SeaWorld Orlando!

I LOVE a Fall Break family trip! I've been planning this one for a few months and even though several things tried to derail it, we were able to go!

Mom has a condo just south of St. Augustine, Florida, and we used that as our home base this week for a few day trips of places we hadn't been or hadn't been in a while! We were up BRIGHT AND EARLY on Wednesday and left the house at 6:45 to head to Orlando to SeaWorld! The boys have been in recent years, but I hadn't been since they were toddlers and Eddie had never been before.

The weather was cool, the crowds were low and we had just been there for a minute when we were on our first ride of the day! (As I've gotten older, I MUCH prefer Disney's version of rides - "family" rides - and like roller coasters less and less. I think I rode TWO rides all day - and that was enough for me!)

I was there for the ORCAS. Wooohoooo! So excited to see these beauties!!! We went to SeaWorld when I was in middle school and I LOVED seeing them then. I'll have to dig up our old pictures. When we went in 2014, the orca stadium was closed so we saw them swimming, but nothing like what we got to see Wednesday. They're incredible. I'd LOVE to see them in the wild! James was amazed because he thought they were 8-10 feet. He's been to SeaWorld in the past 3 years but they didn't see the orcas at all (middle school trips = roller coasters only!) and he expected them to be about shark-size. Imagine his surprise!

I made the boys stop and look at ALL the animals on this trip!

Last time we were there, the dolphin tank was a touch tank. The keeper said that the dolphins had gotten really good at snatching phones and people had decided to feed the dolphins so they backed us up behind a rope unless you paid to do the close up viewing. Bummer!

At the end of the day when the boys had ridden everything, we let them go off on their own (!!!) to ride anything else they were interested while Eddie and I took in the second orca show of the day. I'm telling you, my whole ticket was purchased just to see them. If I'd gone alone I would've sat and watched their tank all day! 

We enjoyed our time at SeaWorld. If you've never been, you need to know that it's not Disney, but it has stepped up the theme park side in recent years. I suspect that the orcas' days are numbered since their breeding plan has ended. I know that's what is best so I wanted to be sure I saw them again before they aren't there anymore. SeaWorld felt smaller to me than Disney's parks. It wasn't crowded at all, but I can imagine on a crowded day it would feel tight quickly. The weather was AMAZING when we were there - we were never hot. Enjoying this in the "off season" was perfect. I'll also share that we bought our tickets online while standing in the security line to enter. The ticket booth price was DOUBLE the online price and they wouldn't have told me that if I hadn't known. If you see a deal and know when you want to go - grab it! We did not do the All Day Dining. We ate lunch in the middle of the day and the boys bought ice cream. I don't know that we will go back anytime soon since we've "been there, done that" now, but it was a great day spent for Fall Break!

 

Pigeon Forge - Dollywood

Our original purpose for heading to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, was to go to Dollywood! We've wanted to go for a few years and Fall Break seemed like the perfect time. Boy, was it! The temperature was perfect and the leaves were in prime leaf-turning time!

Dollywood is a theme park in Pigeon Forge that has undergone some facelifts and changes over the years. It's in a pretty big growing season right now, which I'm sure is exciting for the area. They have a new roller coaster coming in 2023 and have a plan to continue expansion after that! It was a gem of a theme park! It was exciting and full of rides, but had a quaint, homey feel as well! My ONLY complaint about it was that for rides it had baby rides or thrill rides and there was nothing in-between.

We decided to do TWO days in the park because looking online we found that two-day tickets were only $30 more than one-day tickets. Perfect! We'd heard that there was a possibility that we'd be able to use our Wild Adventures annual passes if we purchased tickets at the gate so Grandmamma took those and we waited to purchase until we arrived. If you're a member, DO THAT. Will, James, and Grandmamma all have passes and they each received a 50% discount on their tickets PLUS Eddie, Granddaddy, and I also got a 50% discount using their Wild Adventures Bring-a-Friend passes. Woohooo! The second day we went we wound up getting an offer from someone for 3 free passes (we assumed it was Dollywood Bring-A-Friend passes) so our overall cost per person per day wound up being $34! You can't beat that!

Rides! Our boys were tall enough to ride everything AND they could ride alone which was a huge win for us this trip! Their favorites were the Barnstormer (see James standing alone in front of that bizarre-looking swing), Tennessee Tornado, and Wild Eagle. Barnstormer was HORRIBLE looking and reminded me of a ride at the fair. James rode it twice all by himself. Will LOVED Wild Eagle, but I think we only did it once. It was a HUGE roller coaster with a major drop, lots of speed, and several inversions! Once was enough for me!

Because it was October, Dollywood had Harvest Festival happening. It was SO much fun. They had plenty of pumpkin-themed foods (we didn't try any) and lots of photo spots and characters. I'm going to be really honest - the characters were LAME compared to Disney World, but they don't exactly have movies that they can pull from. The owl character was CREEPY.

The absolute best thing we ate and the best bang-for-our-buck snack was the loaf of cinnamon bread that we bought (three times). It was AMAZING. Our first loaf came from the mill and the second and third ones came from the Starbucks (bakery). The first one was TONS better, but I'm not sure if it was the location or just the batch - they just didn't have nearly the amount of cinnamon as the first. Holy moly these were good! I think 20 people told me before going to be sure to get the cinnamon bread and we were SO glad that we did. (We didn't think the apple butter added anything to it so you can skip that extra!)

It was SUCH a fun trip and I'm sure we will be back again in the future!

Pigeon Forge - The Trip Up & Where We Stayed

 Several months ago, Eddie and I began to talk about the possibility of going to Universal for Fall Break. I really want to take Will while he's still in the "Harry Potter phase," but Eddie wasn't super interested because October in Orlando can still be HOT (and hurricane-y). We started considering Dollywood in Pigeon Forge instead and when his mom also mentioned it, we decided it was a go.

We began looking for a place to stay and initially we thought about trying to get rooms at the Dollywood resort - DreamMore. While we were considering, Eddie's sister and brother-in-law were also trying to decide whether to go with us and I decided with that many people that a cabin might be cheaper than several hotel rooms AND we thought we might like a den area to spread out. We began looking on VRBO instead and at the last minute, found a gem of a place! I'll link our cabin rental below, but we really enjoyed it! It was plenty of room for six of us, very close to all of the touristy spots, but also far enough out that it wasn't loud.

We left out on a Wednesday morning around 9:30AM. We stopped for lunch at Shane's BBQ in Gainesville, GA, before continuing on. We stopped again in Cherokee, NC, for a little while to wander around in the shops and skip rocks in the river. The boys had never seen mountains before and were definitely surprised by how pretty they were. As we left Cherokee and entered Smoky Mountain National Park we saw an ELK! We had no idea we would see any at all. I wish we'd known to be on the lookout. I would definitely stop at the park entrance if we go back again!

We stopped at a lookout area and were surprised by how much cooler it was on top of the mountain! We finally pulled into Gatlinburg around 5PM and stopped to get dinner at The Park Grill. It was very good, but more importantly there was no wait!!!

After supper we went ahead to our cabin and went to bed relatively early - worn out from the trip AND anticipating our first day at Dollywood!

Our cabin can be found HERE.