Opryland Resort - August 2017
Our summer vacation this year was a trip back to the Opryland Resort. Brad and I have been a handful of times, and we even went last year at Christmas with Melody. Our experience this visit was much different than our trip at Christmas for a number of reasons. Melody is older and mobile; she eats more than baby food now; she doesn't have a cold; it was much warmer; the resort was far less crowded; and there was construction going on at the resort. We opted to go mid-August to avoid any of the out-of-school crowds that may also use this as a vacation resort. And to also help with the crowds, we decided to go in the middle of the week (Wednesday-Friday).
Our trip started off dramatically better than our last trip simply because Melody did not wake up with a head cold! Brad actually woke up a little sick, but nothing that would prevent us from leaving early as planned. We got up and were ready to go around 8:30 am or so. Melody usually gets up between 7 and 7:30, so once she woke up, we got ready and headed out the door! We stopped and had breakfast at Jack's on our way out of town.
We arrived to Nashville around 11 am. We decided to stop at Cool Springs Galleria since they have an American Girl store. Melody received a Bitty Baby for Christmas last year, so we wanted to go in the actual store and see all of the accessories for it. We stopped there first so that we could ponder the rest of our visit on what to get. They have so many cute things! I am certain we will be spending a lot of money there in the future!
We walked around the mall and visited a few other stores. It is a really large mall, but it was practically empty! We let Melody walk around some using the new leash I bought. We are planning a trip to Disney at Christmas, and I wanted to break in the leash now!
We already knew we wanted to eat lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, so as soon as we stumbled across it, we stopped. We got there around 12:15, and we were seated right away. I ordered the Renee's Special which is a house salad, sandwich (I picked the chicken salad), and soup. The soup of the day was a form of mushroom soup, and I don't like mushrooms. So I substituted it for french fries. Brad ordered the shepard's pie lunch special. Melody ate some apple sauce, puffs, and a bit of both of our meals. She loves fries, so that worked in our favor. We couldn't leave without cheesecake. I ordered the white chocolate raspberry truffle, and Brad had the original. Melody had a little bit of both of ours!
After lunch, we finished walking through the mall and ended with American Girl. We bought Melody's doll a blanket and a swimsuit for the beach. We also bought some things for Brad's mom for the granddaughters' Christmas.
We left the mall, and we decided to head to Toys R Us which was right up the street. We love visiting different ones to see what all they have. This one was an older one and had some really fun things. We definitely spent money we didn't plan here! One fun find was Animal Crossing Blind Bags. We love Animal Crossing, and they are keychains that we attached to our backpacks. They are completely random, but we loved the ones we got (Tom Nook and K.K. Slider). This was the first time we had seen them, but you can find them at most Toys R Us.
At this point, we wanted to try and head to the hotel and see if we could check in. I checked in via the Marriott app and updated our arrival time to 3 pm. Check in wasn't until 4, however. We had milk for Melody that we wanted to get in a fridge, so we didn't want to keep shopping and risk it spoiling. We arrived at the hotel right around 3. There is construction going on in the parking lot where they are building a water park for the hotel. So that was a mess, and the parking lot entrance and exit had changed from December due to this.
We went ahead and unloaded our car and took our luggage in, hoping we wouldn't have any trouble checking in. We walked right in and went straight to the mobile check in line. We didn't have a wait, and we were seen immediately by a receptionist. We had no problem checking in, and they even had a king bed guest room available! That is much easier with Melody.
We were in our room by 3:15, and I immediately started to unpack. I like to have everything in a place, and I hate living out of a suitcase [even if it is only for two nights!]. As soon as we got to our room, we called guest services to have them deliver Melody's crib. I love that they provide real cribs instead of pack and plays like other hotels. Melody hates sleeping in a pack and play, so this makes trips here much easier. While unpacking, we gave Melody a snack and water.
After unpacking and getting situated, we headed to Opry Mills for some shopping. We have been here so many times, we know exactly what stores we want to visit and trips here do not take exceptionally long. We start at the food court and work our way around the mall. We actually didn't buy near as much as I expected us to, but we really didn't find a whole lot we needed or even wanted. We did get lucky at the Disney outlet and found the three of us matching Disney shirts!
Since we had such a big and semi-expensive lunch, we decided to eat on the cheaper side for dinner. We do not have a Johnny Rockets in Huntsville, so we decided to eat there. We arrived around 5:45. Brad and I each had burgers, and we split french fries. We ordered Melody a chicken finger kids meal. She ate probably one chicken finger and a handful of fries. We took her leftovers with us back to the hotel to potentially have later.
