Disney, FOS and Tennessee Smoky Mountains - full review with pics

[allie3490]

Loving your review, we will be sailing FOS on 11/4! :D

 

Question about your St. Thomas tour though... we have booked Bernards tour for St. Martin... was it a different tour company for your St. Thomas tour? We haven't made plans for St. Thomas yet so I'm still looking for ideas!

 

Can't wait to keep reading!!

 

Oooh we're on the same sailing as you and also booked Bernard's in St. Martin! We are a married couple with 2 boys (10 & 11). See you there!!

[LMKakaThing2]

I'm really enjoying your review. Keep up the great work. I'll be on the Freedom 2/10/13 and your review is making me even more excited. Thanks for the info on the tours you took.

[Sunshine-lady]

DH and I are really loving your review. We still have a few months (6) before out cruise, but this is just making us more excited. We are wanting to go to Maho beach. Was it a nice beach for day trip there?

[Clarea]

DH and I are really loving your review. We still have a few months (6) before out cruise, but this is just making us more excited. We are wanting to go to Maho beach. Was it a nice beach for day trip there?

Depends what you are looking for in a beach. If you're looking for a quiet, peaceful day at the beach, Maho is not a good beach for that. If you're looking to see huge airliners pass directly over your head, go to Maho.

[bingo3]

Thank you for the review!! This is great, appreciate all your time! Will be on FOS end of January and this is so helpful.:)

Debbie

[tanelicus]

Your review is awsome!! You have a great family by the way.

[tanelicus]

DH and I are really loving your review. We still have a few months (6) before out cruise, but this is just making us more excited. We are wanting to go to Maho beach. Was it a nice beach for day trip there?

 

This was our favorite stop. There is something very cool with the meshing of Caribbean and European cultures. Its a truly wonderful Island, and the people are very friendly.

 

I recommend going to the beach that the water taxi leaves you off at. Its close to the main shopping district. They have a bunch of little tiki hut type places, where you can rent a couple chairs with umbrellas, and a bucket of beer for dirt cheap (Like $20 dollars).

 

Its a special place.

 

As was previously posted, I think Maho is basically the place that planes fly close over.

 

I want to venture over to Marigot on my next trip. Just to see the French side.

[Tinkers70]

Thank you for all the lovely replies, it's nice to know that some people are reading (and hopefully enjoying) my review:)

 

I'm going to do the last 2 days of the cruise tonight and then hopefully move onto our Tennessee trip straight after it xx

[Tinkers70]

Day 9 and 10 - sea days

 

I'll pre-warn everyone just now, not very much happened on our last 2 days at sea so i've joined the 2 days together. It shouldn't take too long to cover these days either.

 

So today is Friday and it's nearing the end of our cruise. We all decided to have a lie in today so didn't get out of bed until well after 9am. By the time we got showered and dressed it was about 1030 so we quickly headed up to the windjammer for breakfast before we were too late.

 

I started off with another 2 cups of tea, that always makes me feel better. We all filled our plates with breakfast items and it didn't take too long for us to finish it and then head to the pool for the day

 

The pool area was pretty busy as it was a sea day. We found 3 loungers together on the balcony area that overlooks the pool (there was quite a lot of smokers up here but it didn't bother us at all). The sun was shining and it was going to be another glorious day.

 

 

Callum and Scott went to the sports deck to play basket ball. I told them i'd pop up and down to keep an eye on them but I knew they'd be fine. They knew where we were sitting and I told them not to go anywhere else apart from the sports deck. They are sensible lads and stick together.

 

I loved lounging on the sun lounger and listening to the reggae music that the band was singing. They were really good. They sang lots of Bob Marley music so a big thumps up from me for that.

 

 

 

Before long they announced that they would soon be starting the belly flop competition and they were looking for volunteers.

 

Quite a few men came forward for it. I had heard alot about this and how it was lots of fun so I went off to get Callum and Scott as i'm sure they would love it too

 

When I went up to the sports deck they were both on the basket ball court. They came back down with me to watch the belly floppers

 

 

I ordered my first and only cocktail of the cruise. I can't remember the name of it but it was the cocktail of the day and it was lovely! I don't drink very often as I basically don't like the taste of alcohol. Guess i'd be a cheap date lol. I did enjoy this cocktail though. It was quite strong when I reached the bottom

 

 

The belly flop competition started and it was brilliant fun. The pool was full of spectators, the busiest i'd ever seen it. We sat up on the balcony area and watch it.

