quickly realized that it would be no problem to make back the $25 membership fee. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502no_prv.gif[/img] So I joined, and once my card came I ordered a book about all the roads in the park, and one about all the hiking trails in the park. These three books are the ones I recommended to you back in the Introduction.

Mainly what I did was research the trails. Knowing we would be visiting the park during one of its busiest times of year, I was looking for something to do that would be a little off the beaten path, so we wouldn't be caught up in the crowds all the time. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] I loved the hiking trail book because it had an elevation chart for each trail, as well as details about what you would see along the way. I picked lots of trails and created a list for us to choose from - I picked those that were not too steep and not too long, but that would have something interesting to see, like a waterfall or the remains of a logging camp, CCC camp or homeplaces. When I finished I had quite a list! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] I knew we wouldn't be able to hike all of them, but we certainly had many options from which to choose.

Finally I convinced Jay to sit down with me and go over all our plans. Based on the number of days we would be in Gatlinburg, we picked out one destination in the National Park to visit each morning except one, and also picked one attraction to visit each evening. Once we decided which areas of the park we would not be visiting this trip, I was able to eliminate some of the trails from our list. And once we decided which attractions we would be visiting, I got online and did some research to determine how to get the best discount on admission. I checked each attraction's website for coupons, the What-to-Do website for coupons, plus the Reserve Gatlinburg website to see how much we could save by ordering discount vouchers. In some cases we planned to use my GSM Association membership card as that also offered discounted admissions. Once I determined which was the best deal, I printed coupons and then ordered the necessary discount vouchers. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] Here's the two main websites I visited for coupons/discounts, and I'll post the individual attraction websites as I discuss our visit to each:
What-to-Do: http://what-to-do.com/smoky_mountains/index.html
Reserve Gatlinburg: http://www.reservegatlinburg.com/

Somewhere in the middle of all this planning, I read on the boards where somebody always ordered a set of PassPockets for every trip they took, and I thought that was a great idea. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] Especially since the pockets are very generic in their wording, they are perfect for any trip you go on, not just to Disney. So I ordered a set and stuck them in my binder. I filled in the dates and what I knew of our itinerary, even though it was still pretty flexible. Then I started sticking all our brochures in the pockets, and my binder almost wouldn't snap it was so full! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

One thing that was added to our itinerary that I didn't originally plan on was the Knoxville Zoo. We visited it on our last trip in 2004 and really enjoyed it. The only reason we stopped there was because we could get free admission by showing our Friends of the Jackson Zoo membership card. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] But by the time we planned our 2006 trip, we had let our Zoo Friends card expire. However, they had mailed us a letter informing us that the membership rates were about to increase, and giving us a chance to renew our membership at the current, lower rates. Jay decided to go ahead and do that, so once we had our new card, he asked if we could stop at the Knoxville Zoo again. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I had really wanted to go ahead and get into Gatlinburg so that we could check in our resort at 2:00. But upon a closer inspection of our vacation club book, I realized that the Gatlinburg resort was not one where we could check in early, so it would be 4:00 until we could check in. So I figured, sure, why not stop at the Knoxville Zoo again? And with that, it was added to our schedule. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Note on pictures: As promised, there will be pictures for this trip report. Jay is in the middle of downsizing and uploading them. I picked a ton of pictures, so he can only do so many at one time. And I'm off to The Garage in a little while to experiment to make sure I know how to insert them in my report. Hang in there!

Next up: the last few details of planning.

[lauren-roxy]

Sounds like you have a wonderful time planned Chrisite, especially the zoo!! Can't wait for more!!

[Colexis Mom]

Another great update Christie [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img]