July 3rd is treated like July 4th in
the sense that they have the same laser light show and fireworks as they do on
the 4th. I thought it would be a great way for us to celebrate since
we would be driving home on the 4th. 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.
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!
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.
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