Smoky Mountain Attractions Welcome Homeschool Families

As a homeschool family that loves to travel, I’m always on the lookout for attractions that offer great deals and discounts to the homeschool community. Recently, our homeschool cover school announced that two Smoky Mountain attractions offered specific discounts to homeschool families. Well, that certainly got the gears in my brain in motion! I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to visit the area and that was just the push I needed to begin planning our fun, family, homeschool field trip!   

Ripley Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, offers homeschool students and their immediate family (living in the same household) a discounted rate of $7.00 per person. You can purchase your tickets from Guest Services when you arrive at the aquarium. Be prepared to display your homeschool membership card or attendance record. If you have any questions, you can contact the aquarium’s education department.

This was a great deal for my family since we pay adult prices now that my children are all over the age of 12, but if you have children between the ages of 2 to 5, you’ll get a better rate if you pay for them separately (don’t forget you can save $2 per ticket if you purchase them online before you arrive).    

WonderWorks Science Museum in Pigeon Forge is not only one of the top rated Smoky Mountain attractions, it is also one of the best science museums we have ever visited! 

If you contact Andrea, the Educational Director, at least 24 hours prior to your arrival she will alert the box office of your visit so you’ll receive the discounted rate of $14.50 per person upon your arrival. When you contact her include your full name and number of people in your family and make sure you have your homeschool I.D. card handy in order to receive the discounted rate. If you don’t have an I.D. card, The Homeschool Buyers Co-op offers a free template that will allow you to create your own. 

Homeschool rates for 2011 are valid Sunday- Friday with prior reservations throughout the year, excluding holidays. However, February is homeschool month so everyone in your party with a homeschool I.D. can enter for only $10! No reservations are required for the month of February only.   

Purchasing the souvenir book at the box office for $3, will give you a coupon for buy one, get one free for laser tag (which normally costs $5.50 a game). If you have four in your family that want to play, you’ll want two books in order to get two free coupons. The souvenir book also has a fun scavenger hunt in the back that your children will enjoy as they make their way through the exhibits.     

There was one other Smoky Mountain Attraction that I didn’t want to miss out on while on this trip, The Titanic Museum!  I wasn’t aware that they offered a homeschool discount, but I thought it certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask if one was available. Guess what? It turns out that they offer a family pass of $64.50 for advance reservations (includes tax) or $66.50 at the door- though  this offer is not specific to homeschool families, it is a great deal for families with older children that would normally pay $20+ per person for the individual ticket rate (for those over 12).

We had studied The Titanic in the past so we didn’t spend a lot of time looking over the website, but if you need to brush up before your visit, the educational resource page is a great place to start.  

We had a great weekend and I can’t wait to tell you about each individual attraction, but in the meantime, maybe you can begin planning your own homeschool field trip to the Smokies!

Are you aware of any other Smoky Mountain attractions that offer discounts to homeschool families?

A Quick Weekend Getaway to Tennessee

Our trip to Ohio at Christmastime wasn’t my husband’s idea of a relaxing getaway. Though it is always wonderful to visit with friends and family that we don’t normally see, rushing around and trying to visit everyone is a tad bit stressful. There just never seems to be enough time to appease everyone.

For the most part, we managed to make everyone happy this time around, with one exception;  my husband. He just didn’t feel like he got that break that he really needed. So we planned a weekend getaway that would hopefully do the trick. Destination? The Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area of  Tennessee.

Since my husband had requested tons of fun, we thought it would be great to visit some of the area’s top attractions.

Though this was already a spur of the moment trip, as is our custom, things changed at the last possible moment. Originally, we had plans to stop at Chattanooga Friday night before we continued on our trip. With the weather forecast looking particularly gloomy, we decided to delay our departure by one day until we had an idea of what the unpredictable weather would do. 

We woke early Saturday morning and drove straight to Tennessee, about a five hour drive. Arriving in Sevierville, we did find quite a bit of snow and some slick roads. The good news (for us) is that the weather kept the crowds at home.

Our first stop was the Smoky Mountain Knifeworks, located just off the interstate on 66 in Sevierville where my boys happily shopped.

Nearing lunch time we stopped at Long John Silver’s, one of our favorite fast food restaurants, to fill our bellies and waste time until our reserved entry to The Titanic Museum.

After that sober tour we lightened up with a trip to Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, stopping along the way to admire the snowy scenery.

Spotting a sign that read “Air Soft Guns for Sale” led to us hitting the strip in Gatlinburg for a bit of shopping. Not only did the boys leave with something they loved, so did my daughter.

