Davy Crockett Riding Stables — Attraction in Maryville

I bought 2 certificates (one regular + one gift) from Local Flavor in July. We made reservations and showed up on time. They denied the use of the gifted certificate (which was not in my name, but did state that I gifted the certificate to another person). The denial reason given was, "We are not making money on the LocalFlavor deal. We did not know what we were getting into and are arguing with them."

Having driven an hour from our house in Knoxville and as this family outing was to celebrate my daughter's birthday, she and my wife took their rides. Meanwhile, my son and I had to wait for their return -- stewing in anger needless to say.

Best of all -- as they gathered the group to leave, the guide yells to the other guide, "We're good, 2 slots didn't show". I think that more accurately should have been, "the owner denied two slots to customers who pre-paid."

Upon denying two of our four slots, they were not filled by other paying patrons. As a result, the cost to the business to allow us to ride would have been very negligible (horses were already saddled, same number of guides, etc) -- taht is, there was no additinal revenue gathered by the owners by filling our slots. Instead, the owners made a decision to chose to be greedy about a turf war over LocalFlavor.

Then they overcharged my sales tax -- charged us tax on the full value of the certicate used, not for the money paid for the certifcate. Geez, more insult to injury!

Needless to say, I've now disputed both charges -- the $25 paid for the gifted certifcate and the overcharged sales tax.

Unfortunately, I would not allow my wife to tip their guides simply out of principle. There was absolutely no way this establishment was going to get another dime from me after ruining our family outing. I hate that the guide ended up losing the $30 tip as a result of the owner's decision, but that's how I felt at the time.

On the positive side, my wife and daughter enjoyed their ride and their guides (Sam, Rhonda).

I personally will never spend money with...

We were very excited for a family outing of horseback riding as part of our visit and vacation to the Smoky Mountains. We made the reservation a month in advance. Even called to confirm the reservation. This group was the most unorganized and unfriendly service provider that we ran across in the otherwise hospitable East Tennessee area. When we arrived we tried to check in with Rhonda, but between drags on her cigarette she told us in an unfriendly manner to "just wait and I'll get to you". Ok. Our scheduled ride was at 10am. They finally brought around the horses at 10:35am. They did not bother to ask how much experience we had with horses to match us to the right horse. Once we were assigned a horse, Rhonda gave two short instructions - lean forward going uphill and lean back going down hill and then fired up another cigarette. This trail ride was the most intense trail ride. They took us through muddy inclines and declines. My horse (Sisco) kept slipping down the hill in the mud and I noticed others were too. The guide, yep Rhonda, did not really seem to care if anyone was not experienced enough to handle this. She did take her cigarette out of her mouth to yell back to the end of the horse line to see if everyone was still back there. My horse was the most undisciplined horse that I have ever been on. He kicked, bit, cut line. I was really excited to get off that horse. I complained about it to the ranch hands when we got back to the stable. They told me he is not the sharpest horse and pretty dumb. Great --- then why did you give me that horse? If you are assigned Sisco, ask for a different horse. They will probably rename him. Perhaps we just caught them on a bad day, but this group was not too friendly and was more interested in tips at the end. Its a little off putting to see 3 to 4 signs posted on the stable to remind you to tip your guide. I have a tip for everyone, buyer beware and Davy Crockett Stables --- brush up on your customer service if you want tips and...

Five stars for the riding experience, but the customer service and instruction were a big minus.

We came here as first-time riders, not knowing what to expect. On the website, it said that walk-ins are welcome so we decided to just drive over there, as we were staying nearby.

We were "greeted" by an extemely grumpy person, who later also turned out to be our guide. It soon became clear that walk-ins are NOT welcome. However, she murmured that we could get our one-hour ride in ten minutes. She then murmured the price and went on to charge us. All in all, she spoke very little and did not make us welcome at all.

We sat on the table five minutes or so. She then came out and gave us a riding lesson. This was done in ca. 15 seconds. On the saddles we went, and then sallied forth on our horses.

We felt very uncomfortable, being clueless about riding on horseback and next to no instructions how to do this. However, everything turned out to be rather intuitive and easy, although we went over some pretty steep hills and rough terrain. The horses were really nice and towards the end of the ride, we sat comfortably on our saddles!

So, if you want to go there, call ahead and reserve a ride. But there are probably other stables nearby that have nicer persons working. I would not go back to Davy Crockett, although the horseback riding experience itself...