4th of July @ Stone Mountain National Park

July 3^rd is treated like July 4^th in the sense that they have the same laser light show and fireworks as they do on the 4^th. I thought it would be a great way for us to celebrate since we would be driving home on the 4^th. Plus it would most likely not be as crowded as it would on the fourth. We heard that they run out of parking and so we got there semi early.

We arrived at about 10:30am and had the best spot – it was on the first row. We knew that we would not move our vehicle all day long. I had pre-purchased our adventure pass online ($63.90/two adults). After much debate we decided it would be best to go ahead and purchase the dinner bbq buffet/VIP terrace seating for the show ($51.20/two adults). I figured we wouldn’t have to worry about reserving a spot on the lawn and we would need to eat dinner anyhow. That was one of the best choices we made, I’ll explain later.

Even though we pre-bought all of our stuff we still had to wait in line to get to a sales person. I thought that was kind of silly since we pre-bought everything. Also, by purchasing online we didn’t save any money and actually had service fees of a total of $6. I was worried they would sell out and wanted to be sure we had no problems. I do think that if you purchase in advance that you should get some sort of discount.

We did however decide in line to go ahead and add on the Ride the Duckies tour for an additional $18 for the both of us. I thought it was a little amusement ride, but it wasn’t. It was where you go on a vehicle that goes on land and water. It is a tour that lasts for 30 minutes. A lot of people add it on and you know who did because you receive a duck call noise blower thing and we heard people blowing on them ALL DAY LONG!!!

When we got into the park and Omar saw Stone Mountain for the first time he was like, “Kate – look at that – there is a carving on the mountain!” I just laughed because he was serious!

The park is SO different than when I went as a little kid. We walked around a little bit and there are all sorts of shops, restaurants, drink stations, etc. We sat for a second while this older gentleman shared camp fire stories for the kids called Adventure Tales. It was cute and actually pretty humorous.

We decided to go and do the Sky Hike which is sort of like a ropes course thing. It is the Nation’s largest family adventure course. The whole thing took about 2 hours (including waiting in line to  get geared up) – partially due to the amount of people in the park. The thing to know about the course is you CANNOT have one single loose item on your person. They of course rent lockers but we decided to stick our stuff in the car. 

We got in line and were talking with all the people near us about how silly it is that you can’t have a hat or anything on your person but you can wear sunglasses. Then one of the workers walked by and said to Omar – what do you have in your cargo pocket. He said, “My wallet.” He responded, “You need to get rid of it to go on the ride. “ We thought that was crazy – his cargo pocket was buttoned closed. He had to leave the line again and go back to the car. In general there is no way to not have anything on your person because you will have your car keys and if you didn’t have your car keys you would at least have a locker key! It was just silly.

We had a good time on Sky Hike and then did the rock climbing wall which was another one of Omar’s firsts.

We then decided to eat since it was about 1pm. We knew we would have fried chicken and bbq pulled pork for dinner and so decided to eat pizza for lunch. When we went to the Marketplace it cost $5 for a slice of pizza! We saw that you could buy a whole pizza for $20 so we did that. It came with 8 slices – it was definitely the way to go. They also had the soda cup like at 6 Flags but here it was only $9 and then for each refill you pay $1. We didn’t buy one, and just stuck with water.

After lunch one of the workers was announcing the Parrots of Rio: a Carnival of Performing Parrots show would start in a few minutes. So we went to that especially since it was air conditioned. It was a cute show watching the tricks of the birds. One of the birds actually sings like a human (pretty much) and is the only parrot that has ever performed for the Queen herself.

So cute - the parrots played basketball, pushed shopping cart, roller skated and other things

Following that we decided to go to the Yogi Bear 4-D Adventure. It was cute and you get pretty wet . Speaking of wet, we didn’t do the Geyser Towers which actually looked pretty fun. I talked with a lady whose 6 year old did it and said that her kid got soaked and that they learned you should bring a towel and change of clothes for your kid if they want to do it. The thing is you actually have to wear closed toed shoes, so a change of shoes would be important too.

Other things we didn’t get a chance to do was go to the Antebellum Plantation & Farmyard, The Great Barn (we did walk inside though and adults can participate in the games there too), Great Locomotive Chase Adventure Golf, Camp Highland Outpost (it is actually for little tiny kids who can’t do the Sky Hike), Little Quarry Discovery Zone (again for little tiny kids).

We walked over to take the Summit Skyride to the top of Stone Mountain. Due to the high traffic they were not providing the normal shuttle to the starting point of hiking the mountain. We could drive to the trailhead or walk to it, but we would lose our parking spot or it would have taken even more time to walk to the trailhead and it was SOOOO hot!

View from Sky ride

You can see Atlanta skyline sort of through the haze

They really pack you into the Skyride to the top and if there is lightning within 15 miles they close it down and have everyone taken from the top. We spent about 45 minutes on top and then went back down. I would really have liked to hike it. I think next time I will have to go earlier in the morning when it isn’t so hot.

When we got back down we went to the museum and looked at everything for about 45 minutes. We skipped the 2 movies they have playing non-stop due to time. We then walked over to the train and got right on. Right next to the train was also the golf which we had forgotten about. The train ride is about 25 minutes. It was nice to go around the whole mountain. We then had to run to our reservation with Ride the Duckies.

part of the train ride is through a fictitious town and this building used to really be a jail

View of the Mansion and lawn from the train ride

The lady recommended going when the sun is going down. We had the 6pm ride since we had to be at dinner at 7pm. We got there and as they were boarding us a storm started rolling in causing them to put everything on hold. We waited until 6:45 until we decided to get a refund and go to dinner.  It was too bad we weren’t able to do it.

Dinner there were 2 different places to sit and the ideal place was at the Mansion terrace so we asked if we could share a table with 2 other people. It was a better move for us. The storm was not so great because it had the whole area slammed with people trying to get some sort of shelter from the rain. The lawn was getting cleared out from all the people that had put their blankets and chairs set out. When you walked through to go to the bathroom you had jump over all sorts of people – it looked a like a hurricane refugee camp.

They finally fed us and we were just so lucky to not be as crowded as all the other people and to have shelter. I brought playing cards, we played cards with the couple (or mom/son couple – we aren’t sure what they were) at our table.  We then moved our chairs to get a better look at the upcoming show that would happen in 45 minutes starting at 9:30 PM. We saw lightning a lot and it caused the laser light show to get cancelled and for them to only do the fireworks. At least we were able to see something.

The couple we were with were unsure of how they were going to get back because they took a shuttle and then a water taxi from their Marriot hotel that we later found out was INSIDE the park. We offered to give them a ride back. We put it in the GPS and the GPS took us to a completely different exit and then U-turned us through this little neighborhood and then back to the entrance of Stone Mountain. Then they were like we were wondering where you were going because the hotel is in the park?! It was just funny how they didn’t mention that before. Ah well.

It was a good day – there was still plenty of things we could have done so Stone Mountain is a full day’s worth of adventure.