After our first trip to Pigeon Forge in September, we knew we wanted to spend more time in the area for hiking, local attractions, and Dollywood. The kids surprisingly had a five day weekend from school at the beginning of November and we were initially thinking of Iceland or something more international; however, the cost of flights made us re-assess where we wanted to travel. Since we had already discussed getting back to Pigeon Forge at some point, this turned out to be a great opportunity. We did tent camping in September mostly because I wasn’t comfortable with our current truck (a 2007 Nissan Titan with 180k miles) towing the camper over the mountains. My mom wanted to go with us on this trip but she’s not comfortable tent camping any more, so we decided on renting a cabin at the same KOA we stayed at last time. The cabins were reasonably priced, especially because a couple of the nights were during the week vs the weekend. Whenever staying at any campgrounds, KOA’s especially, it’s almost always a significant rate difference between weeknight and weekend. The cabin rental was $110/night on Friday and Saturday but then dropped to $60/night on Sunday and Monday. We are in the very early stages of planning a cross country trip and one of the goals would be stay at state/national parks and dry camp on the weekends and then stay at KOAs during the week when rates are lower. but we could still let the kids enjoy the extra amenities.
The only downside to the timing of this trip was that Thursday was Halloween! Normally, we would leave right after the kids got off school to maximize our time, but for this trip we stayed local for trick-or-treating and getting a good night sleep and then hit the road around 9am on Friday. With a couple of stops and some minor traffic we ended up getting to the campground around 7:30pm. The cabin was a little tight, we had stayed at 6-person cabins before that were two rooms: queen in one room with the fridge, microwave, and table and then two double bunks in a second room. This cabin was only one room, full bunks on one side and double bunks on the other, plus the fridge, microwave, and small table. The upside was a nice porch with a hanging swing/glider and a very large deck with patio set. We thought we were going to be arriving just in time for Christmas lights, and while they were setting them up all around town the official lighting wasn’t until November 7th and we were leaving on the 5th…so close.
Saturday started with a 4 mile run along the river walk and checking out some of the holiday light displays. Then we all walked to the Old Mill town, it was a very short 1/4 mile walk from the campground along the river walk path. We started with breakfast/brunch at The Old Mill Restaurant, luckily we got there at just the right time and there was hardly no wait. The warm biscuits with fresh jam and pumpkin muffins were amazing. The southern omelet was delicious and the kids enjoyed the pancakes, would definitely recommend going to anyone else staying in the area. After breakfast we walked around the old town shops. There was some local art and woodcraft for sale, the general store, and of course I had to get another coffee from Espresso Yourself. Kristen also bought a couple of new plants from The Microgarden. The kids enjoyed watching taffy being made at The Old Mill Candy Kitchen and I enjoyed watching the blacksmiths forge knives and swords at Iron Mountain Metal Craft. We walked back to the campground and got the kids in the pool for awhile before Halloween festivities started. After pool time and dinner at the cabin, the kids participated in a costume contest and then walked around the campground for trick or treating. At the end of the night we decided to do the haunted house at the campground. Hope has been getting more adventurous with scary stuff and Autumn wanted to give it a try, everyone had fun (even thought Autumn kept her eyes closed the whole time) and the KOA did a great job of putting it together.
Sunday was an early start to drive to Clingman’s Dome (Kuwohi). Mom and I had the brilliant idea of driving through Gatlinburg to get coffee on the way. Smoky Mountain Coffee & Creamery was great, the “sweater weather” coffee was delicious and the service was quick. However, traffic in Gatlinburg was terrible…I would be completely ok never driving through that town again! Once we finally got back on the road we made good time entering the Great Smoky Park and stopped at several overlooks on the way to Kuwohi. I was surprised at how much the weather changed as we ascended from 1,000′ elevation up to 6,000′. The sunny 60 degree morning turned into heavy clouds and 47 degrees. The hike up to Kuwohi summit from the parking lot is very steep but not too long, about a 1/2 mile. The kids did great and we were excited to see mom-mom commit to climbing all the way to the top. We all made it to the observation tower at the summit….too bad the clouds were extremely limiting on visibility. After getting back to the campground that afternoon we all got ready for a dinner show. Pirates Voyage Dinner Show was a blast, the whole family enjoyed the entire show. We have all been to Medieval times before but it was cool to see a show on water, with a lot more acrobatics, and different types of animal encounters. The parrot sin the beginning were cool but our favorite was “Salty” the sea lion. His bark was loud and he was very entertaining! The dinner was good with fried chicken, corn on the cob, mac and cheese, and soup and biscuits. The dessert wasn’t great but we were all pretty full from dinner.
After dinner we were all pretty exhausted but Hope and I did manage to get in the pool at the campground before it was time to get ready for bed. On Monday I got a 3 mile run in along the river path to start the day, I also had some meetings I had to dial into for work which worked out because Dollywood didn’t open until 11am. We bought tickets at the camp store and walked over to the trolley station. You can ride all day for $3 and the trolley has stops anywhere in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, it’s a great and convenient way to get around. Dollywood was a lot of fun, they had a mix of rides for all ages. Unfortunately the kids are at the age where they like different rides, so this means we end up splitting up a lot of the time at amusement parks. Hope and I went to tackle the best rollercoasters we could find and Kristen and the grandmom’s stayed with Autumn. Lines were extremely short, which was amazing!! We got on Tennessee Tornado twice and Wild Eagle once before we met back up with everyone to get Autumn on the Fire Chaser Coaster. Initially she didn’t like it but afterward she said it was one of her favorite rides. We also got everyone on Barnstormer which was a lot of fun. Kristen rode Mystery Mine with me and Hope, this was by far our favorite roller coaster. We also rode Thunderhead which was super fast for a wooden coaster and did a family ride on the coal train (I would not recommend just due to the amount of coal and ash we were trying to keep out of our eyes and off the kids stuffed animals). While everyone else headed back to the campground, Hope and I stayed at the park to ride Mystery Mine 5 more times before they closed, One of our other favorite parts of Dollywood was the atmosphere and landscaping. The entire park was decorated for Christmas with light displays everywhere. The park also has a “small mountain town” feel to it with the landscaping, gardens, water wheels, and amount of theaters/shows.
After our amazing and exhausting day at Dollywood, we woke up on Tuesday and packed up the car to head home. Our drive back was pretty uneventful and we made it home in about 9 hours with little/no traffic. We probably won’t get back to Pigeon Forge in the near future since we’ve covered a lot of the sights now, but it was a memorable trip and I’m sure we will be there again at some point.