American Patriot Getaways — Local services in Pigeon Forge

I'll first say that I have stayed in an APG cabin many times and likely will again. The positives Generally outweigh the negatives.|I got this cabin for it's proximity to Parkway and The Island (less than 10 minutes) and it's size. This was for a family get together from several states and it worked Very well for this purpose.|Among the many positives of this cabin, three major negatives stained it a bit. | 1). The internet. The plug for the router is behind a couch that, if moved even a little, causes the plug to come out enough to kill the signal. Figuring this out took a little bit. Even when fully connected, the service was sluggish at best. When I had to use my computer I had to tie onto my phone to get it to work.|2). The A/C. The A/C wasn't working properly when we got there so we did some investigating and found that the drip pan had filled with water and activated the kill switch. We got towels and sopped up all the water but it quickly filled again. Upon further investigation we found that the condensate line was clogged. We went out and bought a snake and cleared the line and the A/C worked after that. You might ask "why didn't you call us to have maintenance come out?". I would refer you to my last experience with APG customer service and the answer should be obvious. I didn't see any help coming from that direction so we did it ourselves. There SHOULD be a basic maintenance schedule for the cabins that includes clearing this line by pouring bleach or some other cleanser down it every 30 days as all homeowners know (or should know) to do. If it's not, you may want to look into it. It could save you multiple maintenance calls.|3). Trash. Trash wasn't picked up for the entirety of the time we were there. Maybe they came by on the first day before we had any trash to take out. Maybe they didn't bother to come at all. I don't know. What I Do know is that we had to haul off the extra trash and find a place that would allow us to use their dumpster for it three times during the week and still had multiple bags that would not fit in the small trash container outside. Not sure what the excuse could be for this. I can't think of a single one. The trash Should, for a cabin this size, be checked/emptied at Least twice during an eight day stay.|A couple Minor issues: One lamp's bulb was burned out. On another the on/off knob was broken. We had to go out and buy batteries for the tv remotes. It was obvious that they had been switched and swapped and mixed and matched so there were at least several clues that they should have been changed out earlier. It seems an easy thing to check during the cleaning process. The pool table was nice but several areas along the inside edges were worn and misshapen. Again this Should have been easily identified by whatever QC person they have that checks the cabins and it is obviously not a new situation so it has made it past many many inspections apparently. The table was still usable though and did provide some hours of entertainment. The Hot Tub did not appear to have been drained/cleaned prior to us getting there. A couple folks got in it once but they told me it smelled bad so after that, we didn't get back in. A shame because it looks like a nice one.|The last and least significant thing was that upon entry and moving our things upstairs, there was an empty candy bag (gummy something or other I think) sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs. We just hung our head and said "APG clean up crew at it again".| APG has had a long standing problem with whatever cleaning crew they use. I mention this each time I stay at one of their cabins which I've been doing for years now. The price is right so we forgive certain things but I do wish it would improve.| Other than these items that could have and Should have been easily handled prior to our arrival, the cabin was very nice. The view was better than I expected by a lot! We loved it and spent every morning and evening on the porch chatting and enjoying the view. There was plenty of room and parking for our guests and the beds were more comfortable than expected for a cabin. The kitchen is nicely sized and accommodating. The dining room features a good sized table for eating and playing games.|My wife and I stayed with APG in May and on our way out we stopped at this cabin and took a few pictures of the front of it as I had already booked it for this trip. Between then and when we went up last week I edited in the dates of our trip, the location and the two main family names to the picture and had it made into a 500 piece puzzle. I had everyone that came put at least a part of the puzzle together and, when finished, I had everyone sign it. A very fun little project indeed! I would suggest it to all. I glued it and framed it when complete and gave it to my mom and dad so they could remember this...

