Amazing Views Cabin Rentals — Local services in Pigeon Forge

We rented Smokin View Lodge from Friday, 7/27 at 4 pm to Monday, 7/30 at 11 am. Paid over $5000 for 3 nights. The place was absolutely filthy!!! I mean FILTHY!!! We called Amazing Views IMMEDIATELY upon arrival. The floors had our feet black in minutes!! My 11-year-old pointed out how dirty the floors were after we'd been there just a short time and her feet were black! She took a washcloth and with one swipe over the floor, the cloth was dark brown. We all ended up wearing shoes all the time because of it. The tabletops were dirty, dirty, dirty (we cleaned those and the counters twice with soapy washcloths until they showed clean!) The fridge was broken and the shelves were duct-taped in place! The fridge leaned forward about 4 inches difference from top to bottom, so everything fell over inside of it! It rocked back and forth like nothing you've ever seen. We tried to shim it, but it was a mess and we ended up just using coolers for our taller fridge items, like bottles, so they didn't topple over and out when the door was opened! It was crazy! The sofa sleeper on the top floor - with the best view - was a heap of metal and completely busted, so the kids were super disappointed that they couldn't sleep up there. The carpets were continuously wet in the lower level area and made the floor musty-smelling, which was a shame since 4 of the 10 bedrooms were on this floor! There were cobwebs everywhere, and the ceiling fans in every room had 'stuff' hanging from them (nasty dirty stuff). I actually wrote in the dust in places before I took pictures to show how deep it was! The windows were so filthy you could not see out of them (especially the bottom and top floors. The toilets had not been scrubbed out so the rims had disgusting brownish-blackish stuff handing down from them. The perimeter of every room had dust, hair and dirt accumulation...behind all doors, along all bathroom walls, just totally inadequate cleaning from top to bottom in this cabin. I love my family and we had a great time together, but the issue here is that we absolutely did NOT get what we expected or what we paid for, and the company actually shamefully threw it all back on us when we complained. We were told we were the type of people who just "looked" for stuff to be upset about. We asked for a refund of ONE night (we stayed three), and we were denied and told we were getting nothing back. I actually would have been a satisfied renter with a night's refund, as that would have been a fair resolution. As it stands, we simply didn't get what we paid for. We paid for a RItz and we got a Motel 6. We DID get a big cabin with outstanding views that we could all fit comfortably in, but we also had numerous issues and should have received a partial refund. If they had been fair with us, my reviews would have stated that. Amazing Views and the owner said we should have let them come Saturday and send a cleaning crew and maintenance crew to fix everything...sorry, but we only had Saturday and Sunday to spend there, and it was not appealing to have a bunch of strangers running about in the cabin fixing and cleaning on one of our two full days there! And, by Saturday, WE had already cleaned counters and tables and bathroom surfaces! Bottom line, all of the issues should have been taken care of BEFORE we arrived, and we shouldn't have been asked to allow workers to interfere with our family gathering...the cabin should have been clean, the fridge should have been replaced and the sofa bed should have been fixed before we arrived. As it were, we did not get what we paid for. Oh - and the rental company came up with a pathetic offer of letting us look over a list of "area attractions" and they would "see about" getting us some free tickets to something. We were not interested in attractions, so that was no value to us. We just wanted to enjoy our family time in the cabin that we'd paid over $5,000 for the three nights without strangers and without filth and with working amenities. Was that too...

