Celebrating in the Smokies: Gatlinburg
Pigeon Forge's next-door neighbor, Gatlinburg, is the other touristy mecca that serves as a gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Less Vegas Strip and more Atlantic City Boardwalk, Gatlinburg integrates the natural feature that the area is famous for, which in this case is mountains! While you can still find the kitschy souvenir shops and Deep Fried Oreo stands, the main attractions are mountain-based. Anthony and I had a lot of chairlift riding in our Week of Fun itinerary, as we made our way to the best mountaintop amusements in Gatlinburg.
Anakeesta
A fairly new addition to the Gatlinburg attractions, Anakeesta is a mountaintop park that boasts a botanic garden, treetop suspension bridge walkway, ziplining, a mountain coaster, and a variety of shops and food stands. You have the choice of riding up the mountain in a rambler (vehicle), or hopping a chairlift or enclosed gondola. We opted for whichever was quickest, which was the chairlift, and we're glad we chose it because this was where we spotted our first black bear! We didn't have a good enough view to snap a better photo than this blurry "bear bottom" picture, but having an aerial view of our first bear sighting was a really nice birthday present.
I had seen Anakeesta photos on Instagram and was mesmerized by its beauty, but in true Instagram fashion, the real thing didn't quite live up to the hype. Perhaps if we had gone at night, when they illuminate the park with twinkle lights, it would have added to the whimsy. We did enjoy taking in the spectacular surrounding views, and walking the treetop suspension bridges was fun. The botanic garden left a little to be desired; we thought we still had more to see but then realized it only spanned a very small portion of the park. The park's walkways had little artistic details that I quite liked, including sculptures made out of twigs and little painted birdhouses. There were also speakers playing some type of Zen music which I found interesting. It was a little too Disney-esque for my liking, but I do appreciate attempts to blend music into nature!
In typical amusement park fashion, lots of the mountaintop attractions were an added cost on top of cost of admission. We did not pay extra for ziplining because it was insanely expensive, but we did shell out $15 each to try the mountain coaster, the only single rail mountain coaster in the United States.
This was where our Anakeesta experience really went downhill, and I'm not punning either. We had tried quite a few mountain coasters already and had high expectations for a single rail coaster. The let-down was real...and a bit painful! First off, let's talk about the organization of this ride. They assign you a boarding time, which at first we were thrilled about because we thought it meant less wait time in line. Um, not so much. In fact, this was our longest wait time by far, of all the coasters we did. Not only did we wait 15 minutes before our boarding time, but when we got in line at the coaster, we had to wait an additional hour! During our wait, we had plenty of time to dissect what was going on. We discovered that the boarding times are on the half-hour. So, our time was 4:30pm, and the next group of riders would be coming down at 5pm. The problem with this is, there are lots of people per boarding time, with everyone coming down in giant clumps! This is actually a huge flaw, because if I were Anakeesta, I'd rather have riders spend more time waiting for their assigned time and less time in a line, because we can't buy things when we're waiting in line! But if Anakeesta likes losing out on opportunities to make more money, who am I to stop them? If I had known this procedure earlier, I would have told Anthony that we should try to sneak down to the coaster immediately, instead of waiting 15 minutes until our board time. After all, the 4pm riders had all already headed down, so it's not like we'd be cutting in line anyway.
The next let-down was the actual operation of the ride. During our hour wait, we saw at least 2 coaster cars that needed to be passed by, due to some mechanical issue. This meant an even longer wait for riders, and while I'm glad they were diligent about safety, it kind of shows the quality of the coaster.
When we finally got our chance to ride, that's when the nightmare truly began. First off, this coaster isn't built properly for a single-track. Anthony has a background in physics so he could explain it better, but in his simplest term, the rails didn't "bank" properly. When we compared notes after our rides, we both agreed that the ride was very jarring, and we both at times felt like we were going to fly out of our seats - and not in a thrilling way. We had double seatbelts, and by the first downhill and turn, mine were already loosened about 6 inches. Not to mention the car seats are very shallow, as you can see in the photo above. There is nothing to catch us when we're going airborne around twists and turns. Anthony and I are fans of speed on these coasters, but going anything more than half-speed felt like a death sentence. We also noticed lots of signs saying to slow down. Um, but if we are supposed to slow down then why are the cars built to go faster than that? They expect riders to have enough sense to read signs when they fly down the track? No wonder it's the only coaster that made us sign a waiver!
But the nightmare didn't last long, since by the time we realized how poorly built this coaster was, the ride was over. It was about 26 seconds long. (Compare that to the longest coaster we did in the Smokies which was 9 minutes, with most falling in the middle). We also didn't like that the downhill was first, followed by the climb back up the mountain. They had to work with the mountain, of course, but there's something about the anticipation of climbing up that first hill before riding like the wind.
