In recent months, the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee are one of the most popular holiday destinations. Because of the region’s popularity among tourists, the Smokey Mountain area is teeming with crowds and traffic, each competing to attract visitors to its location. While the temperature is still in the 80s, it won’t stay warm for much longer. With that in mind, Westgate Smokey Mountain Resort has a leg up in the competition with the opening of the newly completed Wild Bear Falls Indoor Waterpark, the area’s only indoor waterpark, in the spring of 2007.
Westgate Smokey Mountains is a fairly new resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and is adjacent to Smokey Mountain National Park. The resort lives up to the mountain theme with its hut like structure, and decorative theme. Meet the famous daily activities to engage visitors, arcade, heated swimming pools and hot tubes, playgrounds, hiking trails, grocery store, deli and the portion, and the stables of the horses.
Wild Bear Falls is new this year and features over 60,000 square feet of water play, making it the largest indoor water park in the South, and is only open to resort guests. Westgate maintains the mountain theme by calling waterpark attractions behind popular local spots, such as the Cades Cove Lazy River, a 900-foot-long lazy river. Clingman’s Pigeons, a 360 foot long body slide, Laurel Falls, a 300 foot long tube slide, and Little Pigeon River, a shallow entry pool with a play area specially designed for toddlers.
One of the main features of Wild Bear Falls that makes it stand out from other indoor waterparks is that it is covered by a state-of-the-art retractable roof that can be opened when the weather is hot outside, creating an outdoor waterpark.
Another nice feature to a waterpark that stands apart from others is that while most waterparks have seating and dining at water level, the Bear Falls waterpark features a 15,000 foot mezzanine that houses seating, a dining area and game room. In this way, parents can easily keep their eyes above the elders, providing a better view than eye level.
While the Western Smokey Mountains Resort is time shares to watch, it still opens condos for overnight rentals as well. Timeshare unit owners are granted free access to Wild Bear Falls waterpark, while other guests are given the opportunity to purchase general admission tickets to the park available for a fee of $21.13 for a one-day pass, $44.54 for a three-day pass. and $74.65 for a five-day pass, children under two are admitted without charge. They don’t have to use mouthfuls multiple days in a row.
For more information on Westgate Smokey Mountain Resort and Wild Bear Falls waterpark you can visit the Westgate website.
