Me and my husband were finally able to get some time off from our work and we made plans to spend the short amount of time experiencing something we have never done before. Looking for some short weekend getaways, I stumbled upon the Utopia Of the Seas from Royal Caribbean. An oasis class ship that is set to do it's inaugural sail on July 19. It is the second largest cruise ship in the world next to it's sister, the Icon of the seas. What better way to experience and be introduced to the cruise life than being able to sail on a new ship. So in June 2024, we booked a reservation on what will be known as the World's biggest weekend, the Utopia of the Seas. The booking process was a breeze, choose your available dates, pick a room and pay. Can't be anymore straightforward than that. We chose our sail dates of August 9 to August 12, booked a balcony room with ocean view. For t...
Hello lovelies! It's been a while since I last posted a travel blog, been a little busy with life and new beginnings, which I'll tell about in a next blog. Well anyways, how have you all been?
The Gatlinburg SkyBridge
Back on topic, Me and my hubby took a couple days off from work and decided to make a short trip to Tennessee to visit Gatlinburg. Did this during the birthday week of our son and my hubby which they celebrate a day apart. Started off our day around 2am to start the drive from my home to Gatlinburg Tennessee which is about 8 or 9 hours drive, we always start off our drive early in the morning so there's not that much traffic, also an excuse for us passengers to sleep throughout the drive. We arrived at our destination around 11am, drove around a bit since it was still a little too early to check in at our hotel. Had lunch at Ihop and then headed towards the hotel to check in. Of course we took a little nap before we decided to walk around downtown Gatlinburg. A lot of tourists like us roaming around and taking in the sights. A mixture of attractions and restaurants line the streets. We left our car at the hotel and decided to walk since Gatlinburg is a small strip with lots of activities to do and driving would just get us stuck in traffic.
Entrance to the SkyLift Park, in the background you can see how high it is.
This is where the Skylift led us, Path to the SkyTrail and the SkyBridge at the back
First destination was Skylift park. This is a short ride up the side of a mountain in a ski lift. Tickets are selling at $34 per adult for unlimited trips up and down the park, kids (under 12) tickets cost $21. It was a nice ride up the mountain, since it was our first time it was a little bit scary especially looking at our lift which doesn't have safety restraints. It was most nerve wracking for my husband because he has a fear of heights. We made it safe though without issues. At the top of the park was a beautiful site to see. You can see everything from above, all the tiny looking people and cars below and all the shops and stores. The main attraction at the top is the Gatlinburg SkyBridge. A long narrow bridge that takes you from from one side to the other with a valley in between, in the middle portion of the bridge the walkway is just clear glass so you can see straight down. Once again I was surprised my husband crossed it.
Ole Smoky Moonshine
Spent a little time just looking around and then decided to head back down. The ride back to the bottom wasn't as bad as going up, my hubby actually got over his fear of heights and was loving it. Back at the bottom we continued doing tourist things like taking pictures and just walking around stopping and looking at anything that caught our attention. After a bit we decided to drive around downtown and also headed over to a nearby town, Pigeon Forge to look for a place to get some dinner.
The Titanic
Behind the lens
Pigeon Forge, even though it wasn't on our plan to visit, was nice. It was a little less busier than Gatlinburg but it has it's fair share of things to do. Gatlinburg seems more compact, everything is on one strip which makes it more pedestrian friendly, Pigeon Forge on the other hand is all spread out so you really won't see that much foot traffic. Attractions, shops, all lined up along the main highway, more spread out across the strip. This area seems more family oriented because of most of the attractions like The Titanic, WonderWorks and the top destination Dollywood, making it more catered to families with kids.
WonderWorks Museum
After having dinner, we just headed back to the hotel and called it a day. We took in as much as we can of Gatlinburg in a short period of time which all in all was still worth the trip. We may plan to go back at a later time and probably spend more than a day to see more of it. We left Gatlinburg around 8am to head back towards home. Canyon roads with all its sharp twists and turns made the drive fun and exciting, scary sometimes but still fun. On our way home we took another detour and stopped at Chattanooga Tennessee, checked into a hotel and made plans of seeing some places to see around. Stopping over half of the trip also helps since my husband wouldn't need to drive the full 9 hours straight, giving him some rest in between. Well deserved rest because usually when we do road trips, he can drive straight 14-17 hours without rest which I know can be stressful. Check out my next blog so I can show you what we saw and what we did while in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Hatfields and Mccoy
Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are beautiful and I highly recommend these places in your bucket list. We planned on going back again to explore more! Any recommendations, suggestions, questions please leave a comment below.
Thanks for coming along with me on this journey, stick around for my next blog and we will be doing more exploring together.
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