On Sundays this season, the public can see the gingerbread at The Omni Grove Park Inn any time after 6 p.m. The last Sunday N5 bus pulls away from the Inn's Sammons Building stop at 5:16 p.m. So the public's evening window and the only bus up Macon Avenue miss each other by 44 minutes.
That gap is a small thing. Still, it's a good way into how the display works for people who live a mile or two down the hill. The Inn sets one calendar for the public and Asheville Rides Transit runs another. On weekdays they line up, and for the rest of the week they don't. This year, the city proposed cutting the bus line that ties the two together.
The calendar the Inn sets for the public
The 2026 judging comes first, on Monday, November 16. It's closed to the public, and the awards ceremony is for contestants and their families. The display opens the next day, Tuesday, November 17, and runs through Sunday, January 3, 2027. This is what the resort posts for anyone not staying overnight:
- Monday through Thursday: any time during regular resort hours
- Sunday: any time after 6 p.m.
- Friday and Saturday: reserved for registered resort guests and people with confirmed dining reservations
- Closed to the public: holidays, plus November 26, December 6, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31 and January 1
Line those closures up against a 2026 calendar and the season gets narrower than the dates suggest. November 26 is Thanksgiving Thursday. December 6 is a Sunday, so that week has no public evening. The real squeeze comes at the end. Closures on December 23 through 26 and December 30 through January 1 leave only Monday and Tuesday as public weekdays in each of the last two weeks, with Sunday evening on top. January 3, the last day of the run, is a Sunday, so the public's final look happens after 6 p.m.
The Omni competition page calls the weekday window "regular resort hours" and gives no clock times. The bus timetable does give times.
Where the N5 fits into that week
ART's N5 route, listed as "Charlotte Street to Grove Park Inn," is the only bus that goes up to the resort. Northbound, it stops at Charlotte and Macon, Macon at Howland Road, Macon at Sunset Trail and Macon at the Longchamps Condominiums before it ends at Grove Park Inn at the Sammons Building. For anyone near Charlotte Street or along the lower part of Macon, it's a short ride.
Here is how the N5 schedule matches up with the Inn's public calendar:
| Day | Public gingerbread access | Last N5 leaving the Inn | Lined up? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday–Thursday | Regular resort hours | 7:16 p.m. | Yes |
| Friday | Guests and dining reservations only | 7:16 p.m. | For dinner reservations |
| Saturday | Guests and dining reservations only | 7:16 p.m. | For dinner reservations |
| Sunday | After 6 p.m. | 5:16 p.m. | No |
On weekdays the first outbound bus leaves ART Station at 6:00 a.m. and the last one at 7:00 p.m. It runs hourly and takes about a quarter hour to reach the Inn. If you ride up at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday in December, you arrive around 5:16 p.m. and get about two hours with the display before the 7:16 p.m. bus back down. On Sundays the route runs from an 8:00 a.m. first trip to a 5:00 p.m. last trip outbound, so the whole Sunday schedule wraps up before public viewing begins. On Sundays, and for any weekday visit planned after dark, the trip up the hill means a car.
The parking fee is the other half of the math
The Inn has no free parking during the fall and holiday season. From October 1, 2026, through January 3, 2027, self-parking costs $35 and valet costs $45 for both day and overnight guests. WLOS reported that last season's rates were $30 and $40, so both went up $5 this year.
Some of that money stays in the region. The Holiday Parking Partners Program started in 2013 and sends part of the parking proceeds to Western North Carolina nonprofits. Omni says it has contributed more than $1.4 million since it began. A weekday bus fare skips the fee. A Sunday evening visit pays it, and part of that payment goes to local nonprofits.
You need a regular car, though. Buses, vans and any vehicle that doesn't fit a standard space need an advance reservation. Those reservations are limited to one per day on select Mondays through Thursdays, with a 30-person cap. The resort also says vehicles can't drop people off and park somewhere outside the property. A church group or neighborhood van trip has to be booked ahead, and the van has to stay on the property.
The bus line had its own uncertain year
The N5's turn onto Macon Avenue came close to disappearing in 2026. On May 18, the City of Asheville released a draft redesign of the ART network. In the North, it would have removed service to the Grove Park Inn. As the city's draft network explainer describes it, northbound buses would no longer turn from Charlotte Street onto Macon Avenue. They would turn left on Edwin Place and join Merrimon Avenue to serve the Lakeshore area instead. The same draft added 15-minute service from Hillcrest Apartments to downtown and dropped some coverage elsewhere to pay for that frequency.
The response was mixed at best. Mountain Xpress reported that 52% of survey respondents said the draft would not be better for them, and that most people who spoke at the July 28 Council meeting opposed it. Asheville Watchdog reported in late August that the vote had been delayed indefinitely because Council couldn't reach consensus. On October 30, BPR reported that the proposal had been pulled before Council could vote on August 25. BPR also reported that every Council candidate at an October forum talked about raising revenue for the system instead of giving up routes.
According to BPR, ART's weekly ridership fell from more than 6,433 riders in 2019 to about 4,448 in 2025, and more than half of ART's bus fleet will need replacing soon. Before the vote was postponed, BPR had reported that a new network could start in July 2027 at the earliest. For this gingerbread season, then, the N5 runs on its posted schedule all the way up Macon Avenue. Whether that service lasts past this season is still an open question at City Hall.
What's on display this year
This display has been through a lot already. It began in 1992 as a small group of gingerbread houses built by community members, with no plans to do it again. In the 2024 holiday season, after Tropical Storm Helene, the Inn canceled the competition. The Citizen-Times reported that gingerbread creations were shown around Asheville and online instead, with no judging or awards. The competition came back in 2025 with 235 entries from 25 states.
This season, the 2026 entries will be judged by a panel that includes two newcomers. Sasha Nary is a Le Cordon Bleu Paris–trained pastry chef and the author of Baking Magic. Rabiha Sami is a cookie artist and computer engineer who earned national recognition on Food Network's Christmas Cookie Challenge. Winners will be named after the closed judging on November 16, the night before the public opening.
Alongside the in-person display, the Inn will post this year's entries as "The 12 Days of Gingerbread" on its Facebook and Instagram accounts from December 1 to 12. In person, the most open stretch is the month from Tuesday, November 17, through Thursday, December 17. That's when the Monday-through-Thursday window runs uninterrupted, apart from Thanksgiving, and the hourly N5 is still climbing Macon Avenue until 7:16 p.m.
At TFM Carolina, we watch how small things like a bus turn or a Sunday evening window shape everyday life in North Asheville. If you're thinking about where you'd like to spend future holiday seasons in these neighborhoods, we'd be glad to Get Started with you over coffee near Charlotte Street.