 

[Tinkers70]

After it finished me and Scott went down to the pool for a swim around. I love how the pools are nice and warm when you get in. There's nothing worse than going into a cold swimming pool brrrrrrrrrrr

 

So we basically just had a lazy day and didn't do very much at all. This is how I hoped it would be. I lead a very busy life at home and at work so it's lovely to just chill out and do nothing for a change.

 

We went to the windjammer around 2.30 for some lunch then it was straight back to the loungers for more chilling out time.

 

They had another competition on for couples and it was basically throwing a water balloon to each other and if yours burst then you were out. The last couple standing with their water balloon was the winner. Again it was good fun watching this.

 

They also had hula hoop competitions and various other fun things going on around the pool area.

 

About 5pm we decided to head back to our cabin and get ready again for dinner. Tonight is another formal night.

 

We went to the MDR at 7pm and were seated straight away. Tonight we were sat beside a lovely lady and her Mum from Birmingham. The Mum had always wanted to do a cruise and I think she was enjoying it. She reminded me of the Queen! She was lovely

 

Tonight I had lobster and it was fantastic! I love all seafood but lobster is my favourite.

 

 

 

We left the MDR around 8.45 and went down to the Arcadia to see tonight show which was called Marquee.

 

We found seats no problem and at 9pm the show started. It was a show with songs from the West End and Broadway. It was quite good but in my opinion they could have sang more songs that everyone knew. They must have sang approx 15 songs and I think I knew about 5 of them. The production and dancing etc was good but for some reason I was expecting more?

 

 

 

we took another stroll through the ship on the way back to our cabin. I really enjoyed people watching. Everyone just looked so happy

 

 

 

 

We were back in our cabin and tucked up in bed by 11pm

[Tinkers70]

Saturday

 

I didn't sleep very well last night, I kept waking up due to the movement of the ship. It hadn't happened to me before as I slept right through every night.

 

I got up and opened the curtains and the balcony door and it was very windy!! The sea was looking really rough too and there wasn't any sun around (boooo)

 

I tried to walk to the toilet area but couldn't walk in a straight line. I started feeling very sickly so went back to bed. I felt much better when I was lying down.

 

The ship was really rocking

 

We turned on the tv to see if there was any updates on what was happening but it didn't tell us very much.

 

Soon Callum and Scott woke up and we all managed to get up and dressed and tried to walk towards the windjammer. I really didn't like the feeling of staggering all over the place, I felt like I was drunk lol.

 

We got a table for 4 and some drinks then went to look for something to eat. I sat down with a plate of fresh fruit and the boys came back with some pancakes but we couldn't eat anything as we all felt so sick.

 

All I wanted to do was go back to the cabin and lie down.

 

As soon as we got back we all took some sea sick pills and lay back down on the beds. Ramsay didn't really seem affected by it so he took his book and went up to the pool deck to read. It was still warm even though there was no sun.

 

Me and the boys all fell asleep and woke up when the captain came on with his daily announcement. He apologised for the rough sea's and said we should be in more calmer waters around 4pm.

 

All me and the boys could do was lay in bed, it's the only way we didn't feel sick. It came to around 2pm and we were all very hungry as we hadn't eaten yet so we decided to attempt another try at the windjammer.

 

We just filled a plate each with various food items and took them back to the cabin to eat.

 

Having food in our stomachs I think made us feel better. That and the sea sick pills.

 

The captain was right, around about 4pm the ship seemed to stop rocking so much and the sea looked a bit calmer.

 

Ramsay came back from the pool deck. He said the pool had been closed at the water was too dangerous in it.

 

They were doing a repeat of the Dream Works parade. They did this on our first night but it didn't start until 11.15pm and we were too tired to go along. Today they were doing it again at 5.15....a much better time.

 

We went down to deck 5 and found a spot to watch it. I didn't get very good photo's i'm afraid, they are all blury

 

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We quite enjoyed the parade and although it was busy we still managed to get a clear view.

 

After the parade finished we all went back to the cabin to get showered and dressed for dinner.

 

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We were sat beside the same people as the night before and also a lovely couple from Michigan. We all had a good conversation together about were we all came from etc.

