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6/10 Okay
Darren W.
31 July 2025
Could have been great if the owner cared or even responded
Took a trip to stay at Misty Ridge with my 6 and 8 year old daughters in mid July. To start with the positives. The view is gorgeous and the location is solid, though a bit far from the park. The cabin has great potential with pretty much all the things you could ask for. Unfortunately, there were some issues that came up during my stay, including when we arrived finding a clump of pubic hair and some sort of black powder substance in the bathroom floor in the main floor bathroom and the shower door wedged open and unable to slide open or shut in the downstairs bathroom. Neither of those were a huge deal, I reached out to Walt, the owner, and he had cleaners come out the next day to clean the bathroom and also had someone fix the shower door. If those were the only issues this would be a much better review, but it was the 2nd night where things went a bit off the rails.
When we returned to the cabin from a day in the park the temp in the cabin was set at 72 but the actual temp was 82. I reached out to Walt again and he had someone come to take a look at it. The maintenance person was great and he discovered that the downstairs thermostat had been locked and was reading at 69 degrees despite it actually being 75. He wasn't sure why Walt had locked it and I told him we could live with it being 75 down there.
He also discovered that the mini-split in the game room upstairs has to be on and set to 72 or so for the main floor system to keep up with the cooling of the cabin. In an effort to get the system working more efficiently he blew out the line and cleaned the coils. Unfortunately, shortly after he left water started coming in through the bedroom ceiling, raining down from the ceiling fan and rafters onto the bed. I messaged Walt again and he sent the maintenance person back out. He took another look at the unit in the crawlspace and saw where the line had come apart at one of the fittings so he got it all fixed and the water stopped coming from the ceiling.
At this point I had lost 3 hours of my evening to dealing with this AND I was unable to sleep on the bed because the water had soaked through everything. The maintenance person was very apologetic and said he was sure Walt would make it right and that he would have them come the next day and replace all the bedding so that I could sleep on the bed on my last night. So I slept the 2nd night of my vacation on a fold out couch. I'm 6'4 and in my 40s, not a great night sleep, and not a great experience on vacation.
The third day we went out to the park again and then returned to the cabin around 6pm. At that point there was no new bedding. The mattress had at least dried out so I got the sheets and blanket I used for the fold out couch and laid them on the bed so that I could sleep on the bed as opposed to the couch.
When I connected with Walt after the fact, he offered me a one night stay on a future trip. I told him that wasn't satisfactory. I live 4 hours away and am not going to make a one night trip to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, particularly if I would still have to pay all of the taxes/cleaning fees/etc associated with the one night stay. I also don't feel great about a solution of, "I know your vacation didn't go great because of issues on our end, so come pay us more money some other time and we'll give you a deal on one of your nights."
I suggested I would prefer a refund equivalent to one nights stay OR he could offer a 3 night stay during weekdays on non-peak dates (in other words we could come during weekdays on non peak dates) and that I would be fine paying the taxes and cleaning fees and such in that case. I even offered to do it as a last minute booking so he'd know for sure he wasn't loosing other business. I figured that would be a scenario where he wouldn't lose any money AND it would actually be a benefit to me and my family. A win win if you will. Walt's response to my suggestions was simply to not reply at all. I sent another message a few days later asking for a response and he didn't reply to that either. Sent another message before posting this and he still didn't respond.
I get that stuff happens. I'm a pastor and I try my best to lead with grace. All of my communications with Walt were kind and gracious. But I also have very little patience for people simply not caring enough to respond. I told Walt that I don't have a lot of recourse, but that one recourse I do have is to leave a review. My hope is that my review of my experience, and particularly my interactions with Walt, might make you think twice before booking with him, and that you'll instead choose one of the thousands of other options where you can at least hope to support an owner who cares enough about you to respond to your messages and make things right when your vacation gets significantly impacted by issues with the cabin.
