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Friday, October 21, 2011

Gatlinburg 2011 Trip Report: Sat. Oct. 15

Saturday, October 15 finally arrived!  It’s vacation time baby!  We got up early that morning and started getting ready for vacation, packed the car, and drove both cars to Rockport.  Mom watches the dogs while we go on vacation, so we dropped Shawn’s car off to her to have for the week, then we went to Beth and Tommy’s to tell everyone bye and so I could visit with Gavin for a little bit before we left for vacation.  We said bye to everyone and headed on our way.  
I did all the driving that day while Shawnie snoozed in the car.  We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel somewhere along the way.  I had the veggie platter with dumplings, mashed potatoes with gravy, carrots, and fried apples for dessert.  We shopped in there a bit and I bought a couple little Christmas gifts for some friends.  After lunch, we got back in the car and were on our way! 
I absolutely love going to Gatlinburg and look forward to each trip we make down there.  When we got into Seiverville/Pigeon Forge, we experienced a lot of traffic, but that really was the extent of traffic for us all week (and I was thankful for that!).  In fact, it took us about an hour to go the last 4 miles to our hotel. 
We arrived at our hotel, Vacation Lodge, and checked in and unpacked the car.  I booked our hotel based on the reviews about it on TripAdvisor.com.  It had both good and bad reviews, but since we aren’t real picky people, I figured the good reviews outweighed the bad reviews.  I’m glad I followed the advice of those with good reviews.  Our hotel was nice, and had an exceptionally nice price.  I think we paid around $350 for 6 days/5 nights stay, which is very cheap considering the time of year that we went.  We got a non-smoking king suite room with a comfy, comfy, comfy king size bed, fireplace, TV in the bedroom, kitchen area with sink, microwave, refrigerator, large bathroom, and a living room with a couch and second TV.   The room was extra large and super clean, which were both pluses in my book.  I’m so leery about staying in hotels anymore.  The bed was very comfy, so that was a huge plus as well!  My only complaints were that there wasn’t a desk/table for me to use the computer/scrapbook at, and that there wasn’t any laundry facilities onsite.  Shawn’s complaints were that there weren’t any exercise equipment onsite, and there wasn’t an indoor pool.  Other than that, the hotel was great and we will definitely stay there again. 
After we unloaded the car, we headed to Fuddrucker’s for dinner.  I had the chopped steak dinner with salad, potato wedges and garlic bread.  This is my fave meal from there, and like always, it was yummy.  We stopped at Baskin Robin’s for ice cream and I had a double dip of chocolate and strawberry in a cup, even though I had already told Shawn we weren’t getting any dessert all week cause we have both been trying to lose weight.  I’m weak; he’s weak; we both enjoy the sweet treats, especially on vacation!  After the sweet treats, we headed back to the hotel to unpack and get a good night’s rest. 







2 comments:

Ashley said...

I want to go to Gatlinburg so bad!!

The hotel you picked looks wonderful and the price is even better! I will have to keep this in mind if we can ever get there! :)

Stacey Jessee Glenn said...

Definitely go to Gatlinburg if you can. I'm sure you will love it! The hotel was nice, it was older, but nice. The room was clean and was nicely decorated. The bathroom was huge and big enough for both my husband and I to get ready in at the same time. The bed was really nice and so comfy, which you don't usually find in hotels. My husband commented to them how comfy the bed was and they said they were fairly new. We never heard a peep from anyone, and rarely heard any traffic driving down the strip. The front desk people and housekeeping we very friendly. We will definitely stay here again.