N.C. Mountains Week: Tweetsie Railroad provides laid-back fun near Boone, Blowing Rock
Editor's note: Stay tuned for more posts about family fun in the Beech Mountain, Blowing Rock and Boone areas this week.
For years, Tweetsie Railroad has provided a few thrills and lots of laid-back fun for families in the western North Carolina mountains just between Boone and Blowing Rock.
Opened 61 years ago, in July 1957, this 200-acre amusement park features 14 rides, multiple daily live shows and historic steam train rides that take visitors along a three-mile look past an old-fashioned western town.
For thousands, a visit to Tweetsie is an annual tradition. The season begins in early April each year and continues daily through the end of August. It remains open on a reduced schedule through the end of December. Its Ghost Train for Halloween and, much more recently, Tweetsie Christmas draw big crowds.
I've written about Tweetsie for many years, but never got the chance to get out there until this summer when my family of four stopped at the park during our vacation in the North Carolina mountains.
My eight-year-old was especially eager to see what it's all about. A lover of all things theme park, she was all in for every single ride, attraction and experience even before we stepped foot in the place. My teenager? She was excited to see her little sister have the time of her life.
For both of them, Tweetsie didn't disappoint.
Tweetsie train ride
To beat the heat - and potential rain storms later in the day - we got to the park as soon as we could in the morning and, almost immediately, were greeted by the steam engine as it pulled along Tweetsie's Main Street right next to the park's entrance and a line of shops and cafes.
Our ticket taker recommended that we hop on board the third or fourth car and sit on the right hand side to get the best view of the show, which unfolds during your three-mile journey around the track. We took her advice, which was spot on. We had a great view of the action.
A word on the show: It's a western-themed slapstick comedy of sorts, emphasis on slapstick, that involves cowboys, thieves and American Indians (who, spoiler alert, save the day). My teenager was fine with doing just one pass. But my younger daughter loved it so much that we rode the train twice that day. She was absolutely enthralled.
Easy to walk, explore
From there, we fanned out across the park. Tweetsie is not huge. And it's separated into smaller areas - Main Street, Tweetsie Junction, Miner's Mountain and the Country Fair, which makes it very easy to walk and explore.
Around Main Street and Tweetsie Junction, you'll find mostly shops and restaurants, along with Tweetsie Palace, which features daily shows, including a can-can revue, music, a magic show and, finally, the Sunset Show, which features all of Tweetsie's performers at the end of each day. We saw the can-can dancers, the magic show and the Sunset Show, but our favorite performers of the day were the cloggers, who perform on Miner's Mountain.
Take the chair lift to the top
A chair lift connects the lower portion of Tweetsie with Miner's Mountain, which sits above the rest of the park, and provides some great views of the mountains and Tweetsie itself. Miner's Mountain is perfect for younger kids - ages 8 or so and under - with a small playground, a few low-key rides and the Deer Park Petting Zoo.
For us, highlights included the Tweetsie Twister, a Scrambler ride that whips you around and around, and the Mouse Mine, a very tame "roller coaster" ride that takes you "underground" to a mine full of day-glo animatronic rats who do their work while singing under black lights.
But I was surprised how long my kids hung out in Deer Park where, for 50 cents, you can purchase an ice cream cone full of feed to disperse to the baby goats, sheep, deer and other animals. The baby goats were pretty cute ...
Tweetsie's rides
We wrapped up our day at the Country Fair, where the options include a (really fast!) Ferris wheel, kiddie planes and helicopters, low-key go-karts, a carousel and Tilt-a-Whirl.
After a few rides, my older daughter and husband peeled off from us, heading down to the High Gravity Adventures ropes course, which sits next to Tweetsie Railroad. There, my teenager spent the rest of her day navigating through the various obstacles while my husband sat below to watch.
But my younger daughter and I continued on at Tweetsie, riding the train and rides again and testing our limits at two of the park's most "intense" rides.
If you're thinking giant roller coasters, think again. I'm talking about rides like the classic Round Up. It's the circular carnival ride where you stand up against a cage. As the ride spins, it moves from horizontal to almost vertical. At one point, my eight-year-old looked at me and said with wide eyes, "Mom, is that the ground?" Indeed, it was.
The two of us wrapped up our day at the Sunset Show, a little queasy after all of our rides and more than a little tired by our full day at Tweetsie. We sat on the second story of Tweetsie Palace, sipping water and watching the show over the railing. As we filed out of the building, my daughter took every last opportunity for photos, posing behind the bars of the pretend jail one more time, smiling with cowboys and lingering at the exit until we shut the place down.
For her, our day at Tweetsie was better than she ever expected.
Admission to Tweetsie is $30 for kids ages 3 to 12 and $45 for adults. It's at 300 Tweetsie Railroad Lane, Blowing Rock. It's about three hours from the Triangle.
Sarah Lindenfeld Hall is a mom of two and Go Ask Mom's editor.
