Venture Resorts — Attraction in Gatlinburg

Stayed at one of their cabins on Douglas lake “Sevierville Lakefront Mountain Retreat” property #4013153 rented through VRBO. Photos were in short, deceiving and while they claim to sleep 18, it was barely equipped for our 10 adults and 1 baby. In the upstairs room where theoretically 4 people would sleep, only 3 beds had bedding. The 4th just had a fitted sheet. Kitchen was poorly equipped. Not a single potholder or matching dish to the dozens of tupperware lids that were inexplicably everywhere. There were maybe 6 or 7 useable glasses not including coffee cups. Barely enough silverware for 10 people to eat a single meal. Not sure how 18 would fair. There were not enough linens and towels for the number of people advertised and some of the towels were quite dingy and yellowed. Cabin was generally not well cleaned and was in desperate need of a paint job, smudges, makeup, coffee, and wine spills were all over the walls. Every door was visibly dirty and had chipped paint. I wiped a small spill off a low traffic area and the paper towel was FILTHY. Definitely not a lot of mopping happening. It kind of reminded me of a college boy’s house - mismatched, poorly stocked and not that clean. There was no broom or dust pan to sweep occasionally or cleaning materials what so ever, which is needed in a remote wooded area and when cooking for 10 people 3xs per day (not expecting much but maybe a broom and and dust pan and some surface cleaner). Holes in the wall were sloppily patched and just left raw. Not the end of the world but it was unsightly and gave the home a not well-maintained feel. Additionally, there were things advertised that were not useable. The hot tub never warmed and was full of bugs and smelled very sulfur-like. There is a lovely picture of about 6-8 Adirondack chairs around a fire pit in the listing. All but two were broken. The 6 or so unusable ones were stacked by the house in essentially a trash pile. Speaking of trash there was trash strewn around the driveway by the metal receptacle which was gross. The grill ran out of gas on our second day and there were 0 grill utensils. We made burgers with metal salad tongs and forks. If it was made clear we needed to bring those items at least we could have prepared but I would expect some grill tools if a grill is available. They advertise a private dock for swimming. They do not maintain this dock in any way with water fluctuation. It was completely beached out of the water and was unusable, again deceiving when it’s advertised with the house but there was no note or warning about it only being in the water in the early summer (we stayed in mid July so by no means out of season). The wifi in the home was not functional and unfortunately it was a smart tv so there was very limited tv selection, we wanted to be outside on the lake mostly but with storms and a non-functioning dock the TV was something we utilized. Blankets on some beds were stained but did come clean when we washed them ourselves which is disturbing, clearly that was not happening. Noticed what appeared to be blood on sheets and mattress cover. Shower heads were totally calcified with hard water which we cleaned ourselves. Infested with fruit flies which we set traps for with apple cider vinegar and dawn and caught dozens per day. All in all you’re definitely not getting what you pay for. And the customer service is nearly nonexistent. We ran into what I guess would be considered a "spot checker" for Venture upon our arrival and requested some items like a broom and extra towels from her. Not only did we never receive it, we never got any further communication or follow up. I gave it 2 stars because the property is great and it sleeps a lot of people but it needs a lot of work that should be standard for every time the house is rented. It could be a really wonderful place, but it just needs much more attention than it’s currently getting from this management company. We made it work but definitely would...

