Gatlinburg at thanksgiving

[momz]

just learned I am likely to get some time off over the thanksgiving weekend. This hasn't happened in a very long time. We live some distance from relatives and consequently have never developed any sort of thanksgiving traditions. So, we find ourselves with some time to fill and are considering creating a new sort of memory for this holiday.

Gatlinburg is about a 6 hour drive and we would be looking to spend Wednesday night through Saturday night. We are absolutely not interested in Black Friday shopping n pigeon forge, so would want to go on past there and stay in Gatlinburg where we will have closer access to the park.

I understand the area is likely to be busy over this weekend. Any advice in regards to this idea? Any recommendations as to hotels vs cabin, restaurants, activities in Gatlinburg and the park?

Is it going to be too crowded to enjoy it?

 

[Cajun_country]

We are going in October. I have gone once before during Thanksgiving and we just went into the National Park a lot, and I don't recall the park being crazy busy. We actually were driving into TN on Thanksgiving Day and hit a Cracker Barrel a couple of hours before Gatlinburg and because it was just 2 of us, we were in and out Cracker Barrel with a delicious Thanksgiving meal in less than an hour. Cabins are nice, but we don't tend to stay indoors much when we go there, so a lot of times we stay in a hotel. This year we are staying at a Clarion that is at the very end of the strip in Gatlinburg, but a lot of times we stay at the very end of Pigeon Forge in a Best Western that is next to the Dixie Stampede (There are two Best Westerns at the end of Pigeon Forge. If you get a cabin, I like the Wears Valley area. With cabins, I worry about where they are located and if I can up a mountain in my vehicle. We usually don't cook much, so that is another reason we get a hotel a lot of times. I know the views can be amazing from cabins, but I don't like the extra fees and I just always feel like I don't always know what i'm getting into with some cabins. Last time we rented a cabin in Gatlinburg and I hated the steep driveway up the cabin and we had a bear that was visiting our cabin during the nights. We also got a speeding ticket by speed trap cop while going down a mountain, about as slow as we could go near the Alamo Steakhouse in Gatlinburg- felt very targeted being we had out of state license plate.
I think most people are hitting the outlet malls, so those areas are busy, but the park itself was nice, but that was in 2009 when we went for Thanksgiving. We drove out to Cherokee one day, but there isn't really much to do out there, but my favorite waterfall is Mingo Falls and I think we went to the casino as well.