Hollywood Wax Museum

The Hollywood Wax Museum is that place with the giant King Kong climbing the building — you literally can't miss it driving down the Parkway. We've been through it a few times with visiting family, and honestly, it's cheesy fun if you go in with the right expectations. The figures are hit or miss quality-wise, but the kids don't care when they're posing with Superman or grabbing props to pretend they're in a movie scene.

What makes it worth the stop is how interactive everything is. No ropes keeping you away from the figures, so you can actually get right up there with the celebrities and use all the hats, canes, and costume pieces they have scattered around. The two floors are set up like different movie scenes — cocktail parties, dance floors, that kind of thing. Fair warning though: weekend afternoons turn into a photo line nightmare, especially around the popular figures.

The All Access Pass is the way to go if you're doing it at all. For not much more than just the wax museum, you get Hannah's Maze of Mirrors, Castle of Chaos, and some zombie thing called Outbreak. Castle of Chaos is basically a cheesy 5D shooting game, but our teenagers actually had a blast with it.

One thing — don't expect museum-quality figures here. Some look great, others look like they've seen better days or never looked right to begin with. But it's air-conditioned, the parking's free (huge win on the Parkway), and it kills about two hours when the weather's bad. Just buy your tickets online ahead of time because they do offer decent discounts, and this stuff adds up fast in Pigeon Forge.