We got back to the hotel around 7, and we lounged around our room. We watched TV with Melody and let her just run wild in the room and play. It was bath night, and our room didn't have a bathtub, just a standing shower. That was quite an experience to bathe Melody, and she hated the shower aspect of it! We will be sticking to baths for a while longer.
We started Melody's bedtime routine around 8:45. We had an atrium view room with a balcony, so Brad and I planned to sit on the balcony after putting Melody to bed. Because of this we prepped our balcony before even getting her ready for bed so we didn't have to deal with that in the dark! We took our computers outside as well as some snacks we brought with us. We also had cokes we brought with us as well. I definitely recommend bringing your own drinks and snacks so that you do not have to pay their prices!! Melody went to bed without any fighting!
Brad and I sat on the balcony until probably 11 before calling it a night. That is one of our favorite parts of the trip. We definitely can't stay here without having a balcony. Especially since Melody goes to bed before us. We had a view of the main atrium so it is also fun to watch everyone come and go.
One of the construction issues is that on our first night there, they planned to turn the power out starting around 2 am and lasting a few hours. I was slightly anxious about this because Melody sleeps with a sound machine, and this would cause it to be off for quite a while. Luckily the power going out did not wake her. Even the power coming back on didn't wake her. It did scare me half to death because her sound machine came on at full blast, but it went to the default sound...heartbeats! I jumped out of bed and fixed this without waking Melody or Brad! Melody did wake up about 5 am, so we just put her in bed with us. Normally I would let her cry for a bit and she will soothe herself back to sleep at home, but I didn't want to risk waking any of our neighbors. This was my view at 7 the next morning!
Melody got up around 7:30 am. Brad decided to go downstairs to the Coffee Bean and get us breakfast. I got a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant, and he got a Tennessee biscuit which was ham, egg, and cheese. Both were really good and fairly inexpensive for the hotel [especially considering the cost for room service or the main restaurants]. Melody had a breakfast bar and some powdered donuts. Since we didn't have a table in our room, we made a picnic in the floor using a blanket we brought. Melody still made a mess. She also discovered how to place a donut on her finger, and she was pretty proud of it.
After breakfast, we got ready and decided to head downstairs and do some exploring. It was around 9:30 am at this point. Melody was pretty happy she was able to walk by herself.
We stopped in the main atrium (Cascades) and attempted to take a few pictures. Asking a toddler to stand in one spot for a pictures doesn't work! Alice and Wonderland is the theme for the summer.
This is the Garden Observatory Atrium.
Melody decided she wanted to walk into the Delta Atrium. We spent a lot of time in this little area because there is a lot of walking room, and it wasn't super crowded.
Between the Garden Observatory, Delta Atrium, and Magnolia Lobby are a bunch of shops. We let Melody walk around here. At 10 in the morning it is fairly empty. Brad spent a lot of time "redirecting" her.
In the lower floor of the Delta Atrium is The Learning Log. Melody liked running through it, but she didn't find any interest in looking through the windows.
We attempted to go back to our room around 10:30 for Melody to take her nap, but housekeeping was cleaning our room [and he didn't look to happy about the donut mess Melody made; we did clean up as much as we could, but he had to vacuum the room]. We decided to go downstairs for a bit longer to give him time to clean. We sat in the lobby on one of the sofas and decided to take a selfie.
We went back to our room around 11, and it was ready. Again, we prepped the balcony with our computers before putting Melody down for her nap. She went down with ease and napped around 45 minutes. Below are some pictures of our view from our room as well as Melody after she woke from her nap!
We decided to eat lunch at The Fuse Sports Bar for lunch. We headed down around noon. It was super empty. I think we were one of five tables. Their menu online did not have anything Melody would eat, so I brought one of her leftover chicken fingers. When we got there, they did in fact have a kid's menu with chicken on it, but at that point I attempted to feed her the leftovers [she didn't eat them of course]. I did snap a picture of the kid's menu for anyone who is curious. Melody colored some while we waited on our lunch. I took some pictures of our lunch, but after we were done. We were both so hungry and it was so good! I ordered the ultimate nachos with beef, and Brad had the sourdough grilled cheese with chips. We would order it all again. We even contemplated going back it was so good!
After lunch, we decided to take the Delta Riverboat Cruise. We contemplated getting the day pass, but it was going to be the total cost of taking both tours (morning and evening). Realistically we would only ride it twice at most, so it wasn't worth the risk to us to buy the day pass and then we never use it again. I am glad we didn't buy the day pass for sure! The boat cruise was not worth the price we paid. This is something we have always wanted to do, so we went for it. I think we had too high of expectations. Maybe we were expecting something more like Living with the Land at Disney World which is our favorite ride at Epcot, but it was certainly not that. It lasted maybe 15 minutes. If you really wanted to hear what the guide was saying, you could literally walk the path of the boat and hear everything from the sidewalks without paying $20. Then you are given the option to BUY a picture package at the end of the tour. For the price we paid, a picture should be included! Of course, they always get a little mad when you don't buy the picture, but it wasn't that good! Save your money and put it towards dinner!
