Black Friday at Opryland

Yesterday we went to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel to drop off the grandparents for their stay and to enjoy an evening looking at lights.  Since it was the day after Thanksgiving, I had a feeling there would be a lot of people headed to the hotel (especially since they only recently reopened after the Nashville flood earlier this year) so we decided we'd better head up there well before dark so that Dianne and Colin could check in before the hordes descended.  We left our house around 3:30, and we were way too late to beat the traffic!  Since there were no traffic/parking lines for hotel guests, we finally parked sometime around 6:30 that evening.  We self-parked because the valet line was also ridiculously long and the traffic guards said we'd have about an hour wait for valet.

Finally!  The lobby!

Happy to get to their room after the crazy wait in traffic.

Ethan, playing with finger puppets.

Ethan playing with daddy before heading out to see the lights.

Anyway, the self-parking lot for hotel guests was nowhere near the hotel lobby, so Dianne and Colin had to lug their suitcases through the Cascades garden area (and all the people) while we searched for the lobby.  Finally, they got checked-in to their room.  We fed and played with Ethan while Dianne and Colin tried to find us something to eat for dinner.  Well, the hotel was completely over-run and under-prepared, because every restaurant had over a 2-hour wait.  Even room service had a 2hour+ wait (even though they have a "30 minutes or it's free guarantee").  A free meal wasn't worth sitting in the little room that didn't even have a table to eat on so we decided to try something else.  Since leaving and coming back was not an option (since the traffic would be even worse coming back), Colin got a refund on the room, we walked around the hotel to see the pretty decorations and then headed to Outback Steakhouse for a fun, relaxing (and delicious) meal before heading home.