Stay With Indoor Waterparks and $50 Arcade Credit at Wilderness at the Smokies! Your Smoky Mountain Adventure Awaits!

Complete Waste of Money We decided to plan this trip months ago for our little girls special birthday surprise…and we wish we would have stuck to going to Disney. To begin with, unless your child is 5 years old, and taller than 42 inches, DO NOT GO HERE. We thought a water park for a 4 year old in the winter would be the perfect birthday…..but that came to an end when we checked in, and the Toddler Area with the slides and Splash Pad area was closed for the entire length of our stay. We will not ever plan a trip back here. CONS: Wave pool water is COLD, and the waves are very aggressive, so if you have a tiny swimmer that you don’t want to see go tumbling, don’t go in. Splash pad/small water slides was closed Hot tub: If you are under 5 years old you are not allowed to enter the ONLY area with warm water in the entire park . Get ready to be harassed by the lifeguards, and we even witnessed a life guard ask the kid how old they was even after the mother told him her age. (Since when do we start quizzing kids at a water park their age, based of a teenager/very young adult lifeguards personal subjective opinion on how old “they think the kid looks”.) I personally hopped in the hot tub for a brief time because I was freezing, only to be disgusted by some teenagers/young adults swimming around with goggles looking at each other under water and rubbing up on each other and who knows what else. Gross. Oh and the life guards explanation as to why we couldn’t get in was “kids under 5 can’t regulate their temperature”. Cool, so you are telling me that the elderly gentleman that has clearly had cardiac surgery due to the sternal scar and a visible pacemaker that rode his electric jazzy up to the entrance of the hot tub is medically stable to be in there too. Lazy River: There is only one size tube (adult size) , so smaller kids struggle to not slip through the middle and fight to stay in the tube. The Water is also cold in here too. For the rest of the trip, we turned the bathtub in our room into a hot tub for our daughter to play in…..but that was only AFTER we had to call maintenance to fix the plug, due to the tub not holding water. We did call the front desk, and told them our concerns, and they did give us a $50 credit to the arcade. While we appreciated the gesture, that quickly turned to disappointment as well. It was a flop too, due to the fact that most of the games are for older kids, and involve shooting and killing animals/zombies/dinosaurs. Nothing a 4 year old little girl could do, other than coin pushes, and an impossible to win claw machine. $50 credit was equal to about 5-7 mins of play in the arcade. No thanks. Went to order food twice and both areas was closed. Our room phone was called by the front area wondering why we didn’t come get our “coupon book” and learn about time shares. I told the lady that we were not interested and was already considering checking out after being at this hotel for 5 hours. When hanging up, we heard her say as she was hanging up “oh my god it’s one of those families”. Such a great feeling. I could go on and on, but I’ll just stick with the basics…..over all….if you enjoy seeing hypothermic kids that are cyanotic and crying because nothing is open that they can actually do then absolutely stay here…if not then avoid. When we talked to the front desk about checking out early and finding a different place to stay, they will not refund you, you are stuck there. I guess it’s because we are “one of those families” Yeah, one of those families that has high expectations and wanted to have a fun trip with our daughter for her birthday. Pro: Good Water pressure in our room. Our room was very close to the water park…..except we couldn’t do 98% of the things that we came here for.

Extremely Disappointing Experience We booked our stay at Wilderness at the Smokies several months ago and were incredibly disappointed from the moment we arrived. The first room we were given was honestly one of the worst on the property. The bathroom’s toilet paper roll was basically empty, which immediately raised a red flag about how well (or poorly) the room had been cleaned before our arrival. Although the room was advertised as having a balcony, it was actually on the first floor right beside a busy entrance from the parking lot. Anyone walking by could see directly into the room with even the slightest gap in the curtains. Groups of people gathered outside this entrance at night to smoke and drink, which made it feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Even worse, the door had no lock, meaning anyone from the street could walk right in to the hotel. We requested a new room, but the only available option was a double room that cost nearly double what we originally planned to pay. We had no choice but to take it. Unfortunately, the “new” room wasn’t much better. One of the beds had a giant sticky stain that had soaked through two separate blankets, which is concerning since they weren’t even attached, so it was obvious neither had been washed. When we checked the mattress underneath, there were large crumbs scattered on it. Not tiny crumbs you might miss, but big, noticeable crumbs, clearly showing the bed hadn’t been cleaned properly at all. For the price, the accommodations were absolutely not worth it. As for the water park, it’s clearly designed for older kids and up. Our 3 and 4 year olds didn’t have many options, especially since the entire middle section of the indoor water park was closed. And even if it had been open, they likely wouldn’t have been tall enough for most of the attractions. The toddler section, which should have been ideal for their age, had water that was ice cold. Our children shivered the entire time they tried to play, which cut their time short and made it hard for them to enjoy anything. On top of that, there were groups of preteen boys running around not paying any attention to their surroundings and nearly jumping on top of our children in the water. The lifeguards saw it happening and still allowed it, which was incredibly frustrating and felt unsafe. The grill was also very unorganized. The staff seemed unsure of what they were doing, and when I asked the bartender for a skinny margarita, she told me she’d have to Google how to make one. The other options weren’t any better. I went to the deli for a coffee and asked if they had decaf espresso. The employee responded, “Maybe. You can buy it and see,” instead of walking the five feet it would have taken to check. The lack of effort and customer service was unbelievable. The arcade was a total money pit. There’s no unlimited play option, and once again, most of the activities weren’t suitable for younger children. A major warning: avoid the concierge desk altogether. After already having to go significantly over budget due to the unexpected room charges and high prices throughout the property, the free gifts they offered sounded helpful. However, the concierge staff is not there to assist with planning or local activities. Their sole purpose is to funnel guests into Club Wyndham timeshare presentations. What was presented as a quick conversation turned into a two hour, high-pressure sales pitch where we repeatedly said no and still struggled to get away. It felt misleading and left a very bad impression. Overall, this was a very poor experience from start to finish. The cleanliness alone was nearly unbearable, and between the room issues, the safety concerns, the lack of appropriate activities, the disorganized staff, and the overall lack of care, we will not be returning. I wish we had known what we were walking into.

Will pass on this next time We stayed here over Thanksgiving...my first surprise was that we actually booked at Stone Hill Lodge, which is a totally separate building across the street from the main waterpark hotel. I thought I had read the map before booking but apparently got confused. Stone Hill Lodge has clearly been more recently renovated and the hallways and rooms are nicer. But the beds and pillows were extremely hard and my whole family struggled with sleep. We could also hear a lot of noise from the road below. The resort does provide a shuttle to the main property with some frequency, but who wants to go back and forth when you're in your swimsuit/soaking wet in the freezing cold? The shuttles also fill up during peak times and it can get kind of competitive. Would definitely recommend staying in the main hotel if your budget allows, especially in the winter. As for the waterpark, we've stayed at the Wilderness in the Wisconsin Dells and thought it was great and found that this was a much smaller version of it. They have a pretty small lazy river and wave pool. Our 8 year old was super bummed that the main kid's area (with the bucket that dumps) was closed the entire time we stayed. She's not into big water slides so having that out of commission really limited her. It would have been nice to have had a heads up prior to booking. This resort is also located pretty far from all the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg attractions, so you definitely need to be ready to drive when going to do things. I'm just not sure it was worth it for us.