Mommy was less than excited about visiting the aquarium. It's expensive, and she saw "Ripley's" and thought "cheesy tourist trap." However, Daddy has been talking about this aquarium and wanting to visit for a long, looooong time. So we went. I will say, we are all aquarium junkies and therefore have been to tons of them and are hard to impress, but we won Mommy over pretty quickly. This is a great aquarium! It's got an awesome tot setup. There's a big room with small aquariums that kids can crawl under and come up in a hole underneath so the fish swim around them. Brother thought this was amazing. Every time Mommy or Daddy would lift him up in the middle of the aquarium, he'd start jabbering up a storm and waving his arms all excited. There are also interactive displays around the room for the kids to play with and learn from, I was super intrigued by the one that explains fish anatomy. It had a giant fish and you'd push a button on each organ and it would light up and tell you about it's function. There are also two different touch tanks where kids can climb up and touch rays and horseshoe crabs. The only difficult part was the shark tank. There's a huge tunnel where you can go under the big tank with sharks and other ocean fish. It's really neat, but they have a slow moving electric walkway that goes under the tank. It's a good idea in theory; it keeps everyone single file so even the littlest ones can see and keeps people moving. However, it was just a little too long and slow Tot and Brother both got pretty restless and Mommy got a little dizzy. The space under the tunnel is big enough that you can step off of the walkway if you need to, which we did. We walked a little more quickly though the second half of the tunnel and enjoyed it quite a bit more that way. Overall, one of the best aquariums we've seen (and we've been to a lot!)
Tickets for just the aquarium (if you buy tickets to more than one Ripley's attraction, you get discounts)
Adults: $22.99
Ages 6-11: $11.99
Ages 2-5: $5.99
Under 2: Free
Showing posts with label Gatlinburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gatlinburg. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Roaring Forks Motor Nature Trail
The Roaring Forks Motor Nature Trail is a 6 mile, one way loop just outside of Gatlinburg, TN. The road is a beautiful drive and the location of several trailheads including Rainbow Falls, and Grotto Falls. To get there, turn at traffic light #8 in Gatlinburg, TN onto Cherokee Orchard Road. This road turns into the Roaring Forks Motor Nature Trail.
The "Place of a Thousand Drips" is at the very end of the road just before you start heading back into town. It is supposed to be amazingly beautiful when the weather has been especially wet.
The "Place of a Thousand Drips" is at the very end of the road just before you start heading back into town. It is supposed to be amazingly beautiful when the weather has been especially wet.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Camping at Elkmont
Wednesday 7.6.2011 - Saturday 7.9.2011
Location: Little River Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From US 441, turn at the Sugarlands Visitor Center (we missed this turn, it looks like you are turning into the visitor center, but it is actually Little River Road!)
Our site: G20.
We made our reservation the week before we went, and as this is one of the more popular campgrounds in the park there were not many sites available. If we'd had our pick, we probably would have stayed at the other end of the campground closer to the hiking trails and the river. This was not one of our favorite campgrounds. Its prime location and popularity make it a very busy campground. We still had a lot of fun (hard not to have fun in the woods!) but the campsites are all very close together and small. The Little River runs through the middle of the campground and a good number of campsites are on the water. These fill up fast though, so if you want a riverside campsite plan to make your reservation towards the end of the 6 month reservation window, especially during the summer and fall and even moreso if you're hoping for a holiday weekend stay.
For information and reservations click here.
On this camping trip we did two hikes, Grotto Falls and Laurel Falls. Daddy also took me fishing in the Little River and we went to the aquarium in Gatlinburg. You can also go tubing or swimming in the Little River and you aren't too far from Cade's Cove which we skipped this trip, since we'd just been there two weeks ago and there were plenty of other things we wanted to see and do.
Like anywhere in the Smokies, you can expect rain at some point nearly every day. It may just be a light sprinkle, it may a storm that passes through quickly, or it may pour and pour. You never know what kind of precipitation you'll get, you just know that it will rain. We are always determined to have fun despite the weather, however. I splashed in puddles in my new rain boots, we have a rain shelter to keep our chairs and table dry and we bring cards to play when we're tired of getting wet (pretty sure Mommy is sick of playing War for hours on end). Usually the rain doesn't come until the late afternoon or evening and if you're really lucky it may just rain while you sleep.
I want to go camping and sleep in a tent every day!
Location: Little River Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From US 441, turn at the Sugarlands Visitor Center (we missed this turn, it looks like you are turning into the visitor center, but it is actually Little River Road!)
Our site: G20.
We made our reservation the week before we went, and as this is one of the more popular campgrounds in the park there were not many sites available. If we'd had our pick, we probably would have stayed at the other end of the campground closer to the hiking trails and the river. This was not one of our favorite campgrounds. Its prime location and popularity make it a very busy campground. We still had a lot of fun (hard not to have fun in the woods!) but the campsites are all very close together and small. The Little River runs through the middle of the campground and a good number of campsites are on the water. These fill up fast though, so if you want a riverside campsite plan to make your reservation towards the end of the 6 month reservation window, especially during the summer and fall and even moreso if you're hoping for a holiday weekend stay.
For information and reservations click here.
Like anywhere in the Smokies, you can expect rain at some point nearly every day. It may just be a light sprinkle, it may a storm that passes through quickly, or it may pour and pour. You never know what kind of precipitation you'll get, you just know that it will rain. We are always determined to have fun despite the weather, however. I splashed in puddles in my new rain boots, we have a rain shelter to keep our chairs and table dry and we bring cards to play when we're tired of getting wet (pretty sure Mommy is sick of playing War for hours on end). Usually the rain doesn't come until the late afternoon or evening and if you're really lucky it may just rain while you sleep.
I want to go camping and sleep in a tent every day!
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