I said the nightmare didn't last long, but my muscle aches from being flopped around like a ragdoll lasted days, so...let's just leave it at, we do not recommend the mountain coaster at Anakeesta. Is the trip up the mountain worth it in general? We'd say yes especially if you can go at an off-time and not wait too long for your chairlift ride. The views are beautiful, the park is well-maintained, and the treetop walkway is unique. Plus we hear that they will be adding more features to the park. Will this increase price of admission? Probably, but time will tell.
Skylift Park
If heights aren't your thing, then brace yourself. Skylift park holds the record for the longest pedestrian cable bridge in North America! To add to the potential for vertigo, if you're brave enough to walk the bridge, you'll also come to see-through panels in the bridge, where you can look straight down to the land below.
Don't watch if heights make you queasy:
This is Skylift Park's claim to fame, and to be honest, really the only feature worth taking the chairlift ride up. On top of the mountain is also a little trail and lookout tower, and a nice deck with chairs for enjoy the view. There's a souvenir and food center that's pretty standard for these types of attractions, and that's about it. We initially planned to go on a Wednesday evening as they have live music from 6-9pm Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (at least in springtime), but we went in the afternoon instead because we had time and there weren't any crowds. I'm sure the live music helps patrons stick around a while longer, but even after sitting down with a couple slushies, we were in and out in an hour.
Ober Gatlinburg
A little piece of German mountain towns have arrived to Gatlinburg in the form of Ober Gatlinburg. I feel like I've said this before in the blog, but no, it wasn't authentically German. That said, we were really excited to go to Ober because it's more focused around outdoor recreation than Anakeesta and Skylift Park. Ober has a mountain coaster, of course, but it also has an alpine slide, some water slides, a wildlife sanctuary, and an actual hiking trail. There is an outdoor maze, lots of kiddie rides, and even tubing! Ober is a ski destination in the winter, but in the summer months they convert the snow tubing hill into, well, non-snow tubing. Inside, there is an ice skating rink that also holds ice bumper cars. Then there are the typical shops and food stands.
Locals always say that the weather in the Smokies can change at the drop of a hat, and they aren't kidding. We thought we had it bad in New England! On the morning we decided to go to Ober, there was no rain in the forecast. By the time we got to Gatlinburg, the rain had poured and the mountains were shrouded in clouds. We figured the weather would clear up eventually, and so we went up the mountain anyway.
Unlike the other two attractions we mentioned, Ober brings you up in a giant gondola. Don't worry, though, you can still get your chairlift fix, because they have a scenic chairlift that brings you up to the summit of Mount Harrison, nearly 3600 feet in elevation gain. We took the lift, despite knowing we'd see nothing at the top. But fog can be fun too!
Due to the weather, the mountain coaster and alpine slide weren't operating, but we expected them to open before we left. We decided to do all the other attractions first. We saw the wild animals, went tubing, did the maze (where we timed fast enough to win a prize!), and dueled on the ice bumper cars. Soon the mountain coaster was reopened, and we were two of four people on the ride. Finally a coaster where we could go at our own pace without anyone slowing us down! Also, props to Ober for still allowing the coaster to go uphill first, despite already being on a mountain. Anakeesta should take notes. Now, the Ober coaster wasn't the most fun, but I'll take an empty mediocre coaster over a crowded good coaster.
After we partook in all our activities (minus the hiking trail because I was still in pain from the Anakeesta coaster), it was time to patiently wait for the alpine slide to open. We watched as the workers dried the tracks with towels, and we thought any minute now! But unfortunately, too much time had ticked by, and we had evening plans we needed to get ready for. I had a feeling we would miss the reopening by sheer minutes, and sure enough, when we got back to our truck, I checked the announcements page, and the alpine slide had opened while we were on the gondola heading down the mountain. Ugh! That's the way it goes sometimes. This won't be our only chance to do an alpine slide this summer, but we'll have to wait a while. Going to Ober in inclement weather was well worth it, though. It's not every day the line queues look like this:
No waiting for the gondolas, the scenic chairlift, or the mountain coaster, plus we had tubing all to ourselves!
One thing I'll also say about Ober is that, they don't force you to pay extra for the attractions. You can buy a wristband which gives you all attractions included, and it's not anywhere near as expensive as buying everything a la carte. Even without the alpine slide and hiking trail, we more than paid for our wristbands with everything we did. Ober lived up to our expectations. While not as scenic and pristine as the other two mountaintop attractions, the outdoor, alpine vibe was very welcome.
We didn't spend as much time in Gatlinburg compared to Pigeon Forge, due to the location of our campground. As such, we didn't go to any Gatlinburg restaurants or do much shopping there. We also did neither of the stand-alone mountain coasters in downtown Gatlinburg. There is simply too much to do in the area, and while the townie activities were fun, we were ready to switch gears and head into the wilderness! It was time to see what the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was really all about.