Opryland Hotel

Monday, 14th November 2005 by

This is the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Now I think I've got this right when I say that the Opryland is the third largest non-casino hotel in the world. Regardless, it's enormous, with 5 restaurants, 6 eateries, 14 retail stores and 2,881 guest rooms built to accomodate visitors to the world famous Grand Ole Opry, a Saturday night country music radio show, broadcast from the 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry House which is located just next door.

In our thumbnail you can see the absolutely enormous, climate-controlled glass atria which cover 9 acres of lush indoor gardens, a rotating restaurant, a 44-foot waterfall, and a 400 metre long river... complete with tour boats. The hotel also has its own golf course, and used to have a themepark too, which was closed in 1997 to make way for a 1.2 million square foot shopping mall, Opry Mills. Take note that it costs $10 to park your car at the hotel, but parking at Opry Mills is free...

General Jackson Showboat

Just to the west of the shopping mall you can also see the General Jackson Showboat, a paddle boat which takes tours of the area. You can see the bright red paddles quite clearly, but feel free to compare with this photo if you're unconvinced 🙂

Finally, for information junkies, here's some links. The official Gaylord Opryland site, the Wikipedia page about the hotel, the Grand Ole Opry Wikipedia page, a tour of the interior of the Hotel, and an article on the DuPont site about the construction of the atria.

Thanks to David Hanak, Danielle, Kevin and Brandon.