Kitsch was everywhere in Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge, where this Wonderworks attraction was located.

In order to reach this old fashioned, traffic filled, tourist town abutting the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, you have to drive off Route 40 and down through a more modern tourist enclave called Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood, and Dollywood’s Splash Country – Dolly Parton’s down home answer to Disneyland. Here we discovered an enormous eye catching upside down building called Wonderwork, the facade to a giant games arcade with massive amounts of screaming happy children.

So am I recommending these activities to families? Well, if crowds, kitsch, and mid-range motels, buffet dinners and definitely not ready for Broadway dinner theater appeals – Pigeon Forge is the capital!

We came for the national park, and chose Gatlinburg as a closer stay. Years ago, family relatives had settled in on rocking chairs at boarding houses in Gatlinburg, and oddly enough, you’ll see some old fashioned hotels, with rockers on the porches, still located in town. We stayed at the modern Hilton Garden Inn just off the main drag. The rooms are not large, but all the amenities are in place, and the small hotel dining room offered the best food choices for us. If you like foot long hot dogs and corn on the cob on sticks, there are plenty of other choices in town.

We dined first, having arrived late in the day out of Nashville, and then set off to explore the town on foot. We found that although Gatlinburg may be a small town and have somewhat small town attractions, they’re not inexpensive. I spent as much on the Mystery Theater and Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Museum here as I would’ve on an off Broadway play and dinner in New York. But I’m not really complaining. It was an experience we enjoyed and… probably won’t repeat.

The Mystery Theater – not much of a mystery. They tell you a ghost story, unrealistic mannequins and a stage set fall into darkness while a ghost story is told via recording. The kitsch made it amusing, but you can scratch that one off your list. Not so Ripleys. Although a chain, Ripley’s has always been fun, and offers unique, bizarre exhibits everywhere. I’ve let my kids persuade me to pay for exploring one of these attractions – Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Key West, Florida, home in LA, and in Gatlinburg. We especially enjoyed climbing into the giant chair that made us look like Thumbelina’s relatives. After seeing headless men and chambers of horrors (avoid the latter with smaller children), we were ready for some cotton candy, slightly oily fudge, famous sticky taffy, and a good look at the enormous collection of tee shirt stores that fill Gatlinburg’s main drag.

We loved splashing through puddles in this rainy National Park.

In the morning we headed into the park. Great Smoky Mountain National Park is misty with fog, has spectacular views and is green and wet. Over eight hundred miles long, the park has over fifty five inches of rainfall a year, even at lower elevations, thirty inches more at the top. Bring your rain poncho, regardless of the season. U.S. Highway 441 cuts through the park, providing access to many look out points and trail heads. Newfound Gap is in the center of the park, and it was here in 1940 that President Roosevelt dedicated the national park. Another historic part of the park is Cades Cove, a lovely valley that contains historic town buildings established before the community was absorbed into the park. The valley contains a number of log structures that our kids enjoyed exploring.  The John Oliver Cabin, both the Baptist and Methodist church and their adjacent cemeteries are well worth exploring. Our favorite was the Myers Barn.

At the other end of the park, we enjoyed look out points around and access to part of the Appalachian trail. Kids of all ages will enjoy the excitement of vast, forest filled views coming in and out of focus through mist and cloud. The park has a magical, lush green feeling that our kids really enjoyed – and be warned, our kids also greatly enjoyed splashing through puddles. If you’re driving a rental car instead of a family car on a cross country drive, you won’t mind the puddles as much.

Puddles splashed through, we also took a short hike at Clingman Dome, the highest elevation in the park. We walked out to the observation deck and after a passing rain shower, were rewarded with a grand view of tree, forest, hills and a rainbow. The park is almost entirely forested with old growth trees that were here long before European settlers arrived in America, and long before Gatlinburg began selling fudge to tourists.

Downtown Gatlinburg from the Gatlinburg Space Needle

I grew up outside Orlando, Florida, best known for its theme parks, amusement parks and family attractions. I never thought that I could find a town that was more of a tourist trap than Orlando. Over Christmas 2009, we decided to take an RV tour of the Southeast. One of our stops was Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a city that was decidedly more of a tourist trap than Orlando. But it was honestly the most fun tourist trap I could have imagined!