one star only because I had to click it to get this posted.This company was very disappointing when we called the office in Gatlinburg, TN to find out if the cabin we had reserved (Parkview Palace)would possibly be ready a little earlier than the 4:00 checkin. We had been driving 8 hours and were ready to get to the cabin to begin our family vacation. They told us it would not be ready until 4:00. At 4:00 we called and they said it was not ready and the maids had not even began to clean the 7 bedroom cabin. Needless to say, we were exhausted and decided to go and ride around some more. As you can imagine the week after Christmas, Gatlinburg was bumper to bumper, the wind was blowing and we had tired children and adults. We went to the cabin and peeped in. They were right, no one had been to clean the house. There were cleaners at other cabins but not at Parkview Palace. We were beginning to wonder if we would have to sleep in the cars that night. After we had went and had dinner, had groceries in the car, etc., we went back to the office at about 6:30 after calling numerous times and the person on the phone saying they would call us when it was ready. We never got a call. At about 7:30 we decided to pay the office a visit. Needless to say, they still would not give us a code to get in and said the cabin still was not clean. Finally around 8:00 after sitting in the cars at the office waiting for a code, my phone rang and the person on the line gave me the code. About the same time, my husband came out of the office with the code. The person on the line was wanting to apologize. That was not the time to try to correct the problem. The problem should have never existed. If the property management company was properly trained in common curtesy, care and respect, and were trained at the best way to keep customers happy, this review would not exist. Get this, they said they were cleaning the smaller cabins first. Does that make any sense at all to anyone in the business worId? I am a real estate broker and a property manager. The larger cabins bring the most revenue so why are they last? Maybe this company need to reevaluate the priorities of the company. If customers like us are not happy, eventually your property owners will not be happy. If this continues to happen, your company will close and in my opinion it might as well. The office person was very unprofessional and acted as if it was no big deal, just business as usual. We were not the only ones who had problems, there was a guest from Florida who had a baby with them who was still waiting as well. We were not offered the convenience of using another cabin until ours was ready as some other reviews mentioned. Yes, we were paid in full before we arrived. They did say they would refund us a night stay but I have not seen it yet. Either way that does not remove the fact they they are under poor management. We were warned that this was the worst rental company to deal with and they were exactly right. If that isn't enough, they called the next night to say we had ordered sheets. No one in our cabin had ordered sheets, but I did tell them we could use some wash cloths. We were not at the cabin when they called and of course that caused us to question if our belongings were safe with someone knowing we were not at the cabin. when we got back to the cabin, there was a bag of TOWELS, looked like it had been thrown in the cabin, the bag was split open and some of the towels were dirty from the floor or from wherever they hit when the bag burst. The next day they called again for some reason and I asked for the wash cloths again. The person said that when she got someone to come take her place, she would bring them herself. About 8:00 that night she did. I do not usually write reviews because I don't have time but I really think this might be helpful to management, owners, or...

My family met there from 3 different locations. My son’s family arrived first around 4:00 on 7/3. He accessed the house with the code provided, once inside he looked around and discovered that the house was totally misrepresented. The listing on bed sizes, number of bathrooms and number of people it sleeps is totally incorrect. There is broken furniture and was not clean. There were 6 towels for a house that is listed as sleeping 14. The game room, which has a completely separate entrance was not accessible with the code given. My son called and was first told that the game room wasn’t included as it was the “owners suite” and that the hot tub(which does not work) was not for our use either. After a discussion they finally got us the code to the game room so we could utilize. When we gained access it was disgusting! It appears that someone had been sleeping on the couch as there was a pillow and blanket on it. The half bath(that was represented as a whole bath) down there had pee all over the seat, a used bar of soap with hair on it was on the sink. There were hundreds of bugs everywhere in the game room.

My daughter and her family arrived around 7:30 that same evening and was made aware of everything found so far. She called the office and ‘unloaded’ on someone. She asked for a manager to call us, but that never happened. About an hour or so later a maintenance man came by- he was great and did all that he could to help- he tried to fix the hot tub, however it still didn’t work. He listed to our concerns and measured all of the bed sizes and confirmed they were no as listed. He put in an order to have the cleaners come out the following morning to clean the game room.

My husband and I arrived around 10:15, Wednesday evening and was made aware of everything. What was supposed to be a great family vacation started out as a disaster. We tried to find other accommodations, but because of the holiday there was nothing available.

The more we looked the nastier it got. One bathroom had blood on the toilet seat and a used towel behind the door. When the sheets were pulled back on one of the beds there were pubic hairs and crusty substance. We slept on top of the comforters and used our own blankets the first night. The next morning we went to the store and bought $60 worth of cleaning supplies. We striped all of the beds and began washing all of the bedding. I responded to a text I received stating the cleaners would be out and again I asked for a manager to call me- I was told the cleaning management team was coming to the house to clean. The ladies that came spoke no English-the internet is so bad that their translating app wouldn’t work. All they did upstairs was change the sheets. We had to show them the game room, they had no idea where it was so they could clean it.

We rolled with it and made the best of a terrible experience. After it was cleaned my son slept in the game room the following night. The couch is infested with something- fleas or bed bugs, I’m not sure yet, but my son is covered from the top of his head to his feet with bites- not just a few- thousands! Another $20 spent on Benadryl cream & liquid.

Creekside Rest needs to be reevaluated. It does not sleep 14 as it is listed. At most, with the game room couch, it sleeps 12. There is no king size bed-it is a queen. The bunk beds are queen size, the other 2 bedroom have full size beds in them not queen as listed. There is no pull out bed. The bottom bunk is broken, bed sizes are misrepresented, hot tub doesn’t work and the game room is bug infested! There are several safety issues as well. The railing is not secure to the wall inside along the steps, there is a bees nest beside the non working hot tub, and the circuit breaker box, which is in the game room, is not secure and is an...