Sherwood Forest Resort — Hotel in Pigeon Forge

Sherwood Forest Resort||||Pigeon Forge||||902485413||||I just took a deep (calming) breath before writing this review. And, let me preface this review with a quick history. We have been coming to Gatlinburg for around 15 years. We make a long weekend trip at least once per year. We know the best places to eat, how to plan our stay, etc. We are not “new” to the whole “Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge” experience by any stretch of the imagination. With that said - I have NEVER written a bad review. In 15 years. Ever. We have seen it all, from hornet nests in our cabin, to bats to…just about everything imaginable. You name it. We’ve experienced it. Luckily, most of the time, the rental company has a genuine interest in keeping customers happy (and coming back), and quickly remedy the situation.||||Apparently, Gatlinburg Falls (who manages the cabin in Sherwood Forest), no longer cares about staying in business. So, that may help add weight to what I am about to describe as the WORST experience we have ever had in our time visiting this beautiful area. The cabin was 4339 Forest Ridge Way, Pigeon Forge, TN 37863||||#1 - Let’s start off with the cleanliness of the cabin. It was filthy. You could smell the previous resident’s sweat on the sheets and pillow cases. There as an inexplicable “film” on everything from the counter tops to the floors - almost as if they cleaned everything with dirty dish water. Gross.||||#2 - Next, the hot tub. It should be clean, and safe. Simple. Right? Wrong. Ours was filthy (dead bugs, cloudy water, rancid smell. I would not let my kids get in that horrid cocktail of poorly maintained swill water for any amount of money. But that’s not the worst part. Even if (and I jokingly say “if”) the water was clean, the hot tub was not safe. If we had let the kids get in, the next day’s newspaper headlines would have read “Family falls three stories to death off side of mountain after hot tub crashes through rotten deck” - Of course, I am not as creative with headlines, but you get the point. See the images if you dare.||||#3 - General safety/maintenance: The ceilings were literally falling in some rooms, my youngest child cut their foot on floor boards that were buckled up and popping up everywhere, the A/C was not working in all but the top most level of the house. NO AC!!?? Yes, you read that correctly - No AC. In July. It was 85+ degrees outside. Imagine our cabin inside. July. Cabin. No insulation. One AC unit functioning moderately for a house that can sleep (allegedly) up to 20+ guests.||||#4 - Misc. Want more? The master bed (ours) was broken, and fell to the floor in the middle - so you kind of inadvertently rolled to the middle of what looked like a v-shaped mattress. I do NOT want to know how this may have happened...or the load that may have been on it to cause it. There were sharp metal threshold strips that cut my foot open, as well as my daughters. (see images). The table/rocking chairs, benches on all decks were in various stages of decomposition - like someone found them in a forest or dumpster, and said "look maw, these is nice - let's put them on our porch"||||Like air hockey? What about pool? We sure do! There was an air hockey table with no puck. Whut?! And the pool cues - only some had tips. Just a little wood nub. So super cool.||||And do not. I repeat. DO NOT even think about cooking in the oven (agin, see pics) - looked like something living was cooked and tried to throw itself at the glass as it was trying to escape certain death. That, or someone cleaned it with a combination of sweat, Corona beer and fecal matter. Needless to say, we at all of our meals out.||||So, in a nutshell, hot (no AC), unclean (yuck), unsafe (better have a good lawyer), and generally just a horrible, poorly maintained cabin. The address of the cabin was 4339. I think the cabin name was “Cabin of sheer torture, unspeakable atrocities and general depression in the woods”||||If you have read this far, you might be asking yourself “Didn’t you call management/Gatlinburg Falls?”||||I would answer “Yes, and great question!” - Are you ready for that experience? Well, grab another cup of your favorite drink and get ready for another fiasco.||||So, obviously after paying a considerable amount of money for such a piece of (insert preferred adjective) cabin, we immediately reached out to our friendly rental company. How do I start? Their”service” system is a long waiting period on the phone with an automated system of letting you know your position in the call queue in a friendly voice with a heavy southern accent. They remind you at set intervals of how much they know you will love your “cabin retreat” - and how your call is important to them. Lies. All lies, I tell you.||||When someone finally answered…and nonchalantly asked how they can help me, I calmly began listing off all of the issues we had with our cabin - starting with the most immediate in importance (the AC being broke), and then moving on to other things like safety, and general cleanliness. I assume they have a fair number of calls of people wanting a free stay, so they complain about things like “Hey man, aint got no black bear pictures in my boy’s bedroom we wanna free night stay, some buffet tickets and some mini golf passes - oh and some of them little soaps that look like a bear paw for the wife.” - sorry, I digress, this was not OUR intent. We simply told them we wanted the issue resolved rather quickly, and if they could not be resolved - we wanted to be moved to another cabin.||||This was apparently not going to happen. The service rep said “we will send maintenance to fix those things” - I answered “You are going to repair flooring, build a new/safe deck under the hot tub, clean the whole house, and fix the HVAC system? Tonight? Should we expect several professional crews at the cabin?”||||His answer was “yes” - which translates to “By the time you have gotten frustrated enough to really lose your mind, your stay will be up - and we will do the same thing to the next visitor.”||||That is exactly what happened. They were going to send a HVAC tech sometime after 11pm (my kids being asleep and “Bob” the mountain handyman would be apparently banging a hammer randomly on the HVAC system trying to fix it without knowing what is wrong in the first place? Umm, nope. The next day, we called again, and still the same “we will try to get someone to look at it” response.||||Did not happen. Nothing fixed. We were there for two nights of hell. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised when the service rep told me the maintenance guy was going to order some parts to fix the HVAC at some undisclosed time in the future. So, that’s promising. LOL!||||You would think after the drop in tourism from the fire, that these companies would be taking really good care of those visiting. It is actually the opposite. It is a perfect storm of local legislation being eased because of the fire, resulting in more attractions being built (exploiting nature/mountains even more), and thereby increasing the sheer amount of visitors - surpassing the current capacity of infrastructure, and overwhelming local rental companies - who further exacerbate the issue by turning the cabins too quickly for the next customer, ignoring maintenance, cleanliness, etc - as a way to take advantage of the huge influx of demand. It is a perfect storm of over-demand and under-supply. Not the ideal way to rebuild or scale for controlled growth - but then again, in an area where even a simply tree can be turned into an attraction - anything goes.||||If the rental company AKA "GATLINBURG FALLS RESORTS" would like to make this right - I am open to suggestions. I want to ensure no one, ever loses their hard earned money to an experience like we had to this company again. No one should have to accept mediocrity. Your prices continue to inflate, but your service, infrastructure and general maintenance are...

Terrible experience-Sherwood Forest Resort at Pigeon Forge, TN

It was a horrible experience staying at The Treehouse, Sherwood Forest Resort at Pigeon Forge, TN (booked from VACASA) from 6/5/22 to 6/8/22. We have been home for a while, and we still feel very upset about the unthinkable, terrifying experience. We booked it three months ago for our Great Smoky Mountain trip. Compared with other lounging options, this property is expensive ($1249 for three nights). Because the pictures of the property looked beautiful and it had an amazing view of the mountains, we booked it anyway. We arrived around 6 pm on 6/5/22, and we loved it when we first saw the property. We thought we would have a perfect vacation experience by staying there. We were very happy until it was bedtime! We found that there was small and curly hair on the bed fitted sheet. There was A LOT of other hair too. The sheet also looked wrinkled and dirty; apparently, IT WAS USED AND WAS NOT CHANGED AT ALL!!! It was 11:31 pm, and we needed a clean bed sheet to sleep on! We called the VACASA service number for help. Someone answered our call and told us the case was marked “urgent”, and we would expect a call or text message in about 15 minutes from the local management. We thought the problem would be resolved soon. Even though the bedsheet was a disappointment, we would have appreciated the quick service if someone could have brought a new sheet soon. 30 minutes passed, however, and there were no messages or service. We called the service at 12:01 am, and this time no one answered. We quit after 5 minutes. We called again at 12:07 am, but no one answered. We called at 12:11 am again and finally someone took the call. Again, we were told the case was marked “urgent” and that the local management would definitely contact us in 15-30 minutes. We were given the ticket number 5035932. Unfortunately, nobody contacted us or showed up while we were anxiously waiting. At 2 am, we finally realized that there would be NO ONE to help us!!! We had to put the dirty sheet in the dryer for 20 minutes to “clean” it before we felt we could sleep on it. The next morning around 8:30 am, we called the service line again. This time, we were told the person who worked at the service line last night was a “new” employee and made a MISTAKE, and the “messages” marked “urgent” were not sent out to the local management!!! We were told the mistake was corrected “right now” and that we would receive a clean sheet in no time. The clean sheets finally were sent to the property early afternoon on June 6. The terrible experience ruined our vacation. We strongly request that VACASA refund part of the payment. We also recommend that others stay away from VACASA ‘s service or their properties because you never know that you may sleep on a dirty sheet with someone else’s pubic hair. If you already booked, CHECK your BEDSHEET FIRST when you arrive and CALL THE SERVICE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you find something suspicious. You don’t want to repeat our nightmare.

Other issues on the property: no TV remote control in the family room, the cable did not work in the family room and bedroom downstairs, the cover for batteries on the TV remote control was missing in the upstairs bedroom, and the grill on the deck was gross. It seemed like it had not been cleaned for years. Also, the Jacuzzi on the deck seemed like it had not been maintained for a while too. I doubt anyone would use it or be able to enjoy it. There’s also a big crack on the second floor near...

I would like to preface this by saying that we had been planning and looking forward to this trip for a few months in advance. On the day of our check in we got stuck in a 2 hour delay outside of Asheville on our way to the cabin. The office was nice enough to call and check up on us to see when we would be arriving that day. Due to the delay our GPS said that we would not be reaching Pigeon Forge until closer to 6 PM. This was not a problem said the representative as there would still be somebody at the office and all I would have to do is knock and someone would take care us. Once we got to the address provided by the leasing office. It was pretty clear that nobody was there. I knocked a few times and waited for about 5 mins before calling the number back. At that point the lady on the other line asked “what state we were in?” and then put me on hold for about 10 mins. She then got back on and told us that we had to go to a different office across town to get our keys/code, quite far from the previous location and the cabin as well. A slight inconvenience but not a huge deal. When we got to the second place and knocked a gentleman cracked the door open slightly and inquired through it as to why we were there. He looked confused when I told him that we were there to pick up the keys. He asked me which lodge, I told him moonlight and then he let me in. the lady in charge of handling our paperwork stood on the mezzanine also questioning which lodge we were, who I was and why we so late. I got a strange vibe from their demeanor but I just brushed it off and continued to be as pleasant as possible figuring that they might have just been a bit put off because we had a younger crowd with us. The cabin itself was relatively clean and in organized when we arrived. The rooms were and kitchen were in order. However one of the big disappointments was the hot tub did not work at all. The jets would blow, but the temperature remained the ambient atmospheric temp. We tried calling the maintenance number several times only to find that it was disconnected. This was a pretty big letdown since that was one of the driving factors behind choosing this location. Upon checking out we did as instructed and filled up the dishwasher with the remaining silverware, left the towels in the bathroom and left the remaining trash bags by the door. Only a few things were left out, but not nearly enough to warrant the $200 additional cleaning fee on top of the initial $240 that we already paid for the cabin. When I asked about the additional charge, the representative cited some photos showing that some things had been left out on the counters and in a couple of bedrooms. She claimed that the additional charge was for the cleanup. How such a fee is justified by the amount of “additional cleaning time required is beyond me.” When I brought up the hot tub not working she immediately brushed it off and went back to the cleaning fee. At the end, the management would not budge and we ended up having the pay the fee in its entirety. Looking back, I feel that the property owners were very short and condescending with us when they found out that it was a younger crowd and saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation despite us having left the cabin in relatively close condition to how we found it. We have rented cabins with other companies in this area in the past and have never had any issues. Due to their underhanded way of doing business however, Wyndham Vacation Rentals, I would recommend...