Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales June 12 to August 1 in Downtown Gatlinburg

Back Porch Cloggers perform at The Village on the Parkway. Photo credit: Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales

Gatlinburg’s Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales kicks off its tenth year of entertaining visitors along the downtown Parkway beginning June 12, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. This summer downtown Gatlinburg magically comes to life each evening with an array of costumed musicians, dancers, storytellers, and craftsmen until about 11:00 p.m. This ever-popular street performance festival runs through August 1, 2015.

“The performers bring to life traditional Smoky Mountain heritage and culture in a fun and interactive way,” says Marci Claude, public relations manager for the Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, “Gatlinburg is a walking town. Tunes & Tales enhances our visitors’ experience as they stroll the Parkway in the evenings.“

Don’t miss The Weary Travelers! Photo credit: Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales

Some favorite entertainers from festivals past will be back again: The Back Porch Cloggers, an audience favorite, along with talents like Boogertown Gap, The Reunited, The Weary Travelers, and Lost Mill String Band. You’ll want to join them for some of the finest Southern Appalachian old-time music you’ll hear anywhere. We just can’t get enough of the sweet sounds of their mandolins, fiddles, penny whistles, upright basses and banjos!

Be sure to meet the entertaining artisan Spinnin’ Selma and see how she turns natural fibers into yarn and then that yarn into cool bracelets! And then there’s Whittlin’ Joe who masterfully whittles wooden flowers right before your eyes. And don’t forget to say howdy to their good friend Appalachia Anna who will tell you all about growing up in the mountains and how they used to make musical instruments out of everyday things likes spoons, washboards and saws. There’s so many new friends to make during Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales! You’ll run into famous mountaineer Wiley Oakley and lovely ladies Sun Bonnet Sue and Louisa Walker and friends.

Check out Smoky Mountain Tunes & Tales on Facebook! For more information on this special event, produced by the Gatlinburg Convention & Visitors Bureau, call 800-588-1817.

“Once Upon a Trunk, a Tale of Vaudeville” Opening Night at Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre on May 16

Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre, the Smoky Mountain’s oldest and most unusual theater, presents a brand new show for the 2015 season. “Once Upon a Trunk, a tale of Vaudeville” premiers on Saturday, May 16, 2015.

A charming 1890’s style original musical-comedy show about a sweet janitor who opens a dusty old trunk only to find a troop of actors inside who have been stuck there since the golden age of Vaudeville. They drag him into the trunk and put him in the show. It’s a hilarious “backstage” look at Vaudeville!

After our musical-comedy comes our old fashioned sing-a-long (a Sweet Fanny Adams Tradition) full of unrehearsed surprises, and our ever popular Olio and Revue, featuring the “World Famous Classical Paper Dance!”

For more information and tickets visit Sweet Fanny Adams or call 865-436-4038.

Mesmerizing Mermaids in the Smokies Memorial Day Weekend at Ripley’s Aquarium

May 12, 2015
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free fish manicure, gatlinburg things to do, live mermaid show, penguin playhouse, penguins, Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, shark lagoon, smoky mountain things to do, stingray bay, swarm, top 5 aquariums

Mermaids greet visitors at daily shows. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Don’t miss the mesmerizing mermaids in the Smokies Memorial Day Weekend at Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg! Back by popular demand and for a limited time guests to Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies can enjoy live mermaid shows daily at 12:00 noon, 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m beginning Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend.

While you’re in Gatlinburg visiting one of the Top 5 Aquariums in the World, you can enjoy other daily live shows:

Halloween Crabs at Ripley’s new SWARM exhibit!

9:30 am Shark Lagoon Dive
10:30 am Penguin Feeding
11:00 am Stingray Bay Dive
11:30 am Marine Science Class
12:00 pm Live Mermaid Show
12:30 pm Marine Science Class
1:00 pm Stingray Bay Dive
1:30 pm Marine Science Class
2:00 pm Live Mermaid Show
2:30 pm Penguin Feeding
3:00 pm Stingray Bay Dive
3:30 pm Marine Science Class
4:00 pm Live Mermaid Show
4:30 pm Marine Science Class
5:00 pm Stingray Bay Dive
5:30 pm Penguin Facts
6:00 pm Coral Reef Dive
7:00 pm Stingray Bay Dive
8:00 pm Coral Reef Dive
9:00 pm Stingray Bay Dive
10:00 pm Coral Reef Dive

All new for 2015 at Ripley’s Aquarium is the SWARM exhibit featuring over 20 interactives and 12 exhibits with over 1,000 strange and bizarre animals like Halloween Crabs, Blue Blubber Jellyfish, Clusterwink Snails, and Flashlight Fish. And did we mention hundreds of Locusts, Live Crickets and other strange bugs? You can even get a Free Fish Manicure!

There’s nothing like Ripley’s Aquarium Shark Lagoon and incredible Underwater Tunnel! You get up close and personal to some of nature’s most awesome creatures. You can Touch-A-Ray and experience the ultimate Penguin Playhouse!

Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies also hosts special programs like Sleep with the Sharks, PJ Party with the Penguins, and a Splash with Stingrays behind the scenes tour. And also don’t miss the Shark-Tastic Saturdays Early Bird Breakfast Tours. Now you know why this incredible place truly is one of the best aquariums in the world and it’s right here in the Great Smoky Mountains!

Dollywood Celebrates 30th Anniversary with “30 Days of Thanks” in May

Each day during May, 30 lucky Dollywood guests will win 2016 season passes.

