Disclosure: When a local PR firm recently contacted me and asked me if I’d like to take my family to Wilderness at the Smokies to have a good time and then write about my experience, of course I accepted. I’ve never been invited to do anything fun because of my blog before and was thrilled to have the opportunity to go on vacation with my family. With all the hullabaloo surrounding mom bloggers accepting paid reviews, I want to be very clear that my family’s lodging at Wilderness at the Smokies was paid for, while Tate and I paid for our meals and any entertainment outside of the resort. I also want to be clear that I was never asked to write a positive review, or a review at all, but simply asked to write about our experience. Our trip was FANTASTIC, partially paid for or not.
I don’t have a review blog where I can write about our trip, so I’m writing about it here. I don’t plan on ever having a review blog because I’m typically not a review blogger and don’t plan on becoming a review blogger. Of course, if a PR company wants to send me on more of these vacations, I’ll consider getting myself one of those fancy review blogs. {wink, wink}
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I’m a person who feels most comfortable in the confines of schedules. Occasionally I can be sort of flexible with my scheduling. For example, we usually eat lunch between 12 and 12:30, bedtime is between 8 and 8:30. We go to the library either on Tuesday OR Thursdays. See? SO FLEXIBLE.
I really wish I was the type of person who could just go with the flow and relax my rigid, scheduled life. As my children have gotten older, I have relaxed somewhat. However, I still feel my stomach knot when we’re off schedule, I see that the clock says 12:37, and I feel the impending DOOM of meltdowns from two ravenous toddlers.
This past weekend, Tate, the kids, and I went on a weekend getaway to Wilderness at the Smokies in Sevierville, TN. I’ve been looking so forward to going on vacation there with the kids and attempting to have a great time, minus schedules. I wanted to just enjoy, instead of trying to coordinate with military precision, trips to the waterpark, meals, and naps.
I gingerly let my loosy goosey, non Staff Sergeant-self free. And look! I’m ALIVE! Amazing.
Wilderness at the Smokies is a huge resort with two separate complexes, each with it’s own waterpark. We stayed in the resort next to the indoor waterpark, which was just down the hall from our suite. We spent nearly all day on Saturday at the indoor waterpark and whenever one of the kids got tired or hungry, Tate or myself could easily head back to our room. It was nice to not have to carry both one overtired little girl AND one very ticked off little boy who wasn’t ready to leave yet back to the room. Instead, Tate and I tag-teamed break duty. Go team.
I haven’t been to a waterpark since, oh, maybe 1991. It was really fun, even if neither kid was big enough for the big slides. Carson and Ella didn’t even realize what they were missing. I’m not sure if my kids have ever had that much fun in their lives! There was an area specifically designed for toddlers, but they also loved the wave pool and another area that had all sorts of buckets for dumping water and several small waterslides. The resort provided life jackets and inflatable tubes because I was woefully unprepared because we didn’t bring our own and we really needed them in the wave pool area.
My cheeks hurt from smiling so much at seeing my kids having such a great time. They had such a blast at the indoor waterpark and floating in tubes in the outdoor lazy river, Tate and I couldn’t convince them to get on the shuttle to check out the outdoor waterpark across the road. I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good vacation with two screaming children on a shuttle bus, so in the interest of our eardrums and sanity we just stayed at the indoor waterpark.
We didn’t stick to a schedule, we ate whenever, napped whenever or maybe not all. Everybody, including me, the stickler for schedules, just had fun! Since our suite had a kitchen, we didn’t have to take the kids out to a restaurant when they were grumpy after a long day of swimming. Also, there were separate rooms, so the children slept separately from us, allowing Tate and I some “adult time” after the kids passed out from exhaustion. (“Adult time” can be defined by watching How It’s Made and falling asleep in awkward positions on the couch.)
Tate and I talked on our drive home and thought we’d like to go back in the winter to get rid of the cold-weather doldrums, maybe invite the grandparents so that he and I could check out the GIANT waterslides and hot tubs on our next visit. My kids? They want to go back THIS weekend.