Believe It or Not

Other than Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, which we didn't go to due to time constraints, the other big attractions there are the Ripley Attractions. As in "Ripley's Believe It or Not". When we went to St Augustine, FL we went through the Believe It or Not building and the kids loved it. There were all sorts of fun things to see, and to try and figure out. At Pigeon Forge they didn't just have a Believe It or Not building, they actually had about 8 or 9 attractions that you could pick from to visit. Luckily for us they also treat their military members VERY well, and gave us a 85% discount on a pass to everything. So our entire family got tickets to everything for less than it would have been for ONE person to get a ticket!

Our first stop was the Aquarium of the Smokies. It was really cool.

Check out them crab legs!!!

We've been to many, MANY aquariums in the last year, but this one had the coolest tunnel to see the sharks and other fish swimming around. I kept trying to take pictures, and they would rarely turn out. Then I remembered that I can do videos on the camera as well and that turned out much better. See for yourself.

After the aquarium, the kids DESPERATELY wanted to visit the Mirror Maze.
When they read the description online they misunderstood a crucial thing. They thought that if you found your way through the maze you would have access to as much candy as you can eat. The only thing that they didn't understand was that you had to pay for the candy by the 1/4 pound. In fact it was $3 for 1/4 pound, on top of the price to get into the maze. Needless to say we skipped the candy part, and they were very disappointed!
I couldn't take pictures in the maze, but I did take some video. It was pretty fun and it took us a while to find our way out.




Next, we visited the Guiness Hall of Records, and got a few good pictures.


Then we moved onto the Moving Theater.
It's one of those simulator rides were your seat moves and you watch on a big screen what you are supposedly doing. Here we are ready to go.
The first part of the ride was cool. It was simulating a roller coaster, and then it turned into a dune buggy. Then the second part was a crazy driving logging truck. It was horrible. It was nonstop shaking with sudden jerking everywhere, I was getting very sick.


After that the girls and I braved the Haunted House.
Jordan was too young so Erik stayed outside with him. I didn't know what I was getting myself into otherwise I probably would NOT have gone.
Here we are on the elevator to take us in to start the "tour".

Once we got inside, the creepy owner told us that we had to walk single file and all hold onto each other, oh and not to touch anything because they were just sprayed poison all over everything to get rid of all the rats...Nice!
We were in a group with one older guy and, I'm guessing, his wife and adult daughters. So what do they do??? They stick the little girls and their mom in the very front! The only thing that got me through it was knowing that the people who work there can't touch us, so there would be no grabbing or anything like that. The scariest part though was the fact that more than once we were wandering around in complete darkness. I kept having visions of reaching out with my hand and touching someone or something really gross, so every so often I would kick in front of me to make sure there was nothing there. It worked really well. Lizzy was directly behind me pulling on my shirt so hard that it was starting to choke me. Then Karlee was behind her with her head buried in Lizzy's back, then behind her was the older guy followed by the women who were screaming and carrying on about EVERY little thing that we came upon. As much as I hated being the first person, I soon found that it worked to my advantage. Whenever they had something that was going to jump out or make a loud noise it usually happened around the middle of the group, so I lucked out a couple of times. It was pretty fun, but I doubt that my girls will be begging to go on another one for a very long time.

Later on, Erik took the kids Miniature golfing while I went to some of the Outlet stores nearby. There wasn't much picture taking going on, so this is all you get.

And Believe It or Not, that was the end of our VERY long day!