Dolly Parton was in Pigeon Forge last week to announce Dollywood’s “30 Days of Thanks” celebration in honor of the theme park’s 30th anniversary this year. From now until the end of May, park guests can register to win prizes that include a daily giveaway of thirty 2016 Dollywood season passes! Each guest that registers at one of the kiosks placed throughout the park also earns a chance to win the grand prize of a Dollywood Summer Vacation!

The Dollywood Summer Vacation Grand Prize includes!

A two-night stay at the brand-new Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort (check-in date of August 7 or 8, 2015)

Four 2015 one-day tickets to Dollywood

Four 2015 tickets to Dollywood’s Splash Country

Four 2015 tickets to Dolly’s Pure and Simple Concert on Saturday, August 7 or 8, 2015 at 7:00 p.m.)

A special Meet & Greet with Dolly before the Concert

Entrants in the 30 Days of Thanks sweepstakes must be 18 years of age. Each guest may enter only once per day. Grand prize winner will be contacted on June 1, 2015. For more information on the sweepstakes and about Dollywood’s 30th Anniversary, visit www.dollywood.com.

Dolly’s Pure and Simple Concert | Showcase of Stars Concert Series

Dolly Parton also announced Dollywood’s Showcase of Stars Concert Series that will take place in August and September. The entertainment icon herself will get the party started with four performances on August 8-9, 2015 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at Dollywood’s Celebrity Theatre. Her signature event titled Pure and Simple, will include some of her well-known favorites along with her newer releases. Dolly reported that individual tickets for her concerts are already sold out, but that group sponsorship tickets for 5 or more may still be available.

Kenny Rogers will be closing out the series at one show only on Sunday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $50 for general admission and $100 for preferred seating. You must also have an admission ticket for the theme park. For ticket information and to purchase online, visit Dollywood’s Showcase of Stars. Other performance dates and entertainers have yet to be announced.

Ticket sales for the Showcase of Stars Concert Series will benefit Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The fundraising goal for the concert series is $1 million. Dolly Parton created the Library in honor of her father, who could not read or write, to help foster children’s imaginations and their love of reading. Imagination Library sends free, high-quality, age-appropriate books to over 750,000 children in the U.S. and Canada each month.

Trail Openings and Closings in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Visitors should be aware of some recent trail openings and closings in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail reopens just as Alum Cave Trail closes on weekdays until November 19, 2015 for needed restoration work.

One of eight new bridges on Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. Photo courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is a unique 5.5 mile, one-way road through a very beautiful slice of the National Park and provides access to several trails leading to the summit of Mt. LeConte and LeConte Lodge. Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail leads you into a majestic, natural sanctuary just three miles from downtown Gatlinburg.

Directions to Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail

At traffic light #8 on the Parkway in downtown Gatlinburg, turn onto Historic Nature Trail-Airport Road. Keep right past the turnoff to the left to the Park Vista Hotel and enter the National Park on Cherokee Orchard Road. You’ll pass the Noah “Bud” Ogle Self-Guiding Nature Trail. Go another half-mile to reach the entrance to the auto trail through the historic Roaring Fork Community.

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail Highlights

Experience Forest Communities of Cove Hardwood, Pine-Oak and Old-Growth Hemlock.
Visit Historic Farmsteads: Ephraim Bales Place and Alfred Reagan Place.
See “Place of a Thousand Drips” Waterfall.
Rainbow Falls Trail and Trillium Gap Trail to Grotto Falls.
Note: Large motor homes, buses and trailer are prohibited.

Alum Cave Trail will be open each week on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as the Trails Forever Crew work during the week to restore several locations along the five-mile trail.

The summit of Mt. LeConte, LeConte Lodge, and the LeConte Shelter can still reached by hiking one of five other trails, three of which are accessed via Cherokee Orchard Road which leads to Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

Rainbow Falls Trail – 6.6 miles from the Rainbow Falls Parking Area on the Cherokee Orchard Road to the summit of Mt. LeConte. Rainbow Falls is 2.7 miles from the trailhead.

Trillium Gap Trail – 8.7 miles from Rainbow Falls Parking Area on the Cherokee Orchard Road to the summit of Mt. LeConte. Grotto Falls is 3.5 miles from the trailhead.
The Boulevard Trail via The Appalachian Trail – From Newfound Gap hike north on the Appalachian Trail for 2.7 miles, then hike 5.3 miles on the Boulevard Trail to the summit of Mt. LeConte.
Bull Head Trail – Accessed via Old Sugarlands Trail near the Rainbow Falls Parking Area on the Cherokee Orchard Road. Walk .4 miles on Old Sugarlands Trail to Bullhead Trail. Then walk 6.4 miles to the summit of Mt. LeConte. Many folks hike up to Mt. LeConte on Rainbow Falls Trail and return on Bull Head Trail for a nice loop walk.
Brushy Mountain Trail via Porters Creek Trail – Porters Creek Trail begins in the Greenbrier section of the National Park located off U.S. Highway 321 about six miles east of Gatlinburg. Travel approximately 4.1 miles down Greenbrier Road to a traffic loop with a gate and trail sign. Walk 1 mile on Porters Creek Trail, then 4.5 miles to the intersection with Trillium Gap Trail with the summit of Mt. LeConte in another 3.6 miles.

Parking is limited at all of these trailheads so carpooling is greatly encouraged.