We rushed back to Pigeon Forge to meet one of my best friends from high school and her family at Ci Ci’s for dinner.

We’d considered taking in a show but after actually stopping to rest a minute we decided we were ready to call it a day so we checked into our hotel just down the street.

We slept in a bit on Sunday so instead of the traditional La Quinta breakfast, we opted for warm glazed creme filled doughnuts at Krispy Kreme before continuing the fun with one final stop…Wonderworks.

We filled up on gas, grabbed subs from Subway…so much for experiencing one of the area restaurants…and we were on the road to home.   

We had a very busy but, incredible weekend. Though we’ve been to the Smoky Mountain area on several occasions in the past,  we’ve mainly spent the time hiking and exploring the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This was the first time we really experienced the more commercial side of things and we did it with some amazing discounts that are offered to homeschool families, but only if you know to ask for them. Stay tuned, I’ll share more about those later this week.

Have you ever been to Sevierville, Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg?  What has been your family’s favorite attraction?     

Field Trip Friday: Tennessee Aquarium

It's that time again. Have you been on a field trip this week that you'd like to share?

This week’s Field Trip Friday is actually from an outing that we took as a family on Father’s Day Weekend. Summer has been met with some incredibly hot temperatures and as hard as I tried to convince my husband to spend 3 or 4 hours hiking in the humid outdoors, he just wasn’t going for it. Nope. Instead, he suggested that we trek via van to Chattanooga to visit the Tennessee Aquarium and he couldn’t have made a better suggestion.

The Tennessee Aquarium is voted one of the highest rated aquariums in the United States and we could quickly see why. Spanning two buildings, plus a separate IMAX movie theater, the complex is amazing! We started our visit in the River Journey but if you’ve never been here and get a chance to visit, I’d recommend not following our lead. Of the two buildings, the river was by far the most spectacular. After our self guided tour, we were disappointed in the Ocean Journey and couldn’t believe it was over. So, just my two cents…if this attraction is in your neck of the woods, or you find yourself passing through Chattanooga don’t forget that the River Journey is the best so make sure you save that for last.

We began our tour with a quick look around the Seahorse exhibit. I’ve always found seahorses fascinating so we had to stop and try to take a few pictures but it was a bit difficult to get a good look because it was so crowded in this area.





Next we rode an escalator up and up and up to begin our River Journey experience high in the mountains. After all, that is where the Tennessee River begins and this building is devoted to the grand river from beginning to end in the Mississippi Delta and everything in between.



It does look like you're in the mountains though, doesn't it? For a few minutes we could pretend that we really were hiking in the outdoors...without the heat! Who can beat that?



We saw otters...

...and Trout...

...and touched Sturgeon

We watched the divers feeding the Stingray...

My kids were fascinated...

Did I mention that the tanks are like four stories high? They seem to go on forever!

Exiting the building there was a nice display of art known in the Tennessee River Region and we were excited to recognize these pieces that look like Jerry Brown Pottery.

Next we began our Ocean Journey...
where we saw Macaws...

Touched Stingray...

...and passed through the butterfly exhibit...

On the way to see these cute little gentlemen...the penguins...

We saw a huge jelly fish exhibit...speaking of which, my son got stung by one when we were in Virginia Beach...not fun...


There was a neat art exhibit incorporated into the aquarium...

I just love blown glass...

The Ocean Journey also had huge tanks with tortoises, thousands of species of fish and a few sharks but the tanks certainly weren't as massive as they had been along the River Journey. Even so, this was an incredible place to visit. A bit pricey for a family, but it takes money to operate an aquarium too. We found that purchasing an annual membership was less expensive than it would have been to pay a single time admission since we now pay adult prices for each of our children. Now we can go back as much as we like, plus we get the benefit of a reciprocal admission to other attractions.

We skipped the IMAX movie but found that we still spent about 3 to 3 1/2 hours at the aquarium. I don't think I need to tell you where the bulk of our time was spent.

If you live near Chattanooga or are planning a trip to this amazing city, you may want to take a peak at the special pricing the aquarium is offering for the Homeschool Day this September. In fact, I plan to go back with the kids for the behind the scenes tour at that time.

Thank you for stopping by for this week's edition of Field Trip Friday. If you're just joining us make sure you take a peek at some of the other excursions we've taken.

Have a field trip that you'd like to share? Link up to Field Trip Friday below. It's not mandatory, but I'd be grateful if you'd include a link back here in your original post and feel free to grab your cute button: