Great Smoky Mountains/Gatlinburg, TN

[usd2bmd]

We are looking at going to the Great Smoky Mountains next year on vacation. We have never been so I am hoping that some of my DIS friends can give us some advice.

There will be five of us (DH, DD, myself and a family friend and his GF) and we are looking to rent a cabin.
We are planning on this being a somewhat low budget vacation so we are probably looking to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000-$1400 for lodging (this would cover all of us). Less would be wonderful but we still want to stay in a nice place.

My questions are (so far); have any DISers been there before? What sort of things are there to do? Have you stayed before and if so, where? How many days should we plan on staying? We were thinking 4 nights.

Is there another area that we should consider staying instead of Gatlinburg?

As always thank you all for your help.

 

[ChattaAlley]

Plenty to do there. I go there a lot simply because I live close and have Dollywood season passes.

Go to Dollywood. Great family fun. I sometimes go to Splash Country and that is fun also. But Dollywood is great.

If you can stay at the Dollywood DreamMore Resort. It is new. I have not stayed there (but will in Oct.). Visited it the other day and it is just beautiful. The Christmas Place is also very nice. Santa has a sing a long every Sat night and their free breakfast is amazing. Other than that I would stick with the Comfort Inn in Pigeon Forge.

There is too much to do to mention. But I like going to the outlet mall, walking through Gatlinburg, going to the Titanic exhibit, and going to the Russell Stover Outlet. Just to name a few.

 

[Diaz]

The Great Smokie Mountain National Park has several hiking trails that are fun for families. Hike to a waterfall. Drive to Cade's Cove early in the day to look for bears. Whitewater rafting and tubing in the town of Townsound. Drive the Roaring Fork Motor Nature trail. Have fun!

 

[loves to dive]

There are a number of cabins you can rent in the area for a fairly good price. Gatlinburg itself would take at least a day and according to what time of year you are going there might be some local fairs going on. Go to Cade's Cove and tour the old farm there, it's real interesting. Cherokee is not far away and they have a living history village you can tour.

 

[cabanafrau]

Parking in Gatlinburg is horrible/nonexistent in season. Best decision we ever made was renting a condo through VRBO which was located within walking distance to town. We had great accommodations to spread out in, the car stayed there, we could walk less than five min. to the parkway and onto whatever we wanted, or hop the trolleys if our destination was farther out. We stayed at a Baskins Creek condo just off of traffic light five or six (whichever one had the aquarium).

Set aside some serious time to enjoy the national park -- best attraction hands down. Dollywood is also quite fun.

 

[JaxDad]

We went to Pigeon Forge for the first time this past July and had a great time! We stayed at the SpringHill Suites--there is no shortage of hotels. We spent our days in the park, mostly hiking, but also doing a couple of the drives already mentioned. We also did whitewater rafting, which was awesome (rafting is done primarily out of Hartford). In the evenings we did all the tourist stuff in Pigeon Forge--dinner shows, go carts, arcades, shopping at The Island, etc. We did spend one day in Gatlinburg and visited the aquarium and walked up and down the main strip. It was very nice, and there is a lot to do there. We stayed five nights total, which was about right. I could see staying a day less or 1-2 more, mostly to do more stuff in the park. Before our trip I requested a free tour book online and used that as a starting point. It also had coupons. There are also a couple threads on the Budget Board, if you go back to May or June.

 

[dashofsunshine]

We go there quite often and have since I was a kid. We live in Nashville, so we go for the weekend sometimes. Definitely look into cabins on VRBO - we have had some quite nice accommodations, though we basically stay in a different cabin every time depending on how many family members/friends are with us on each trip. We love hiking, especially Laurel Falls - it's pretty easy, short, and has beautiful falls at the end. We have done Ober Gatlinburg in the winter and that's quite fun, especially the snow tubing. Dollywood is great, and we always walk down the strip and visit Sugarlands and Ole Smoky (moonshine distilleries). My best friend's family owns the Christmas Place and we always love going there, we are Christmas people! Haha. If you are into arts/crafts at all there is a massive arts and crafts community in Gatlinburg - they have a really large "loop" of road that spans like 8 miles, all dotted with pottery, painting, and woodworking studios. Very cool.

