A Little Bit of Background & Info
Back in September David and I had the chance to get to finally get away and go on what I would call a REAL vacation! We haven’t really been anywhere other than my Grandparents/a trip to the N.C. Mountains in FOREVER. Actually, I hadn’t even been to those places in a while either! One of our favorite places to get to go is TN (David has a real obsession with wanting to live in TN one day).
Anyways, we had been twice in the past and I decided to see how far my blogging could take us with getting some things for this trip. We had stayed at Wilderness at the smokies twice before and really enjoyed it, so they were first in my mind to see if they would be interested to work with me! Generally David and I have only went to Wilderness in the winter time (I am talking about SNOW ON THE GROUND the one time we went!) I was excited when I got a “Yes” response to being able to go for 2 nights in exchange for a review of my honest thoughts/opinions and an account of my experiences!
In case you don’t know Wilderness at the Smokies is an awesome hotel with a waterpark RIGHT THERE AT THE HOTEL, and it is only for the hotel guests, and YES it is included with your stay! You can even use it the day of your arrival even before your room is available and the day of your check out as long as you want too! It is located in Sevierville Tn, which is very near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg as well! There are several outdoor water attractions, but I haven’t managed to luck up and be able to do any of them because of the timing of my visits. I am hoping maybe someday!
There are TWO hotels but no matter which one you stay at, the waterpark is included. You have the River Lodge which is connected directly to the Wild water dome(indoor water park) and then you have the Stone Hill Lodge which is located across the street and connected with the Sevierville Events center! There is a shuttle bus that you can ride back and forth between the hotel and the waterpark so you don’t have to worry about driving back and forth or walking or anything of that nature!
The two previous times that David and I have visited we stayed at the Stone Hill Lodge and are very familiar with riding the shuttle bus! I know that if I stay again and stay there and it is cold out I am gonna bring a robe because it gets a little cold!
Let’s get this trip started:
David and I dropped Marley off at my father in laws since we couldn’t take her with us! It was the first time we had ever been away from her and I missed her and Sam terribly! I hate leaving my fur babes! and we managed to arrive around 12:30 or so to check in. Our room was already ready and I was so happy to have been able to get to experience staying at the River Lodge this time around in a BUNK ROOM. Check in went smoothly and everyone was very friendly towards us!
(David on the top bunk of the bunk bed.I was too chicken to get up there lol)
I was shocked at how big the room was, and I kind of wish we would have invited someone to go along with us. Notice I said KIND OF lol. The room was clean and very spacious! We had a bunk bed, regular bed, 2 flat screen tv’s , a table, a love seat and even a patio! Of course we had a bathroom and a coffee maker and even a mini fridge too! There was a partial wall to separate the two beds as well!
(Check out all that pink luggage lol)
Neat Features:
Something that was really interesting to me was that you got an extra key card to use to help control the air conditioner with! It was really neat! This is to help with saving energy of course! You also get wrist bands to wear for the waterpark and something new since I have been there was towel cards! This way they can help with the number of towels that you use while you are there!
Finding some Lunch:
The night before I had been really sick and had spent most of the night throwing up and I felt HORRID. After we carried all of our stuff up we decided to find something there to eat because I knew they had several restaurants on site and I really didn’t feel up to being out and about just at that time. I generally do shy away from eating or doing anything that you have to pay extra for when staying at a hotel because it is generally a little bit overpriced.
There are several restaurants to choose from at Wilderness at the Smokies, and we chose Mountianplace Market & Deli! I am a big fan of subs and sandwiches and well they had them so I was like Why not? We got 2 lunch combos with a sub, chips and drinks for $7 each! I was pleasantly shocked and found that to be fairly reasonable! It was also very yummy! We took them back to the room and enjoyed getting settled a little bit! I would totally recommend if you are a sub person to check those out while you are there. Especially since you know people say I am such a picky eater!
Settling in & Starting to have a little fun!
I was still feeling like “death on a cracker” so I told David if he wanted to go check out the arcade or whatever I would just take a quick nap! The room was AWESOME dark with the curtain to the patio closed and I took THE BEST NAP EVER! It was only about 45 minutes long but it helped out SO VERY MUCH. I finally felt up to walking around and checking out some of the activities that didn’t involve water!
We wanted to play the Cataloochee Creek outdoor mini golf but there was a little bit of confusion about if they were letting people play it that day since it was outside. The note outside had said to get your clubs and balls from the Moonshine run indoor golf station but the gal said it was closed and we would have to play the inside one instead. When we went to pay we asked and the guy said it was in fact open outside and gave us the inside rate too! It was under $10 bucks too!
David and I had a blast playing it even though we didn’t really do that well. I wish I would have taken some water outside because it was so hot and humid!
When we went back to the room David went and got us a funnel cake even though we were going to be going to Dixie stampede that evening. We did end up going to dixie and both of us got sick and had to leave early. We went to walmart for drink and some snacks and then went to bed really early!
Day # 2
We got up really early and decided to go to go into Gatlinburg and explore for a bit. When we came back we did a bit more exploring in the hotel! 
We ended up spending a good amount of time at the waterpark and especially in the hot tub. I ADORE the hot tub the most of all! I love how you can go through this little plastic partition and even be outside and in the hot tub! I also love that even if the weather totally sucks you can still enjoy the waterpark. The temperature is also a consistent 80ish degrees! The funny thing was I had thought we would have cooler weather while we were there but it was actually more hot there than it was at home!
We also spent a good amount of time at the arcade that afternoon because that is a big thing with David when we go places lol. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to get with our tokens so we ended up giving them to some random little kid and made their day!
I had hoped to play a little bit of bowling but we didn’t end up getting to do that.. Hopefully next time!
We did manage to lock ourselves out of the room when we went to try to find me a snack late that afternoon. Thankfully David had his I.D on him (even though we left the key .. not sure how that happened!)
We spent most of the evening watching t.v in the room because at that point we didn’t have cable at home and hadn’t in many years lol. I also liked watching the local channel with all the different places that you can go visit.
We had these round pillows on the bed that David is now obsessed with finding one and we haven’t had any luck! Oh and we even saw a guy on the local channel that looks like David & My Dad’s boss Russell lol.
Checking out
I was SO Sad when it was time to check out! I know that I had saw that if you checked out before 8 a/m you could get 2 free starbucks coffees so since we were up we went ahead and took advantage of that!
Summing it Up:
We had an absolute BLAST on this vacation! It was by far the best vacation that we have ever got to take! It was enjoyable and relaxing and we got to a lot of things that we would not normally get to do while on vacation! We really enjoyed it and we hope that we can get the chance to go back and get to enjoy the outdoor water activities at some point (4th time would be the charm?). I would very much like to thank the awesome folks at Wilderness at the Smokies for an awesome and memorable vacation and can’t wait to visit ya’ll again!
