Our Trip to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville

Happy Monday, friends! Today I want to recap our short little trip to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. When Dustin and I were dating and in our early years of marriage, we would make the short (1.5/2 hour) drive to the Opryland Hotel in December to walk around the hotel and enjoy all of the Christmas decorations and do dinner and a show. We did that every 2 years. Once Harrison was born and turned 2, we decided to make that day trip an overnight trip!

This year our best friends joined us for the trip and they have a little girl who is a year younger than Harrison and are also expecting a new baby a month after us in 2024!

We left early Sunday morning and made a quick pit stop at Buccee’s for breakfast. Harrison wanted his and Abigail’s picture by the beaver before we left haha! TIP: BOOK YOUR STAY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT TO SAVE A COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER NIGHT)

We had brunch reservations at the character breakfast on Sunday morning at the Opryland. The character breakfast this year was Charlie Brown and Friends, and our kids love Charlie Brown so we thought it would be the cutest!

We basically paid Disney World prices for this brunch, so I had very high expectations. I think we were all really disappointed with the brunch. We bought tickets for the last time available, so it would be more like lunch. Thank goodness we decided to show up about 15 minutes early. The characters were getting ready to leave, so the big kids immediately got their pictures made with them while I was feeding Banks. And they were not replacing any of the food, so once it ran out, we couldn’t get anymore of it. We paid a lot of money for just a little bit of food. I would not recommend doing this again.

I entertained two matching boys while everyone else was waiting in line to check us into our room.

And then Banks crashed for a little bit while we took a quick 45 minute break in our room. Harrison took his shirt off to relax?? I don’t remember that part, but I’m also not surprised ha!

We had tickets for the ICE Polar Express and we were all really excited! I bundled this big boy up, and he was the biggest trooper the entire time we were in the ICE exhibit. It’s kept at 9 degrees, and it’s COLD!!

These tickets were part of our hotel package, and I’d recommend it…..especially if you love the Polar Express! I think two years ago it was The Grinch, and we skipped that because we aren’t Grinch fans. I was so amazed at how intricate the ice was–it was mind blowing!

I made sure the boys had their gloves and toboggans but forgot my own…

Harrison and Dustin went down the Ice slide they had at the end of the exhibit and it was so fun!

Then we all went outside to walk around a bit and check out all of the activities they had going on outside.

Harrison decided he wanted to go down the ice slide they had with inner tubes. He and Dustin did that (it was also $$$) while Janie watched Abigail and Chris go ice skating. I was really feeling some FOMO watching them have fun on the slide, and I’m for sure doing it next time!

Then we grabbed a quick (and much cheaper) dinner at a burger place inside the Delta area. And then we continued to walk around!

We’ve been best friends for over 20 years!

The next morning, our friends had to leave early to get back home for something, so we walked to breakfast and then walked around a little more before we checked out to head home.

Harrison wanted to take our picture and I think it accurately represents how exhausted we both are. Neither child slept and Banks and Harrison were both up at 4:50 AM on Monday morning LOL. That’s vacation with small kids right now–you just have to expect to be exhausted because right now, your vacation is really just for the memories (mainly for you)–things will get easier as they get older.

Overall, we had a good time and we really enjoyed getting to experience it with our friends!!!