Rating 0- appalling, disgusting, unsafe, unsanitary, uninhabitable, very poorly maintained, was catfished/fraud, way less than luxury plus, avoid at all cost! ||||Extended family (10) rented the “Ritz of the Smokies” through American Patriot Getaways, expecting a “luxury plus” experience per their description. The house was riddled with health and safety issues that made our stay unbearable and the home uninhabitable.||||We arrived Saturday afternoon and the home was in an extremely deplorable state. Millipedes were everywhere—on beds, walls, ceilings, and even on the pirate ship bed my daughter had planned to sleep in. The sheets were also covered in hair from previous guests, and the washer was disgusting.||||Dust was on everything, active cobwebs in windows, and walls had crayon marks, large holes with exposed piping, and signs of water damage throughout the home. The floors were uneven, felt like you could fall through, gaps in flooring created tripping hazards, and wobbly outdoor stone tiles nearly caused my MIL to fall. The outside stairs didn’t seem to be safely installed, the yard and fire pit were in a sad state, gate next to home had fallen down. Porch looked rotted or unkept in some parts and unsafe.||||My MIL was injured within the first 20 minutes of being inside the home when I saw a poorly installed heavy vanity bathroom drawer fall hard on her wrist when she went to open it. This caused a painful bump and bruise, she had to take pain meds. We made our first call to their customer service to report her injury after we got our things inside. We told them some of the issues we saw and how unacceptable the house was for basically $1,000 a night. The company filed an incident report for her injury. They told us management couldn’t get back till a few days later. Mgmt called on Wednesday (day 5). Not much was done in the meantime aside from fixing the door that wouldn’t lock and a couple other very minor things and they didn’t change my sheets till the 3rd day.||||Poorly installed cabinet doors and drawers posed further risks in multiple areas of the home. The walls were unacceptably appalling with gashes, holes, writing, water damage, marks, etc. We even saw multiple very large holes in the drywall with exposed pipes.||||The master bathroom in the basement had peeling laminate, gaps exposing the subfloor, and a moldy bug infested shower. No rugs provided to prevent slips, no towel hooks, and no toilet paper holders—just rolls left on the toilet (gross). Millipedes and another kind of bug really infested this room and bathroom. I saw a bunch of them cuddled up in a corner of the bathroom stairs by my suitcase.||||The railing at the bottom of the steps to the basement is loose and unsafe railing and slats on the basement stairs that was flimsy and clearly a temporary/quick solution, definitely not the advertised luxury plus.||||The kitchen was not well equipped, old oily and dirty pots and pans and utensils that all looked like something you’d find if there was a zombie apocalypse. We wasted so much food we had hoped to cook. Multiple light fixtures dangled unsafely, and the pool room stairs lacked handrails, adding to the hazards. The pool also seemed to be over chlorinated. Driveway artwork is long gone and looks awful. House was dirty everywhere you looked, broken chairs in kitchen, and dirty ottoman and filthy air vents.||||We reported these issues to American Patriot Getaways many times starting day 1. They sent a nice maintenance man on day 2 and we walked the whole property and showed all of our concerns to. He was appalled and he fixed the door that wouldn’t lock and maybe a few other small things Maintenance man took pictures of the issues and was shown the pest issue too. They did change the sheets in our room on day 3 but did not do any other cleaning or clean the wash machine. My family of 3 left on the 3rd day. The remaining family members stayed and dealt with these issues.||||I reported this to the Sevier County Health Dept, Fire Dept, Tourism, TN AG, & BBB. Avoid this property it should be condemned. Do not stay here...

UPDATE 9/2023: We went back and stayed in the cabin we love. There were no issues. Our trip was just what we had hoped for our Smoky Mountain getaway.

April 2023 We had vacationed a few times over the past several years in the Smoky Mountains, each time in the same cabin, at a fantastic location high in the mountains with a spectacular view. We decided to go back this spring, and were delighted to find our same cabin, now called A View for You, and now managed by American Patriot Getaways. We booked our trip. 30 hours before check in, I received a call from Cody at American Patriot Getaways informing me that our cabin was “unavailable”. We would need to book two separate cabins as there were no cabins available for five consecutive nights. This news, just 30 hours before were to check in? We spent an hour on the phone with him to find two cabins, but we were very disappointed for our vacation to begin like this. WE WERE NEVER OFFERED TO CANCEL OUR TRIP AND RECEIVE A REFUND.

Our first cabin was dirty, the hot tub was not working, and the dishes were dirty. We didn’t call Guest Services as it was after 6 and we were only here one night. We checked out by 11 as required. Cody had told us that our next cabin would be prioritized for cleaning so we wouldn’t have to wait until 4pm to get in. We were, in fact, losing a day of our vacation due to the move we had to make. I called at 1pm to see if the next cabin was ready, I was told “Check in doesn’t start until 4pm”. Apparently, the priority cleaning that Cody had talked about hadn’t been communicated along. We finally got into our 2nd cabin. Our view was the road and another cabin. Not at all the experience/location we had paid for. The Wifi info and password are wrong on the sheet we were provided , the sink sprayer does NOT shut off after releasing the lever (yikes!). The hot tub was not clean. It took two calls 6 hours apart before someone came to fix it. The final night of our stay, I was doing laundry and found that the dryer was not drying the clothes. I called Guest Services and spoke with Doris (again). She put in a work order and told us we would see someone in one to two hours. This was true. He was very pleasant and checked things out. He was not able to fix the dryer, though, and said someone would be out the next day to take care of it. Obviously, that didn’t help us since we were checking out in the morning. In the morning when we packed our truck to leave, it was dark. We had not been out in the driveway in the dark during our stay. So, this was when we discovered that there was no light on the main driveway (one floodlight was pointed AT the cabin, the other was pointed at the lower level drive). Also, none of the lights that are intended to light the walkway and steps from the cabin door to the driveway were operational. We were glad we had brought flashlights.

This was our first experience with American Patriot Getaways. We had previously worked with Hearthside Cabin Rentals each time we made a trip to the Smoky Mountains, and were always very happy. We are VERY UNHAPPY with the way things were handled regarding our reservation…the very, very last minute complete change in our plans. We were not given the opportunity to have a refund and cancel the trip. Instead, we were shoved into an experience that we DID NOT want, and that we would have NEVER booked. I sent this information to the management team at American Patriot, and Devon called me back. They are "not able" to refund me any of my $$ (other than the cleaning fee and the "processing fee", which should not have been my responsibility anyway, since the cabins were not clean and it was not our problem they had to "process" the change for the different cabins). All they would offer was a small discount if we wanted to come back. When I mentioned that I would likely put our experience out as a google review, she told me that they would not be able to offer the discount if I did so. We will never book a property through American Patriot...