Getting Your Bearings

Gatlinburg is easily walkable

Getting your bearings in Gatlinburg is surprisingly easy. There’s one main road through town and all of the traffic lights are numbered. So instead of trying to watch for street signs and entrances, you just have to look for the number that matches the attraction you want to visit. The road does split into two at one end, which can be a little confusing the first few times, but it’s pretty easy to remember what’s located at each end. Street parking can be a bit tough to obtain, but reasonably priced public parking lots are found every few blocks. Gatlinburg is also highly walkable, so if you are staying in town, you may want to just leave the car at your hotel. We stayed in an RV park nearby, so we drove in each day and parked in a public garage near the middle of the main road.

Deciding What to Do

The Gatlinburg Space Needle is just one of dozens of attractions

The biggest challenge we found in Gatlinburg was deciding what to do with the two days that we had. There are literally dozens of attractions, shops and restaurants packed into several blocks. Every time we turned around, there was a highly themed mini-golf course, an arcade, a museum, a virtual reality experience or a wood carver shop drawing our attention.

Fortunately, I was a woman on a mission. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the very first thing I wanted to do in Gatlinburg was the Skylift. My parents went to Gatlinburg a number of years ago. My mom had been raised in a very conservative household where she was not allowed to do anything that my grandmother considered “dangerous.” Grandma’s threshold for danger was pretty low, so Mom’s childhood lacked the street fairs and carnival rides that most of us experienced. When my parents went to Gatlinburg, Mom said the Skylift was something her mother would have absolutely forbidden. So of course, it was the first thing they did. I had seen the photo and heard the story so many times that I absolutely had to check it out for myself.

The Skylift goes straight up Crockett Mountain

The Skylift is pretty cool. It’s like a ski resort chair lift that travels 1,800 feet up the side of Crockett Mountain. Since there’s no snow, the chair lift will return you to the bottom when you are ready to leave. There’s a small gift shop and some great views at the top. Since I’m somewhat afraid of heights, though, I’m glad I didn’t know until we were most of the way back down that the “safety bar” doesn’t latch! For this reason, you might want to have smaller children sit with an adult rather than on their own.

Quilt Shopping

The next order of business was to buy a quilt. My parents had bought me a quilt in the Appalachians several years before, and it was one of my most treasured items. However, having gone through multiple moves, a brief stint when I lived in a tent, Hurricane Katrina and years of RV living, my quilt had gradually fallen apart. It was shortly before Christmas, so Dad offered to buy me a replacement. We had visited a lot of stores during that trip through the Southeast, but nothing had ever seemed right. I found my quilt in Gatlinburg, at the Maple Tree shop. The design was perfect, the price was right, and best of all, the quilt was machine washable. I have never once regretted my decision. The shop was pretty neat to look around, and the sales staff was both helpful and very patient. I actually found the design I wanted in one location, but they didn’t have the right size in stock. So we bought the quilt from that shop, and picked it up at the other. It was all wrapped up and ready for us when we arrived.

Hollywood Wax Museum

For a brief moment, I was Rose in Titanic

The Hollywood Wax Museum would be at the top of my list when visiting Gatlinburg with kids. As kids at heart, Dad and I had a wonderful time. Every other wax museum that I’ve been to has had the wax figures behind a railing. Visitors could walk along the railing, take photos and appreciate the artistry. This was the only wax museum I’ve seen that was truly interactive!

In each spot, the characters were arranged in a scene with one person missing. Guests were welcome to step up and become part of the scene, creating fantastic photo opportunities. Some of the spots even had props or small costume pieces to help flesh out the illusion.

Who hasn’t wanted to step onto the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, board the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow or join Leonardo DiCaprio on the bow of the Titanic? There were several points where we had to wait for a group in front of us to finish their photos, but there was never a long line.

What We Learned

One of several elaborately themed minigolf courses

We just scratched the surface of all that Gatlinburg has to offer. I plan to return when we have several days to spare. Beyond deciding what to do, the biggest challenge is staying within budget. Each attraction is separately priced and, while each is reasonable, they can add up quickly. Add in fun foods and arcade games, and Gatlinburg can be expensive. Make a plan and set a budget in advance, and give the kids a few dollars to spend as they see fit. Doing what we did, and just showing up without knowing what to expect, is probably the least cost-effective way of seeing Gatlinburg. But it sure was fun!