 

We left the MDR at 8.45 and headed for the Arcadia Theatre again as we wanted to see the farewell show.

 

We really enjoyed this and it was lovely when they brought members of the staff onto the stage. There was waiters, waitresses, house keepers, chefs etc and it was nice to give them a standing ovation to show our appreciation

 

 

It was the end of a lovely final night on the ship.

 

As we left the theatre they were selling a DVD of our week on the cruise. I couldn't resist buying it as they showed us a little clip in the theatre and it looked really good.

 

We were back in the cabin around 11pm and finished off our packing. We decided to take all our own luggage off the ship the following day as we want to make a quick exit as we have a long drive ahead of us.

 

 

We were in bed for 11.30pm and this would be our last night sleeping on this wonderful ship

[reney313]

Great review! I'm looking forward to the Smokey Mountain part :)

[Tinkers70]

Great review! I'm looking forward to the Smokey Mountain part :)

 

Hi and thank you......Tennessee should be coming up very soon :)

[Tinkers70]

Day 11 - Cape Canaveral to Tennessee

 

I set the alarm for 5.30am as we are due to disembark the ship at approx 7.15am. I didn't sleep very well during the night as I knew we had to get up early.

 

I was wide awake by 5am but didn't get up till 5.30. Me and Ramsay got showered and dressed before waking the boys up.

 

By 6.30 we were all up and dressed and we had docked back in Port Canaveral again. We all headed up to the windjammer for what would be our last visit of the cruise. It was a bit too early in the morning for me having breakfast but I had my usual cups of tea and some fresh fruit.

 

We went back to the cabin and got all our luggage then headed for the elevators at 7am. We didn't have to wait too long for one to arrive and we made our way down to deck 4 to join the queue of people waiting to get off.

 

We walked back over the gangway at 7.30 and soon we were though passport control, security and then out of the terminal all together. I was sad to leave this amazing ship but was now looking forward to the next part of our adventure.

 

We phoned the number the hotel gave us for our return shuttle to get our car back. We were told to stand between area C and D and someone would be along soon. 10 minutes later and our shuttle arrived. It was the same driver that brought us here the week before.

 

We had to drive round and pick up some passengers that were coming off the Disney ship the we were on our way back to the hotel to collect our car. It didn't take long to get there.

 

Ramsay went and brought the car round to the front of the hotel and we loaded all our luggage in and at 8.15am we pulled out of the car park and were on the road up to Tennessee.

 

 

 

 

I wasn't really looking forward to the drive as we reckoned it would be approx 12 hours as it was 678 miles. We said we would share the driving, probably 3 hours each with a little break in between. Ramsay took the first turn to drive which I was thankful for.

 

We were soon driving up the I95 and heading north. Nothing very exciting happened, there wasn't too much scenery too look at, just basic motorway driving on straight roads.

 

A few hours later we had reached Jacksonville and this was probably the first sign of life we'd see on the whole journey so far.

 

 

 

We had a satnav (GPS) but we probably didn't need it so far as it was just a straight road.

 

Soon we were crossing the border into Atlanta. Around 12 noon I said to Ramsay to pull in somewhere and I would take over driving. He said he would pull over at the next McDonalds we saw then we could get some lunch too.

 

 

About 10 minutes later we were pulling into a McDonalds car park and we all got something for lunch. I took the laptop in with me as I knew I could get wifi in McDonalds.

 

I was checking through my emails and there was one from the cabin rental company with all the details I needed for our check in, I had emailed them a few weeks before we left to say that we wouldn't be arriving until later at night. Their office closes at 6pm and they said they would email me with instructions for our late arrival check in.

 

I read their email with all the instructions we I didn't have access to a printer to print them out.

 

When we got back to the car I phoned them to say we probably wouldn't be arriving until after 7pm. The chap I spoke to was very friendly and he gave me further instructions. He gave me a different address to collect our welcome pack and gave me the code to the cabin and the alarm over the phone and I wrote them down. He said that although the office would be closed at 6pm I could still contact them on phone until 11pm.

 

I took over the driving and we were soon on our way again. Before long we were driving through South Carolina and North Carolina.

 

[Tinkers70]

 

The thing that really struck me about this drive was the amount of blown out tyres that was all over the hard shoulder. I've never seen so many tyres blown out before in my life! The whole emergency lane from the minute we left Cape Canaveral till we reached Tennessee was just covered in bits of tyres. Ramsay reckons it's because they use a lot of remould tyres in the States?

