Tellico Marina — Attraction in Vonore

Nice marina with many amenities. For marina members there are laundry and restroom/shower facilities with a locking code, as well as a private launch ramp (also under lock code). The grounds are clean and they work to keep the place decent. They have gas available. They have rolling carts to transfer items from car to boat and back, and allow customers to discard their lake day trash in the trash bins onsite.

The marina has both wetslips and drystack. They have recently built an addition that probably doubles the drystack space available.

Rick's dockside grill is open seasonally (check hours before you come). They have live music in the weekends in the summer. Decent food and drinks-food is pricey and the service is often way too slow, but when you are in a casual lake weekend and can be patient, it's a fun atmosphere.

There is also a nautical boat club on site. It's a very expensive initial membership as well as a pretty high monthly fee, but could be an option for folks who do not want to own a boat long-term. What I do like about the boat club is they have a wide variety of boats that members can rotate and take out different types of watercraft. They also have lifejackets, tubes, whiteboards, and other amenities for boat club members, which seems like a nice feature. I'm boat owner so I do not use this, but did inquire about it as my boat is pretty old. It's much cheaper for me to keep my old boat and pay the marina fee.

Some of the pros and cons about Tellico Marina, in my opinion:

PROS You can't beat the water on Tellico Lake

There are nice amenities at this marina

Since Corey Endsley has taken over as harbormaster, he is really working to get the place organized from a business and financial viewpoint. I don't always like the impact of that as a boat owner, but from a business viewpoint, they're are things that needed to be done and he's taken a firm stance and has taken care of them.

This is a strong marina community. They have an annual fireworks, family, activities, etc.

CONS Prices have increased several times since I've been a member there over the last 10 years.

They're not good about answering the phone and returning calls

Sometimes the staff can seem grumpy or overworked, they would do well in all areas to consider that the staff members represent the face of the marina to every customer.

When I initially got a slip before the dry stack edition, I had to follow up consistently. I was on the waiting list for 18 months and other people got slips before me. It seems that they just bypass my name and I fell off the list. That has been 10 years ago, but I would recommend if you're on the waiting list to politely follow up.

Voicemail messages are often 3 to 4 months...

First time to Dockside this season and the entire experience was terrible. The food was awful, we got a piece of Mahi that was so fishy that we didn't eat it. We told the waitress and she came back from the kitchen and told us it is always fishy no matter how they cook it.....If Mahi Mahi is fishy tasting it's old or not good, needless to say we got charged for it. The boneless wings had more batter than chicken and the service was pretty poor. We won't be going back.....BTW have you noticed the vine infestation in many of the slips, very tacky looking place...

OMG the mac & queso is AMAZING. I had the Mac & queso with buffalo chicken and my wife had the Mac & queso with pulled pork. Both were amazing.

I can’t give them five stars though, the first come first serve seating will eventually lead to confrontation and frustrations. We got jumped in front of several times by people that got there latter than us. frustrations were growing among several groups of people waiting.

Second, they don’t have enough menus to go around. Come on, that’s a basic staple of a restaurant. How can we order if we don’t know what...