We started with the Amazing Mirror Maze, which was fun but a pretty quick activity. It was really disorienting — there were Hollis, Liams, and Henrys coming at us from every direction, and our voices bounced and echoed really weirdly too. Well, mostly their voices, which were loud and excited; I was just focused on not losing track of them.
Our next stop was Ripley's Haunted Adventure. We were loaded onto an intentionally rickety-looking metal elevator/lift thing and taken to an upper floor, where a guy with consumptive-looking makeup somberly directed us to stay together and keep a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us the entire time lest any terrible fate befall us. We then entered the first room. There was a scream, and a bang, and then Henry (who, I should add, is the one who insisted on going there in the first place) said very emphatically, "I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE." And Liam said, "I DON'T EITHER!" So we retraced our steps to the consumptive guy, who was nice enough to show us to the exit. Lesson learned.
After that, we headed next door to Ripley's Moving Theater ("in 5D!"), which was kind of a cross between a movie and a roller coaster. We had to strap in, and the seats were flung hither and yon in time with action on the screen. Also gusts of air and sprinkles of water were directed at us. They showed two short movies, one with Road Runner and Coyote, and the other with Angry Birds. Liam loved it, but after the first movie, Henry opted to go sit in the front with the operator lady (thankfully we were the only ones there so early) while I continued with Liam. I might have bruises, but it was fun!
Once we had a taste for moving around, we decided to head on up ... the mountain, that is. We took a ride on the Sky Lift, which was wonderful. I could have just ridden that up and down the mountain all day, looking out at the town and taking in the mountains in the distance. The Sky Lift has been rebuilt since last time we were in Gatlinburg because it was a victim of the wildfires, and we could definitely see the fire damage all around, especially once we got to the top.
We capped off the "top of Gatlinburg" portion of the morning with a visit to the Gatlinburg Space Needle, which was nice but honestly a little static since we had just gone on the Sky Lift. The views were incredible. Word to the wise, though: there's basically a kid casino on the main floor, and (of course) you have to go through it to get out. Don't make the mistake I made, which was to give each child $5 to spend on the games, only to watch them get "robbed" every time, especially by that "totally sketch" claw machine! In the end, Henry had enough credits to get a couple little boxes of Nerds candy, while Liam got like five individual grape Jolly Ranchers.
Once we came back to ground level, we decided to explore Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium. So much weird stuff all in one place! The boys really liked the interactive parts, like the huge Operation game and the dancing rooms with shadow freeze frame. But none of us were big fans of the "people do weird things to their bodies" displays. Most of it either grossed the boys out or went over their heads (or both, in the case of the human hair coffin ornaments). Oh! They also had trick bathrooms, which I thought was really funny. Like the door labeled bathroom only opened partway, to show the back of a (fully clothed) dude using a urinal. And the real bathroom was the next door down. Hardy har har, Odditorium, you got us!
We really weren't sure what the the VIP pass (or the golden ticket, as I've been calling it) would get us at some places, but at Gatlin's Smoky Mountain Fun, it turned out to be a LOT. We got to pick three activities, and our first choice was laser tag, which Henry and I had never played before. We had the whole course to ourselves, and we laughed so hard chasing each other around and making futuristic Star Wars sounds with our laser guns. See, this is a thing that in normal life, I would never shell out the money for because there's always something broken and never enough money to fix it all, let alone spend on frivolous things like laser tag, but I'm so glad we got to try it because we had a wonderful time. The second activity we chose was miniature golf — 18 holes of it! I haven't played in a very long time, but it turns out I'm not so bad at it — I got TWO holes in one! This was a lovely balm to my ego after coming in dead last in laser tag. We saved the best activity for last, though: BUMPER CARS. That's right, bumper cars. SO. MUCH. FUN. Look at their faces as they ram the cars into each other! Nothing I can write could capture the feeling better.
So there it is, our day downtown. We got hungry and stopped for lunch (nothing notable), and by the time we finished, Mike and Max had come down from the park and were ready to pick us up and head back to the cabin. We had kind of been worried about the logistics of it all with one car but two groups in two very different places, one of which had spotty cell service, but it all ended up working perfectly.
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