After our boat ride, Brad wanted to go find a waterfall he remembered walking under as a kid when he visited this hotel. We aren't sure if this was the same waterfall, but in the Cascades Atrium, there is a waterfall you can walk underneath. We even took a selfie just the two of us.
At Christmas, we took some pictures of Melody in the Delta Atrium in front of a tree made from poinsettias. We decided to attempt to take this picture again. Of course the poinsettias did not exist this trip. Instead it was a random tree/plant thing. The picture was also MUCH harder to get. As you can see below, Melody took off a few times. We also had to stand close to keep her from jumping off the brick structure. She wasn't a fan of the recreation.
It was now about 2:30 pm, so we decided to head back to the room for a bit. Melody sometimes will take a second nap in the afternoon, and we wanted her to have free reign to run without being chased or redirected by one of us. She played in the room some, and we all snuck in a small nap too!
We decided to eat dinner at Stax. It was between that or going back to Fuse. We didn't enjoy Stax when we went in December, but it was super crowded and they were not prepared. We ultimately decided to give it another try. I ordered the Black Angus Beef Patty with pepper jack cheese, smoked bacon, raw onions, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. I also opted for fries and a soda. Brad decided to try the turkey burger with only ketchup. Our experience was 100 times better! If I knew it would always be like this visit, I wouldn't hesitate to visit in the future. It is a little pricey for a burger and fries, but it was really good. The beef burger comes with two patties, but the turkey burger does not. We didn't realize that until we both got our meals. We would also probably just split fries next time. We gave some of our fries to Melody and we still had almost a whole order left. I would definitely recommend it. Plus we had a pretty decent view. We were able to see the 6 pm fountain show from our table too.
We wandered around the Delta Atrium, and we were able to watch the 7 pm fountain show as well. The 6 and 8 shows are the same; the 7 and 9 shows are the same. The 6 and 8 shows are a little more fun, and it contains music that you can sing along with. The 7 and 9 shows are more classical. Brad said it reminds him of the music from Illumninations at Epcot.
To finish the night, we went to Bravo Gelato and each got some gelato. Brad ordered a kid's lemon gelato. I ordered a small donut gelato. Mine was exceptionally interesting. It really did taste like a plain glazed donut. It was good, but weird at the same time! The lemon was ok, but I liked the donut better.
After dessert, we did one more walk through the resort while it was dark. It really does look completely different at night with all the lights. Even though there are not Christmas lights, they still have pretty lights throughout the resort. We took a few more pictures in the Cascades Atrium. They had some jumping water that Melody was fascinated with.
We went back to the room around 8:15 and started winding down. We had a very similar routine like the night before. We started the bedtime process around 8:45 for Melody. After she went to bed, we went outside on the balcony until 11 or so. Then we came in and went to bed ourselves.
Melody slept really good. She did wake a few times and cried a bit, but this time I let her soothe herself back to sleep. She woke up around 6 am, and Brad brought her back to bed with us. This was them around 7:30. So sweet!
We got up around 8 or so. Brad went downstairs and got me a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant from the Coffee Bean. He and Melody both had powdered donuts. We didn't have to check out until 11, so we took our time and relaxed. We spent some time on the balcony. Brad took one load of stuff to our car while I finished getting ready and packing. We checked out in our room, then we walked down to the Delta Atrium. We decided to eat lunch here. We love eating at Paisanos here. Unfortunately they were closed the first two days, so when we saw they were opened for lunch, we decided to stay. We found a nice spot on the side of the restaurant, and Brad was in line to order when they opened at 11 am. Brad and I both got the pizza/salad combos. He ordered pepperoni, and I ordered cheese. Melody will usually eat pizza, so we bought a cheese slice. Unfortunately, the way they gave us the pizza, both Melody and Brad's was super greasy. For some reason, they threw Melody's slice on top of Brad's. We think it was the pepperonis, but it was tough to eat. I finished mine, but Brad only had about half of his. Melody ate some but definitely not much.
After lunch, we didn't want to rush out, so we went into the conference areas and let Melody run. We wanted her to burn some energy before getting in the car. We probably let her run for about 30 minutes before heading home.
I think we may make a trip to the Opryland Resort once a year at least. It is a really fun place to go, and if you plan it right, you really do not even need to leave the hotel during your stay. I highly recommend bringing your own snacks and drinks. It is a perfect little mini-vacation for us!
