Informative Personal Blog of Sci-Fi Writer

Hotels when you have four children can be very miserable experiences. Let’s face it, it is never easy being cooped up in one or two rooms with six people. One of the requirements that I have for having a positive hotel experience with my family is finding a hotel that offers more than just a comfortable place to sleep at night.
So when I was planning our trip to the Smoky Mountains sand was talking with Wilderness at the Smokies I was ecstatic to learn that we would be staying in one of their suites.  I was even lucky enough to meet with the lovely Ellen Liston to learn a bit more about the property and what they have to offer.  This included learning about special activities that are held sometimes for events or holidays.

The Rooms

These hotel rooms are essentially two hotel rooms that are joined in the middle.

One of the rooms is a family style room with two queen sized beds and a twin sized bunk over one. These rooms have a small sink area, a mini fridge, desk, two televisions, a pull out love seat, a wall partition dividing the parents’ side of the room from the kids’ and a bathroom. Now the other room that these are adjoined to is an amazing room within itself. The room has a bathroom, full kitchen with dining table, living room area with pull out couch, and a murphy bed. We were shocked at first to be staying in a hotel room with all four kids where two beds were going to go unused as this is not something that we had experienced before.

The Property
Not only did the Wilderness at the Smokies have amazing rooms that would accommodate any family, large or small, but they also had a ton to do on site. There were water parks, restaurants, an arcade, shops, a candy store, and even a place where you could fire your own pottery. Of course since we had many activities that we wanted to experience in the area we were not able to experience all of the amazing things that they had to do at the resort. However we did take advantage of some of these.
The Water Parks

The water parks that were available at the hotel were small but very family friendly. In fact there were rides that were perfect for children and adults of all ages, relaxing areas with hot tubs, and more. There were two outdoor water parks on site but it was cool and rainy the day that we had to be at the water parks so we were only able to go to one outdoors and because of the temperatures even the kids did not want to stay for long.

The indoor water park is where we spent most of our time while we were at the hotel. There was a fun wave pool where young children were required to wear life vests to keep them safe. While some moms might find this annoying I loved that I could relax because my children had not choice but to wear life jackets. There was also a great kids area with many small slides and a lot of fun water play. The little ones loved this area.

Another really unique attraction that we saw was an area with boogie boards. This was a small wave station like the ones where people learn to surf and you could ride a boogie board on the waves. Andrew went on this but did not have much luck “riding” the waves and instead ended up “riding” off.

There were also four large water slides that snaked along the outside of the building. Andrew and Althea both really enjoyed these slides although Althea only enjoyed the ones with tubes where Shane or I could ride with her.

The Arcade
Going to the arcade was a delightful experience for our family. As you can imagine going to an arcade can be quite expensive with four children. What I liked best about this one is that it was not impossible to win games and each of the kids ended up with a decent “prize” that they had won. So it was a good time with no one leaving sad or disappointed.
Wilderness at the Smokies is an amazing place to visit if you have a family. There are some great packages where you can plan for birthdays or other special events. I sincerely hope that we are able to visit the property again in the future as I can imagine what kind of exciting adventures we could have there as the children become a little older.