 

We had been on the road for about 10 hours and Scott said he wasn't feeling too good. He's not very good at travelling so we always carry some sick bags with us just incase. We pulled into a rest area and he managed to bring it up. We got out the car to stretch our legs and let Scott have some fresh air. He felt much better after a few minutes so we got in the car and hit the road again.

 

At last we crossed the Tennessee border (yippeeeeee). We were so grateful to finally see a sign that said 'Tennessee'

 

 

It wasn't long until the roads changed from very straight motorway lanes to 'bendy' curved roads sweeping round the mountains.

 

 

 

We were on this road for around an hour then Scott started feeling sick again. We pulled in again for him to get some fresh air again.

 

Before we knew it we had reached the town of Pigeon Forge. I got very excited as I knew the cabin was in this area somewhere. It was now approx 7.30 and getting dark. We drove down the main strip of Pigeon Forge and it just reminded me of International Drive in Florida. It will full of 'tacky' shops, restaurants and tourist attractions but I liked the feel of the place.

 

The person I spoke to from the cabin company earlier gave me the zip code to put into our satnav. He said it would take us to the address where our welcome pack was and inside the envelope would be the address of our cabin.

 

According to the satnav we were about 12 miles away from the address where our welcome pack was. We were soon driving out of Pigeon Forge and heading into the mountains. It was pitch black so we took it easy with the driving.

 

A few more miles later we were turning off the main road and onto a very narrow road that took us high up into the mountains. I was petrified as there was a steep drop at the edge. I kept my fingers crossed that another car wasn't coming down as we were going up.

 

This road seemed to go on forever! We passed by various cabins tucked into the tree's but there didn't seem to be many people up there.

 

The satnav soon said we had reached our destination but we were in the middle of no-where and no cabins in sight. We drove up and down the road looking for the address we had been given but we couldn't find it anywhere.

 

We went back to a T junction we were at earlier as Ramsay said he saw lots of post boxes lined up at the side of the road and maybe our welcome pack would be in one of those. We were looking for number 1450. Each post box had a different number on them and they were roughly what we were looking for but there was not a 1450. I got out and had a look too but it was still pitch black (we had to shine the car lights on the post boxes to see the numbers). I freaked out when I heard noises! I thought it sounded like a rattle snack so jumped back into the car and said to Ramsay that we should just find a hotel for the night back in Pigeon Forge and go to the office in the morning.

 

Ramsay said to give it one more try so we headed back up into the mountains again. We went further than we did the last time and we came across more cabins. Still couldn't find the address we'd been given though.

 

I remembered the guy I spoke to on the phone earlier had said I could phone any time up till 11pm It was about 9pm by now so I decided to give him a call and tell him we were lost.

 

He asked for our rough direction then said we weren't too far away. He gave us the address of the cabin over the phone instead of us trying to find the welcome pack for it. We cabin was in an area called the Preserve. Ramsay remembered seeing the sign for this area so we headed there and eventually found our cabin!

 

It was in an area where there was lots of other cabins around us. I was very grateful about this as it was very eerie up there and didn't fancy being on our own.

 

I told the kids to stay in the car till me and Ramsay checked we were are the correct cabin. The cabin was in darkness and it was hard to see the numbers on the door to enter the code. We managed it though and the door opened.....it was such a great relief that we were finally here.

 

We put the lights on inside the cabin and got the boys out the car. There was lots of weird noises outside from all the bugs etc and Scott was quite nervous. I had been told there was scorpions in the area and that really unnerved me.

 

Once we were inside the cabin and had a good look around Scott felt much better. We did a tour of the cabin and were delighted by our first impressions. It was on 3 levels and I was surprised at the size of the place.

 

I had booked this particular cabin due to the view but we wouldn't get to see the view until the morning as it was too dark.

 

We brought in the luggage from the car and settled into our new home for the next 4 days.

 

We were all hungry as we hadn't had anything to eat since lunch time so we decided to head back to Pigeon Forge. We found a Walgreens first so decided to go in there and buy things like milk and bread and some other bits and pieces.