We stayed at Smoky Mountain Retreat. At first glance when you walk through the front doors it is amazing and you are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the cabin. Everyone loved the layout, the views were gorgeous and we really appreciated the attention to detail when it came to the cabin décor. Unfortunately that's about it, and as we began to settle in, the cabin began to fall short of expectations. One of the first things our group noticed, was that the cabin had not been cleaned properly. There were many places where there was dust, cobb webs and dirt (e.g. in the corners of the rooms, under the beds, on the ceiling fans, in the showers). There were also food crumbs between the seats of the theater room and the floors in the kitchen were dirty. Most members of the group had brought their own cleaning supplies, so most of the first night in the cabin was spent cleaning. With the first night done, we had high hopes that things would begin to get better but it only kept getting worse. In addition to the cleanliness of the cabin, we also experienced two of the amenities not working. That being the fire pit and the pool controls. The fire pit seemed to be out of propane and the pool control screen had been shattered. A maintenance request was put in on the second day of our stay, as there were also (3) other things broken in the cabin. Those three things being a pool chair, the door on the bar and the door handle leading to one of the balconies. A maintenance guy came pretty quickly that same day, without a mask, though he gladly put one on when asked, to fix the (3) broken items and informed us that we would be receiving a call about the broken pool controls and fire pit but no call was ever received during the entire stay. He also told us that they knew about the broken pool controls and had already contacted the pool company to get it fixed. So at this point we are only on day two of our stay and have already had issues with the cleanliness of the cabin, broken amenities and broken furniture. Even with all that, we still had hopes that things would get better but we where again let down. In addition to the items mentioned previously, as we began to prepare our meals we noticed that there was a lack of cooking supplies (e.g. There was one small glass cutting board, no serving trays, one spatula, one chefs cutting knife, two medium sauce pans). Based on previous experiences with other large cabins, large cabins usually have had large pots and pans to accommodate cooking for large groups. There were plenty of cups, bowls, plates and eating utensils, which did come in handy. We made it work but it was a struggle. Out of the (3) coffee makers at the home only (1) of them worked. Out of the (3) waffle makers none of them worked. The ice makers on the refrigerators did not work, so we had to make runs to the store to get bags of ice. The broom in the kitchen was too small to be usable. Meaning the broom handle was about (2ft) long. The rugs in the kitchen and around the house, where coming up from the adhesive. The bathroom door on the main level did not have a proper lock on the handle. There was an inexpensive latch that you can tell was added at the last minute because a closet door handle was installed. There was no audio sound system any where in the house (i.e. sound bar or speakers), not even the movie theater, so music had to be played through the tv. We assumed that the movie room had built in speakers somewhere but the only sound available in the movie room came from the projector, which was not loud enough once you had 20+ people in the room. We were given the wrong WIFI network name and password. That information had to be obtain off the side of the cable router. Speaking of cable, that did not work either and we had to use one of the streaming apps on the smart tv to watch tv. Posting the review here as they will not post it...

My family and I were planning a 5 day stay here. Everyone was traveling from various places so it was an exciting time. But I'm going to get right to it and not fluff.||1)There no clear instructions on how to get in the door so we ended up waiting until we could get someone to answer and help us get in.||2) We assigned rooms based on the floor plan from the website. It is incorrect and many room setups did not allow for a futon to be there so rearranging had to be done.||3) Furniture was broken in various rooms. The dresser was completely unusable in the room my husband and I stayed in.||4) Every single bed was very squeaky and uncomfortable. Getting in and out of the bed was nosy and the mattresses are either thin and cheap or old and cheap.||5) ROACHES. I am disgusted and shocked at the amount of roaches that we killed during this stay. We will now have to shake out and air out everything and wash at the laundry mat before taking anything into our homes. It's unbelievable that for the amount of money that is spent on this rental, we had to deal with roaches. I'm absolutely pissed.||6) Cobwebs/Spiderwebs and dust everywhere. Whoever had been hired to clean the cabin is not doing a thorough job as the inside and outside is littered with Cobwebs.||7) Mildewed shower curtain liners. Shower curtains liner are inexpensive. I'm not understanding why they can't be replaced once they're showing signs of mold and mildew. ||8) The one bathroom was leaking water into the kitchen while someone was showering. ||9) TVs weren't working and remotes were missing.||10) The oven on one of the stoves was not working. The kitchen was not clean when we got here. The pots and pans are old and nonstick so they have signs of extreme wear and tear and need to be replaced. The coffee maker is missing the filter basket.||11) There was no designated area for additional supplies such as toilet paper, paper towel or towels. The towels by the way are worn out and need to be replaced.||12) ROACHES!!!||13) The freezer went out at some point. We don't know what happened but pieces of both the refrigerator and freezer are broken and makes it hard to close properly.||14) No garbage disposal. Having a house so big with the expection of accommodating more than 30 people, a garbage disposal should be in place.||15) Trash. No one came to empty the trash containers. We called twice before someone would show up and when they did, they advised that they had work orders they needed to complete in the cabin and we were not forewarned about that. The one guy was changing the filter on the air conditioning and pulled a trap that had several ROACHES on it, some still alive. ||16) Parking. What you are not told or shown is that there is another cabin next door approximately 15 yards over. The parking area is very tight and you're sharing this very small space with the other cabin that is also to accommodate over 30 people. So imagine the parking debacle this created.|||Overall, the family made the best of it and we enjoyed each other but there was definitely a huge disappointment with the quality of what was shown vs what we got. Yes, the views off the back deck were great once you look past all of the trash but we overpaid based on the quality or lack thereof.||I wouldn't recommend this specific cabin rental to anyone. If there was one thing that pushed me over the top, it was definitely the roaches. It just made everything uncomfortable and it's got lasting effects because once roaches get into something, it's hard to get rid of them. Now we're all having to do extra to ensure we don't carry them back to our homes.||I hope the management company sees this and does better by future families that will rent this place. Don't take people's money and give them bs...