Smoky Mountain Outdoors (SMO) Rafting — Attraction in Newport

Booked thru trip advisor as one of the planned events on my Bday tour to Gatlinburg/ Pigeon forge.

This was the best and most value eccentric tour I did out of 4.

Courtney Shoemake our river guide made this a very fun and memorable experience. I do like the organization and extra thought put in here. All the guides have pictures on the wall with their venmos vs alot of places want u to hunt them down or give cash. Big thumbs up on that!

Og I was scheduled for the upper pigeon River which has the lvl 4 rapids but the upper river was closed due to interstate flooding. Unlike apparently some other tours that just canceled ppl for upper river (according to other people I met elsewhere the next day) they just switched us to a longer stretch of the lower river.

Perfect thing to do to enjoy the scenery and the water is nice and cool there's even a stretch they let u swim in. A good HR and half -2 hrs of occasional paddling.

*Highly recommended to bring swimming trunks or swim gear and water shoes. Big parentheses on water shoes. You need something that can get wet but allow u to shove your feet in the nooks and crannies of the raft so u don't get knocked off. If not u can buy some on station

** Advisable to arrive very early . You need enough time to park, check in, get dressed, and get ready to get organized into the tour and catch the bus to the start point. They send an email about it the day of but if you're like me that's prob far too late of a notification to rearrange times. I think they're pretty flexible with it I arrived with about 15 min to spare so I'm pretty sure I got flexed into the 1:00 tour.

There is a bathroom with a shower to get dressed in with stalls. They have lockers (paid for) but honestly if u have a phone water pouch your keys and phone can fit in there and u can catch the entire trip on the video if u secure it right. Otherwise a go pro or insta (waterproofed camera in housing) can prob catch the trip and scenes for u.

They do have a picture package however it is 36$. And only 12 shots which ,depending on your raft orientation and seating arrangement, may not have many of u in it. ( I think with mine I could only clearly be seen in maybe 3) It is shot on one section of the river. You get a link to download via text or email.

There was a food truck on site( don't know if it was a weekend thing or not) and it was great, bc Hartford was about an hour away from where I was staying, to have hot food after 2 hrs plus.

• Side note apparently most of the guides apparently stay near the base camp they have neat lil cabin with western names they get to have for 120$ a month as a guide! Nice

I definitely want to come back and try the upper river with the same company as I had an amazing experience and hope other do as well. Almost makes hertz messing up my original trip last October worth it ( as this was not available at all in my...

I want to start by saying our guides were absolutely phenomenal! We had 7 boats and every single guide knocked it out of the park.

In regards to the trip, I was disappointed in how the actual trip went. I called to reserve the trip for 44 people on the day that the road closure happened. The person that helped me to make reservations shared it was a crazy day because they had to inform people about the closure and refund or change the trip to the lower. I empathized with the craziness as it must have been overwhelming. Fast forward to the day of our trip where I was the first of the group to arrive at 4:00 for the 5:00 trip. I checked in at 4:15 but we were waiting for about 4 more people that were 5-10 minutes out. All of our waivers had been signed prior to check in. Once everyone arrived I checked back in to let them know we were all there (it was at 4:30). At 5:00 we were still waiting and were informed that we were just waiting on the busses as they were doing extra since the upper trip had changed. I was confused by this and was asked if we had read the letter taped to the door (we had not read the note). We were not informed at check in or offered a refund if we didn’t go. We did not get called for our gear until around 5:45 and hit the river about 6 (at which time the water levels begin to change due to the dam being shut off). My disappointment comes in that I was not contacted that what the large group signed up for is not what we would be experiencing. From my reservation phone call, I know that others earlier in the week were given this courtesy. I am not sure what the group would have decided but the expectations would have been more realistic and not that of disappointment. Everyone had a good time due to the guides; but, we were all expecting a great time with more class III and IV rapids. As the organizer of the group, I felt information was withheld to maintain our reservation. I felt bad in that it's something that everyone was looking forward to and it was a let down due to a simple phone call that someone could have made to me. The organization and communication were definitely lacking in our experience. Your staff deserves a huge shout out and recognition for saving an overwhelmingly negative review. I appreciate you reading this in helping your organization in making...

This was my 7th trip white water rafting, 3rd with my kids, 1st with this company and last. Safety briefing was bare bones while on the bus, lacking lots of important safety information that luckily we already knew. Wasnt told about leaning in, not to wrap the rope around your wrist if its needed, to float feet up and first if thrown out in a rapid. So many mistakes made by our guides..... (life jackets put on incorrectly, weight distribution off, boat put in the river backwards, boat got stuck twice on rocks first time was 20 feet in for about 15 minutes, guide got thrown out and was yelling for 2 60 year old women to pull her back in, river path and view have both been destroyed due to expanding the interstate, we spent most of our trip just floating. Guides never even asked our names, didn't know much about the area, cashier at post was rude and yelled at my kids over a $4 ring not to touch something if they weren't buying it, got attitude about waivers (every where else I've been we did paper) no smiles, no warm greeting, guides looked sloppy, unkempt and out of shape..... seriously doubt 1/2 of them could pull adults out if they went in..... if its your first time and you don't know any better, you wouldn't notice....but we definitely didn't feel safe and felt like cattle being herded. Lots of the smaller companies went out of business due to flood damage and thats such a shame. We've had rookies before at the smaller companies and felt like we were in capable hands this was not the case here.

edited to add: apparently its a running joke to put your customers lives in danger. One said "well I got thrown out, I gotta buy a round when we go out after work" another asked who put my husband's life jacket on incorrectly and when he said the guides name, the other guide said "6 pack." And walked off....... when this guide OBVIOUSLY didn't have a "6...