River Terrace Resort and Convention Center — Hotel in Gatlinburg

We booked this hotel for three nights and stayed for only one night in later October 2024. |This hotel is ranked as a 3.5-star hotel on multiple online booking sites. However, my first impression in that it is not better than a super8 motel, probably worse than the motels I stayed 20 years ago. If a motel couldn’t have one star ranking, I don’t believe this hotel deserves one star either. ||Once I opened the door. The hotel simply looked very old, and lack of maintenance, The room was small as well. During my check in, I was told that they do not have room service. I needed to call them if I needed anything. Here are what we saw after we entered the room (no exaggeration!):||The room was small, old and lack of maintenance, two end stands were also small and old, there was one chair only, nothing else, the right-side light was broken and couldn't be turned on or off. The AC was very noisy, we had to totally turned it off for that night. Then the freezer was very noisy when it was on. ||The sink in the bathroom was not working properly. The water went down very slow and we had to wait for some time for the water to disappear, which I never experienced it for any other hotels I stayed. There was only one set of shower towel but we needed at least two. Then I dialed the front desk service using the phone in the room a few times but there were only busy sounds every time. I then called them using my cell phone and I reached them quickly. They did respond quickly to come to fix the light, and to bring in additional towels. I felt surprised to see the guy bringing in the towels wrapped in a white trash type bag. It was probably because there was no room to place more towels in the bathroom. ||When we needed to charge phones, we could not find any outlet for it. I then had to unplug the clock to get one outlet by the end table. Later I founded an extension cord on the floor but behind the desk for freezer and microwave. Although there was a lot dust on it, at least there were two plugging places available for us to charge additional phone and other devices.||When it was time to rest, we noticed a big sting bug on the ceiling, which we pictured it. They said that this might not be uncommon because it was a mountain side property.||The good one was probably that there was a small balcony with two old outdoor chairs and a small tea table if you wanted use them.||These are the accurate descriptions for the room we checked in and stayed for one night. I swear that I did not exaggerate it. We checked out at around 8 o’clock next morning and they would not refund the rest. We moved to Comfort Inn and Suites nearby and it was super good (very new, and very spacious. Everything was very good, and it was only a 2.5 star hotel!). I don’t know if all rooms are similar or not in River Terrace resort and...

Some have praised River Terrace, but there are some obvious deficiencies.

The room was clean. The bed comfortable enough. The in-room gas fireplace was a nice feature. Water pressure was excellent. Lots of hot water. Location is near center of town. That's the good.

Here's the not so good.... Our entry door had a damaged door jam. The metal striker was missing. Thus, the door did not close tight and only battered wood was holding it closed. This is a security issue, as prying the door open would have been easy. We had expensive camera equipment that we had to tote around or store in our vehicle.

In the bathroom, the toilet paper holder was loose from the wall. Even a moderate tug would pull out and dump the paper roll onto the floor. The bathroom sink had considerable rust around the overflow drain. Mirrors were old and showing age around the edges, where the rear reflective coating had flaked off. I had to adjust the shower head, which was nearly falling apart, or feel like I was showering under a garden hose. The vanity cover of the shower pipe was loose and laying down on the shower head. There is no full length mirror in the room.

That gas fireplace had several of the fieldstones missing. The stone threshold badly chipped.

There is an ironing board and steam iron. The ironing board cover was old, yellowed and stained. The iron was kaput. Non-working.

The flat screen TV was set up in low resolution mode. That zooms the image relative to the screen. Adjusting settings is, of course, disabled. Annoying to watch when 1/3 of the broadcast cannot be seen. The flat screen itself was damaged, with three black vertical lines on the screen.

The French doors to the veranda have internal shades in between the inside and outside glass. Our's would not lower fully and were sticky in function.

Most hotels and resorts offer a continental breakfast, or at least coffee is available in the morning, and often around the clock. River Terrace offers none of that. Just vending machines. If you want a light breakfast or simply fresh coffee or tea, you will have to walk to the main street and visit a restaurant or diner, which usually entails a significant wait.. Ice is available only on ground level.

There is a covered parking area. There was a single luggage cart. However, there is no ramp onto the sidewalk. So, one must lift the loaded cart up and over the 6 inch high curb. Not a big issue for me as I'm a fit and healthy 70 year old, but many will not be able to lift the weight of the cart and luggage.

In general, River Terrace is in dire need of a complete refresh, at the minimum. That, and the lack of basic conveniences made our visit far less than ideal. As others have stated... We expected...

We were in one of their more recently updated room with wood floors but not the one with the fire place in it. We were mountain view and it was just that! The view was great ! And their was a nice set of chairs and a small table on our balcony which made for a nice place to have breakfast in the morning or just get some fresh air and enjoy the view. This hotel is within a mile or less from several of Gatlinburgs main attractions and restaurants which made our trip even better as we were able to walk to just about everything we wanted to do. We stayed during covid so obviously there is not daily room service which is fine. The hotel does send you text alerts throughout your stay and anything you need you can just text the number during your stay and someone will help you. We did not however use this feature often. Instead we went down to the main building where you check in and we just picked up toilet paper and new linens whenever we needed. The front desk staff was helpful and there 24 hrs which was nice. The Restaurant on the property was closed for renovations during our stay but looked close to being finished. There is NOT complimentary breakfast or breakfast offered at all at this hotel so make sure to make breakfast reservations somewhere or bring your own food for breakfast. This property does have an on site guest laundry facility which was nice! You can buy detergent at the front desk as well as get quarters to do laundry. It is $2 for a load of wash and $2 to dry. There are plenty of coupon pamphlets in the laundry room as well as in the main building where you check in so be sure to pick some up!

The bed in the room was very comfortable and the room was certainly clean. My fiance worked in hotels for years so she always does bug checks wherever we go and usually cleans our room prior to us settling in. She was very impressed with how clean the room was she didn't even have to clean anything! And their were no bugs either which was awesome!

The only thing we did not love was the bathroom . The bathroom and vanity seemed to be the only part of the room that was not renovated. The bathroom counter has a very sharp edge to it. It also hangs rather close to the toilet too which was slightly annoying room wise. The only other thing that wasn't the best was the water pressure. There is hardly any water pressure in the shower and sink so make sure not to use to much soap etc or you'll be in there .

Other than that our stay was good and we would definitely stay there again. We would...