 

We were struggling to find anywhere open for something to eat. Most places were closed at this time of night. We gave in and decided on anther McDonalds. We really didn't want to have another one as we had one earlier but we were in a town that we weren't familiar with, it was late and very dark and we were hungry too.

 

We just ordered a huge portion of chicken nuggets and 4 portions of fries and some drinks and took them back to the cabin.

 

By the time we drove back they were cold so we popped them in the microwave to heat them up.

 

We were in bed just before midnight and we weren't in any hurry to waken up the next day! lol

[Tinkers70]

Day 12 - Cades Cove - Tennessee

 

Prepare of photo overload over the next few days

 

I woke up first this morning at 9am and I couldn't wait to look out the window and see what view we had of the Smoky Mountains. First thing I did was reach down to the floor from our huge bed and give my shoes a shake before putting my feet in them. I'd heard there was scorpions in this area and was scared that one had climbed into my shoes during the night. Nothing to fear though, all was good so I put my shoes on (flatties) as I didn't want to walk around the cabin in my bare feet.

 

I came out of the bedroom and into the chill out room (where Scott was sleeping) and had a peek outside. The view was out of this world!

 

I went upstairs to the lounge / living room area (where Callum was sleeping) to get my camera for some photo's. I took these from the window in the lounge / livingroom

 

My first view in the morning

 

I could get used to this!

 

 

 

I felt very emotional and could feel myself starting to well up at the view. I've seen some stunning scenery before here in Scotland up in the highlands but only ever seen it from the car, never actually woke up every morning to see it.

 

I knew straight away I was going to love it here!

 

Ramsay soon got up too then I woke the boys up. I had a proper look around the cabin in the day light and it is gorgeous! It was exactly the way it was in the picture on the website only better!

 

Our bedroom (the bed was HUGE by the way!)

[Tinkers70]

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The ensuite shower

 

 

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There was also a huge whirl pool bath in our ensuite

Washing machine and dryer

 

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fusball

 

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The 'chillaxing' room - Also where Scott slept. This was just outside our bedroom

 

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[Tinkers70]

 

View of the living area / dining room from the attic / games room

 

View from the livingroom looking up to the attic / games room

 

Fireplace and tv

 

The name of our cabin was 'Must Be Dreamin' and I can see exactly why it was named this. I sometimes had to give myself a shake to make sure I wasn't dreamin! For anyone interested here's the link to our cabin................

 

http://www.sugarmaplecabins.com/cabi...operty_id=2247

 

Also, if you go to the home page on this site you can search all the cabins the company rent out. There are loads! They range from 1 bedroom to 12 bedrooms. Ours was a 1 bedroom cabin but slept 6 as there was a queen size bed and 2 sleeper sofa's so plenty of room for the 4 of us. The only complaint I had about this particular cabin in the sofa beds weren't very comfortable at all, the mattresses really need replacing as they were a bit springy but Callum and Scott just slept on the sofa itself without pulling out the mattress for it and it was comfortable enough for them.

 

We all went out onto the balcony to have a proper look at our view and it's just so hard to put it into words. You'll see why from the photo's..................

 

Our 'neighbours' ......a view from our balcony

 

 

Our hot tub on the balcony

[Tinkers70]

 

 

We had 4 rocking chairs and a hot tub on the balcony.

 

Although there was lots of cabin beside us you'd never think there was. It was so peaceful up there and we had an unobstructed view from our balcony.

 

I was amazing that you can actually see the smoke rising from the ground....the whole reason they are called the Smoky Mountains. It was like this every morning

 

 

 

__________________

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The front of our cabin and our car

[Tinkers70]

Although it was sunny today there was a wee nip in the air but it was still early and the weather forecast for today was sunny and 70 degrees.

 

It came to about 11am and by this time we were all showered and dressed and was feeling pretty hungry. So we decided to drive down the mountain and back to Pigeon Forge for some food. The road down didn't see so intimidating in daylight! Ramsay drove this morning and it felt like forever we were driving down this mountain road until we reached the main road at the bottom

 

 

 

The nearest town - Pigeon Forge- is 12 miles away from our cabin door. It took about half a hour to drive here due to the roads.

 

We saw an Ihop so we all decided this would be a great place for our first breakfast of Tennessee. By this time it was almost lunch time though so me and Ramsay both had burger and chips (fries) and Callum and Scott were happy to have pancakes. The food and service in here was perfect, much nicer than we expected.

