Fall Creek Falls REVIEW

After camping, for the first time.. at FALL CREEK FALLS.. I have come away with a few thoughts. First.. there is a lot to see and do around this state park. On your first visit you can stay busy with short or long hikes, lots of sight seeing. It really is a beautiful park.

I heard good reviews on the restaurant at FCF.. especially the dinner buffets. In my opinion.. it's just OK. They no longer offer crab legs on the buffet every friday. When I was there they had prime rib (I've had better), fish, shrimp, frog legs, chicken, ribs (very tough) etc etc on the buffet. I didn't think it was much better than Shoney's... and at $18.95.. not sure I would order it again.

The campgrounds are very woodsy.. (I like that).. but several sites are close together. Tight turns, small roads and campers crammed up against each other. Some are paved sites,.. most gravel or dirt. I drove through all the CGs, in the park.. and found several great sites. so the key here is.. visit the park and pick out the sites you like best before you reserve. My site, D190.. was not one I would camp in again.

Over all... for me,.. Bandy Creek at Big South Fork is a much nicer campground.. MUCH NICER! and about an hour or so closer. Not sure I will return to FALL CREEK FALLS very soon.

That's a pretty accurate review in my opinion. We stayed in site D202. That's a nice site, although real close to a couple of buildings I'm thinking is a group camp which would be annoying if there were a lot of people there. The park was nice, nothing special in my opinion. My wife likes waterfalls and we saw most of them I think. The actual "Fall Creek Falls" gave me chills when we walked up on it, very majestic, beautiful falls!
The weather didn't cooperate either. mid 50's and a drizzling rain most of the time we were there. May 15th to the 18th. There was a front that hung around all week and it finally made it to the Knoxville area by that Thursday so I thought OK, a little chilly, but sunshine behind the front. Well, that didn't happen. It just felt cold and we were so hoping for some warm weather. The reservation website said the campground was booked up but it was pretty empty when we were there. I'd say the weather scared a lot of people off. Maybe 10 campers in D Loop.
The swinging bridges were interesting. I'm afraid of heights and I only went across the lowest one. Yeah I'm wimpy that way. The wife liked them though. She went across all three.
We didn't do the restaurant but I had read some online reviews about the same as Chuck stated so we camp cooked all three days.
We probably won't go back any time soon either. Although it's not a bad drive at all from Johnson City, There are much nicer places closer to home. We stayed 55 to 60 mph with one rest/pee break and it took us about 5 hours.