Venus Lodges — Hotel in Gatlinburg

We stayed in room 135, so other rooms may be different.... the drive up here was beautiful with switchbacks and tree covered. The building is plain, just sitting on a hill. The valley to one side and the hills to the other. The room was good when we first arrived then we started finding the issues..... kitchen was good, including dishes, soap, paper towels, etc. The dining room table was large, but the chairs felt as though they could collapse. The couches were moderately comfortable. The TV in living area was terrible, the color was off and looked strange. The balcony was pretty cool except for the smokers below us. The small bedroom was ok except the TV had a pin lock and the booking agent did not know how to fix it. So that TV did not work. The big bedroom bed was horrible with an enormous worn-in sink hole. We felt like we were sleeping on a downhill so the following nights we slept at the foot. The TV in this room did not change channels. There were 5 different remotes for 3 different TVs and we could only watch one with terrible picture quality. The carpet was stained up and felt like walking on turf. We had 3 towels for all 5 of us for 3 days. The booking agent said they would get more sent to us. So the next evening they showed up smelling like cigarette smoke.... good thing we had beach towels. They had small shampoo bottles, but no extra toilet paper. The light switches were very confusing because there was a remote for the fan/light and you had to push the right sequence of buttons to get the light off and keep the fan on (up up down down right left..... you know the rest) good luck figuring out this cheat code!!! The switches in the bedrooms also controlled the outlets.... yes very weird. The first night the lights in both bedrooms automatically came on at 5am, the last night the fans automatically turned to low at some point. WEIRD RIGHT!! Overall not comfortable.... there is also a couple bears roaming this neighborhood which was cool to see.... From...

We booked our room through AFVC. My first vacation to TN! There were several things wrong with the unit. I would not return here nor would I ever recommend anyone staying here. | 1. Upon arrival we found the faux leather sofa to be so torn that it was shredding pieces all week, the walls were filthy, the bed in the guest room had stains and the a couple of the towels in the bathroom were shredded on the bottom.|2. The dishwasher would not drain rendering it unusable.|3. The light in the master would turn on randomly if we used the ceiling fan at night (one night it turned on at 1am waking us), so unusable the rest of the week. |4. There is no phone in the unit (our cell service did not work since it was in the mountains --except with wifi calling, so if there was an emergency we would have had no way to call anyone). Also no alarm clocks in the unit. |5. A DVD player was provided but no remote, unusable.|6. Our first night there was a power outage due to high winds. When power was restored, the wi-fi did not work. I called maintenance and was told they fixed it. We checked again and it was not working. I called back and was hung up on part way through the conversation as it was almost 8pm when maintenance closes. I tried to call back and no response. |7. At 9am Wednesday morning there was a fire alarm. Apparently the fire department was checking the system that day and we were not contacted at all to warn us. They said no one else in the condominiums was...

Overall it was a lovely place to stay. There were even dish and laundry pods to allow us to do our own cleaning through the week. The unit was spacious and well laid out. The view was OK - not spectacular, but decent. Saw at least 2 bears on the property from our balcony. Some small carpet stains, but nothing that interfered with our fun.

The living room furniture seemed like it was falling apart, with pieces of wood and plastic visibly bulging out of the back. They still managed to be fairly comfortable, but we didn't spend much time on them. One of the rocking chairs on the balcony had a loose joint on the seat, but it was easy to reinsert.

The biggest problem was upon arriving, our door unlock code did not work. This wouldn't have been too big a deal, but we had just driven for 4 hours with no AC in our car to only be locked out of our unit.

I called the support number and selecting the support option i was placed on hold, but after 15 minutes on hold waiting for a live person, I hung up and called it back. This time I selected the "i want to book a stay"/sales option and got a live person within 60 seconds. Not an exaggeration. She was able to update the code and get us in, but I literally had to call their SALES line to get support on the unit I had long ago paid for.

I don't know if I will return, as it was a little big for just the wife and I, but if I'm ever booking for more than us, this will definitely make...