 

 

 

 

We decided to try and find Sugar Maple Cabins office to let them know we had eventually arrived safely and to find out were our welcome pack was. I had their address and we put it into the Satnav but the Satnav took us up a dead end road and into a spare piece of land full of crushed cars! Honestly, I really hate Satnav and this is the reason I refuse to have one in my car back home.

 

We ended up having to stop and ask someone in a shop if they knew where the street was and they gave us directions. It was nowhere near where the Satnav took us grrrrrrrrrrrr. I'm so glad this didn't happen last night when we first arrived, it was bad enough trying to find the cabin but I wouldn't have been happy if we couldn't find the office in the dark too.

 

Anyway, we eventually found the office for the cabin which is based inside another cabin. It was lovely inside and the person I spoke to was very friendly too. He gave me a map of the area and some tourist leaflets.

 

Today I wanted to go to Cades Cove. It's an 11 miles one way loop around a part of the Smokys and there was lots of places of interest to stop off and see and wildlife too.

 

.

[Tinkers70]

We stopped off at the information centre just inside Cades Cove and picked up some leaflets and maps of the area then we set off to see what we could find.

 

Along the 11 mile loop there was loads of places to pull in and you could go and explore. All places of interest are highlighted on the map we got and the first place we stopped at was just a couple of hundred yards along the road.

 

There wasn't too much to see but there was a few bales of hay in a field and other tourists were there walking around so we got out to stretch our legs. Callum took a long run to jump on top of a bale of hay. It took him a few attempts but he managed it. Scott tried too but Ramsay eventually had to lift him up on it. We got some nice photo's of them up there and they had fun playing around.

 

Callum makes it to the top

 

 

Scott couldn't climb up lol

 

 

 

A few minutes later we got back into the car and before too long we were pulling into the next place of interest. There was a sign pointing to an old house and it was a quarter of a mile walk away so we set off to find it. We passed a huge fallen tree on the way. We could also hear noises coming from the grass. Ramsay reckoned it was grass hoppers and crickets but I wasn't too sure. I just hoped it wasn't snakes!

 

 

 

We got to the old house and had a look around. It's amazing to think that people used to live here years ago.

 

We took lots of photo's then headed back to the car again.

[Tinkers70]

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[Tinkers70]

We stopped along a bit at the next place on the map and there was loads of other cars that had also stopped. We parked the car and got out and walked towards a large group of people that was all standing around. They were pointing towards to tree's so there must have been something interesting in there. As we got closer Ramsay said there was a black bear! OMG....I didn't know where to go a bit closer (but not too close) or run back to the car!

 

 

 

I decided to stay and watch it but keep our distance. We were just standing beside the other large group of people that was there. What an experience, I knew there was black bears in the Smoky's but never for a minute did we expect to see one. The area is so vast I thought the chances would be very slim yet here was one right in front of us.

 

It really wasn't interested in us, it was just walking through the tree's looking for food (I assume).

 

Our photo's of the bear aren't great as we didn't want to get too close obviously but it was amazing seeing this beautiful animal in it's on surroundings.

 

We got back to the car and stopped again not far along the road. There was lots of little white churches along the way. We went in for a look and there was a book where you could put your names and where you were from so we filled in our details. The churches were all wooden and painted white outside but were natural wood on the inside. There's no electricity so they are pretty dull inside.

 

They just reminded me of The Little House on the Prairie!.....it really took me back to my childhood lol

 

 

 

 

There was a grave yard at the back so we went for a walk through this. As we were having a wander around Ramsay spotted another black bear! Again it was in amongst the tree's in the distance and we didn't get too close.

 

We couldn't believe we had now seen 2 of these wonderful creatures.

 

 

[Tinkers70]

There was lots of these little white churches in Cades Cove

 

We stopped off at various view points for photo's. It took quite a while to drive around the loop as it was all one way traffic and it was very busy at places. People would just stop in the middle of the road and get out their cars to take photo's instead of pulling into the lay by's that have been made

 

We saw lots of dear and turkeys! They would also hold the traffic up by crossing the road (not complaining about this .....just saying lol)

 

Below is various photo's we took along the way............

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at a little wooden bridge with a stream running under it. The whole place is very picturesque and I would highly recommend a visit here.

 

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Turkey's holding up the traffic

 

We saw lots of deer

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