Great --Great Smoky Mountain Campground
My son and I went to this camp ground over memorial day. It's a very big campground with a horse stables area separate from the camping area. The horse stable offers horse rides starting at $40 bucks for an hour through the forest. I asked if experience was needed and the worker said, no experience necessary. I thought it sounded great, but my traveling partner did not (9 year old son). haha
The campground is big, with a lot of sites, but they seem closer together than some campgrounds, some are further out than others, our site was really close to our neigbhors and the creek was just across the road so we really drowned the majority of there noise. I feel like the NPS campground are typcially close together so this was what I expected.
No running water at campsite, but plenty of water spouts around.
No showers in bathrooms.
Most of the sites are really shaded, but some do have full sun. There was one near us that had no trees and I am thinking they wished they had some. It seemed "dark" early as you are in a valley, which was a unique experience for my son.
temperatures were cool in the evenings, so we didn't need any A/C which was nice sicne there is no power hook ups. We didn't notice many generators running during the day. I did imagine the people will only running to top off the batteries, but who knows.
We woke up and went to clingmans dome one morning and it really cold and really windy. If you plan for sunrise, pack a warm jacket. I wore a fleece vest and fleece jacket and was cold till we walked to the observation tower. It's a short paved walk, but it is straight uphill, so be aware of it. the experience is one that should be had if you are in the area. When we arrived around 530 am the parking lot was about 1/3 full. but I've heard stories that this parking lot is always very full, which is why we went sunrise instead of sunset.
There was a lot of people fishing the nearby bradley fork and lots of reports of trout caught. I did fish one pool for about 30 minutes, and did not have any fish to hand, but I saw quite a few fish in the pool over the weekend. the water temperture was 54 degress, but my son and some other boys swam in the creek everyday. It was not hot, but kids have a different threshold for cold I guess, and the excitement of the moving water in teh creek is hard to resist. I got in to my knees. I would like to return without my son and do some adequate walking away from the campground upstream to get into some less pressured water. It's on my list.
We went to cherokee but not the casino area. It was the section right outside the park. Which is a mixure of old stuff, new stuff, and things that are closed or being revamped, or who knows. We ate lunch one day at a pizza resturant right there called wize guys and it was good pizza.
My 9 year old son rated this campground as 10 out of 10.