We have a Pancake Pantry here in Nashville, but you definitely need to visit the one on the strip in Gatlinburg. Who doesn't love pancakes?! Also, the Old Mill Restaurant in Pigeon Forge isn't far and their food is PLENTIFUL and yummy. Be prepared to wait at both of those locations. Worth it though.

My favorite place to eat in Gatlinburg is off the beaten path - the Wild Plum Tea Room. They have a closed season and even in open season are only open a few hours a day, so check the hours ahead of time. They have a small menu of fresh, made daily dishes - they also have specials every day (the Lobster Pie!!). They have their own trademark Wild Plum Tea, hot or cold, and it is delicious. We come here every trip. The restaurant is in an old log cabin and very quaint.

Hope you have a fun trip!!

 

[MIGrandma]

That area is one of our favorite vacation destinations, the last time we went was March 2014 so it's about time to go again.

Twice we rented cabins from Sunset Accommodations and had great service from them as well as beautiful log cabins in the mountains with tons of wonderful amenities. The third time we went I got on-line to check Sunset to see what cabins they were offering and their website was down so I decided to check out Aunt Bug's cabin rental and unfortunately we rented a cabin from them. NEVER again! Their photos of the cabin were extremely misleading, showing no other cabins in sight when in truth there were several plus it was right on a major road so tons of road noise. The cabin was filthy and I had to spend precious vacation time cleaning it to make it habitable. Complaints got us nowhere with them. Will go back to Sunset next time! We did spend two nights of our last vacation at the Hampton Inn in Gatlinburg (beside Ober Gatlinburg) and it was very nice and convenient for walking around in Gatlinburg.

Loads of wonderful restaurants in the area, some of our favorites are Huck Finn's, The Old Mill, Applewood Farmhouse, Bennett's BBQ, Corky's BBQ.

So many things to do there, lots of choices and for us just never enough time to do them all. But gives us reasons to go back. We especially love the Smoky Mountains, so many opportunities for nice mountain drives and hiking as well.

Send for their visitor's booklets, lots of information in those, or just do some on-line research. We always stay 8-9 nights whenever we go.

 

[jl]

we stayed 4 nights & 5 days in Pigeon Forge the 1st week of August (2015) @ the Hampton Inn Suites - right across the street from the Christmas Hotel. Hampton Inn Suites was built in 2014 & was great - had a great pool & large hot tub, covered patio with outdoor fireplace, rocking chairs, great rooms & very affordable. There were 4 of us in two separate rooms, 2 grandparents, our 36 yr. old son & his young teen daughter.

We drove the 15 miles or so to Gatlinburg several times. Gatlinburg is very congested & we loved visiting (just too crowded all the time to stay the whole time.) We had a rental car as we drove down from NY state. We did whitewater rafting, ziplining, really enjoyed the Old Mill area in Pigeon Forge. Lots to do. We drove up through a federal park (Cherokee?)/forest in Gatlinburg & loved it. All paved road & lots of places to pull over & get out (1 way roads). Saw close up a young bear...very exciting. Went to hiking area & saw other hikers & felt very safe.

We would love to go in the fall sometime! We would stay at the Hampton Inn Suites again.

We did drive up into the mountains to see the cabins & they were gorgeous but they were quite a drive from all the food & attractions. The rental cabins owned by the Dollywood company were just gorgeous. We looked online before we went at the cabins but felt there were too many choices & did not want to arrive & find something not what we wanted. Also, with the high 90 degree heat we loved the pool. All of the cabins are right up in the mountains & views were beautiful, but nothing around outdoors - no picnic table, lawn chairs, etc. It appeared to us that they were furnished beautifully but with all the bears & other outdoor animals not really designed as camping out areas...just very beautiful views & luxurious indoor accomadations. The paved roads were very steep with lots of tight turns going up & coming back down.