Well shucks, what kinda visit to Nashville is complete without a jaunty poke over to the Grand Ole Opry, amirite partner? I mean, it’s jest the purdiest l’il ol barn you ever saw. And sometimes we let folks pick, fiddle, and holler in front o’ other folks who come on down to ge their ears a-tickled.
…is kind of how I imagine someone encouraging you to see the Grand Ole Opry. But never have I ever visited a place and imagined something so incorrectly.
The last base we wanted to tag on the way out of Nashville was the Grand Ole Opry. I had never seen it, and Leen vaguely remembered that there was a cool indoor garden something-or-other nearby that the kids would enjoy, and they had been somewhat grumpy about not seeing or doing many kid-friendly things on this quick trip, so we headed that way hoping to make everyone happy before we took on a long drive to the beach.
When I was little, I always pictured the Grand Ole Opry, the “true home of country music” (says the website), as kind of a large barn. Straw bales scattered here and there. Fair amount of dirt and dust. Nothing much around the venue—kind of a pastoral setting.
No.
The Grand Ole Opry is a large, modern, state-of-the-art-looking music venue, with lots of hardscaping and landscaping. And the location…well. It is a couple of miles outside of the city, but it’s not the slightest bit pastoral. It’s the heart of a massive shopping complex. The largest, most suburban-feeling mall I’ve ever seen. There’s a Dave & Busters right across from it, for example.
All told, the true home of country music sits in the middle of a 1.5-mile-long strip of mall, restaurants, and hotels. With a highway running along the eastern side.
So, yes, quite different than I imagined, but whatever. Right? I mean who cares.
We wanted to see this neato garden. Off in the distance, there was a huge structure bulging out from above the beige expanse of the true home of country music’s mall complex, and Leen was pretty sure that was it.
So we drove, and drove, and drove...still technically in the same parking lot. It felt kind of eerie in that way. We realized that this big thing was inside a hotel, and that the hotel was vast and had a million entrances.
To be honest, I was perplexed at this point. Were we just going to, like, see the lobby of some stupid hotel? I was tired. The kids were tired. This didn’t seem like a great idea, but we were this far into it, so whatever.
Leen was also tired, so she just dropped us off at what we hoped was the correct entrance and drove off looking for somewhere to park and wait for us.
Good people, what I did not realize was we were entering a whole new world, a city inside a city, a planet unto itself that goes by the name: Gaylord Opryland Resort.
I was unprepared for what we were walking into.
There was a garden, alright. Lookie here:
But that’s not just a garden. It’s a giant atrium designed to feel like a lush rainforest, except it’s indoors. Picture the rainforest exhibit in the best zoo you’ve ever been to. This atrium makes that look like a small piece of crap.
And. There. Are. Four of them.
Altogether, they cover 9 acres. Indoors. And that’s just the atriums.
The giant glass roof keeps the rain and occasional snow off of these massive spaces. The walls shoot up several stories, giving lucky hotel room occupants a delightful view of this not-real (but also not-fake) rainforest with restaurants.
There are walking paths galore, but if you want to cover all of them, you should bring provisions. There’s an indoor mall designed to look like a charming village. A large arcade with a climbing wall and multiple VR setups. An indoor AND OUTDOOR water park. And an indoor man-made river, with a dock and a booth so you can purchase tickets for an (indoor!) river cruise.
This is not to mention the spa, fitness center, nearly 3,000 rooms and suites, and three quarters of a million square feet of meeting space.
There are also many escalators, which my children thought were wonderful. They rode them many times. These kids and escalators, I tell ya.
Here’s a shot from the place’s homepage. Again, this is indoors:
And here’s an exterior shot, also from the homepage:
Why am I sharing this with you? And why does it sound like a thinly veiled advertisement?
Friends, I am not advocating that you patronize this place. I just need you to know that it exists, and at what scale, because I had never heard of it before, and I need to be certain I didn’t make it up in some fever dream.
The kids and I walked around gawking at everything for a while, until Es spotted the sign for the arcade. They made a beeline for it. It took a *really* long time to walk there, even though, again, we were inside a single building the whole time.
The water park is next to the arcade, but (thankfully) was open only to guests, so I didn’t have to fight the children about it. Instead, we flew down the steps to the large arcade and burned through money and time there. They both climbed the climbing wall. (Camille actually made it to the top and rung the bell.)
Eventually, Leen joined us. She was somewhat confused and also put off as to why we were gone so long; I was confused why she was confused until she informed me that we’d been traipsing around this hotel for over an hour at that point. If pressed, I would have guessed 15 minutes. Oof.
We hung around for at least another hour. The kids finished spending all our money on scammy games (and had a blast doing it), Es needed to browse multiple gift shops (that’s 90% of what she wants to do these days), and we had to walk allllll the way back to the entrance.
At that point I was sure I was imagining things. The lush greenery of the atriums blurred. The guitar sculptures dotting the acres of walkways began to seem repetitive…were we walking in circles? For a moment I pondered if it was possible to actually get lost in there. But we eventually found an exit, Leen pulled up in the van, and we piled in.
Here is video evidence, including the children (and me) trying to process what we’d just experienced.
So, yeah. Not a big ‘ol barn. Not a big ‘ol barn at all.
On to the beach. A real, outdoors one, too. Just seven hours to go.
This piece is part of a series of pieces around our recent spring break trip. There’s more to come, but you can catch up to where we are so far by reading these. In chronological order: