Tru by Hilton Pigeon Forge — Hotel in Pigeon Forge

A general rule that I try to follow when staying at a hotel is to stay somewhere that is at least as nice as my house. This hotel did not deliver. The room itself looked nice at first glance. The TV is of decent size and quality. After further investigation, I noticed that the mattress was sitting on a platform and was very thin. I would estimate that the mattress was 6-8” thick, you can feel the hard platform when you sit on the mattress. The build quality seemed to be lacking, which is unusual for a Hilton. The edge of the bed was falling apart, as well as the desk for the chair. The shower was rusty, and the bathroom fan would not turn on. This seemed to cause damage to the paint and wallpaper in the bathroom as pictured in my review. The bunk bed in our room had what looked to be dog hair and Cheez-Its/candy in it, which is somewhat understandable considering how steep and hazardous the steps to the bunk bed are. I can’t imagine someone from housekeeping risking their neck trying to get up there to clean it. There is no real storage, no microwave, and a refrigerator that was smaller than the cooler we brought with us. The only ice machine is on the first floor. The view from our room was extremely mediocre. The back side of the hotel has a hill and a ball diamond, which was all we were able to see from our top floor room. The view from the rooftop lounge is very nice, as pictured. We were not able to enjoy it due to it being so busy and loud. The breakfast bar has many options which consist of cereal, eggs, sausage, waffle boats, bagels, doughnuts, English muffins, oatmeal, etc. There were moldy bagels and muffins on several mornings as pictured, so beware. Breakfast at the hotel was very chaotic. A Foosball table in the lobby seems like a great idea until a little league baseball team comes and wreaks eternal havoc on unsuspecting guests that are just trying to enjoy their breakfast. Also, there is no onsite laundry. You have to walk to the adjoining hotel and tell them that you are a guest at Tru so you can pay to wash your clothes. There is a 4.5' deep indoor swimming pool in the hotel, and an outdoor swimming pool that is shared with the adjoining hotel as well. This hotel was marketed towards millennials, but the majority of the guests were elderly couples or families with many children. The hotel staff was very friendly and helpful. All in all, this hotel is a solid 6/10 if you are just looking for a place to sleep and do not plan to spend any time in the room.

A response for the GM: Before we booked at TRU, we did investigate. We stay at Hilton hotels for 20+ days per year. We stayed at Home2Suites last year while TRU was being built and we were curious. I agree with you that the mattresses are quite new, however in my review I state "the mattress was sitting on a platform and was very thin." The bed may be less than a year old, but the frame is falling apart as I showed in my pictures. The site we booked through online states that "Dry cleaning/laundry service is available." I also see on your website that you advertise "Laundry/Valet Service." We did not require laundry services, I am just trying to make my review as accurate and informative as possible. As far as price point goes, this hotel was less than 10% cheaper per night than we paid at Home2Suites last year. There are also other Hilton hotels in the area which are cheaper with more amenities. Online information lists this hotel as having 102 rooms, so "500+ guests" at breakfast seems like quite an exaggeration. That would equate to an average of 4.90 guests per room which seems unreasonable considering some of the rooms only "Sleep 2 people (including up to 1 child)." Melissa, Thank you for...

The Good: The rooms are clean. The hotel is in a convenient location, just behind The Island and just below a large ballfield complex.

The Bad: This was our first stay at the Tru line of Hilton Hotels; it did not live up to our expectations of the Hilton brand. This is a true "budget" level motel, with no frills and less service, at a moderate price point. I expected more for the price point.

Guest services were few and far between. At check in, we found the front desk staff cozied up in a lobby cubby hole playing on their phone. No one was to be seen or found for checkout, so I took care of that myself in the app.

The rooms are very small and narrow, with limited furnishings or accessories. There is a tiny dorm size fridge, a few towels, two beds, and a straight back chair (similar to a folding padded metal chair). The floors are tiled, which adds to the dorm room atmosphere--and amplifies sounds from the TV, footsteps, voices, and neighbors from surrounding rooms.

The bathroom amenities include a hairdryer, a few towels, and toiletries in refillable squeeze bottles mounted to the walls (not pumps, squeeze...so everyone's dirty hands touch the bottles). The shower seal was already broken off, leading to a floor full of water, and the tiles in front of the shower were broken as well.

The beds are thin mattresses on wooden frames. There are no box springs. These beds are extremely uncomfortable and similar to sleeping on a Murphy bed with thin mattress or pull out couch. The bedding is the thinnest and cheapest imaginable, with a low-qualty thin polyester coverlet. Each bed includes three flimsy pillows. If lush bedding that you enjoy at Hilton hotels is on your vacation wish list, you won't find it at Tru.

Breakfast offerings were ok. The Golden Malted waffles with Nutella packs were a pleasant surprise. Coffee, hot tea, and chocolate are available 24/7. The waffle batter ran out by 9:30 and the breakfast attendant claimed that was it for the day; after several complaints, she reluctantly brought out a two gallon container of pre-mixed batter.

The rooftop sky deck is a nice surprise, and offers the nicest furnishings in the whole hotel. There is ample seating and a covered pergola with Edison lighting for a neat nighttime atmosphere. Tables are available to bring in food for dining.

The indoor pool was broken during our stay. The outdoor pool was open, but too cold to use.

Overall: For the price point, Tru misses the mark. This is a $70 motel room, at best. Anything over $100 for this room is far too much. It's probably okay for a group of young travel ball players, but their parents are going to sleep uncomfortably and pay for it sitting in hard bleachers all weekend. I'm disappointed with this from the Hilton brand. I would not likely stay at...

Never again......this was not the right hotel for me. In fact, it is probably the worst hotel I have stayed in during my 30+ years of business travel. Yes, it's a lovely, nice, swanky new hotel. But, for me, it's very, very bad by design. Let me explain... while this property is in the middle of a huge tourist destination, I stayed here for work/business. When I arrived and checked in, I really needed to get into my room and get back to work...but that would prove impossible....there is no desk. Oh sure, there's a little rolling table about 18x30 inches, but that's not nearly enough space for me to work on. There's also no desk chair...there is a chair, but it's a funky, trendy, wierd thing with a 12" round desk(?) attached to it...certainly not anything that resembles a desk or task chair. I asked the front desk, and no, they do not have any rooms that have an actual desk in them. But that's not all....there's no carpet...almost no counter space...no dresser, chest, or any type of drawers whatsoever...no closet...actually there's no enclosed storage spaces of any kind - NONE...no real nightstands, just a tiny shelf that you cannot reach if you're sitting up in the bed. Since there's no carpet, the room has extreme 'echoes'...so bad that I had a very difficult time having phone conversations. The king size bed had only 3 pillows. There are no curtains or drapes, only a perforated rolling blind...so no chance of darkening the room or absolute privacy. There's a sign on the bed frame that says you're supposed to store your luggage on the floor under the bed...uh, no thanks! The lighting is bad. The refrigerator is TINY. There's no in-room coffee service. There are no bars of soap, no bottles of shampoo/conditioner...only wall-mounted bulk dispensers that are difficult to use and mounted in the worst spots (I kept slamming my elbow into the ones mounted in the shower). There's no place to put your bath towel while you are showering. The bathroom vanity lighting is VERY dim. The free Wifi service blocks VPN access. The room has wall-mounted coat hooks that will send you to the hospital if you happen to bump into them. These are the reasons I won't be back to this or any other Tru property. Personally i don't think this little design experiment is going to last. But maybe it's the perfect hotel for you. What do I...