As a traveling family, we have stayed in several hotels. I could honestly say, we never had a bad hotel experience before this past weekend. This past weekend put that statement through the window unfortunately.
Our precious M had a clogging competition in Gatlinburg, TN. We are huge fans of Pigeon Forge, TN and would occasionally visit Gatlinburg on our trips. I only had minimal experience with hotels in the Gatlinburg area. I wanted to keep our trip as frugal as we could so I put a bid in at Priceline’s “Name your own price.” Let me just state, I will never use this feature again. We have had success in the past, but this trip put a heavy dark cloud over the past successful trips.
We get to our hotel and realize, it does not look like the pictures online. Sigh #1. We get our keys and drive to our room across the road. Once we open the door, we realize we have one queen size bed for 2 adults and 3 kids. Sigh #2. I run across the road and explain I put in the Priceline instructions, that we needed two double beds. The associate gives us another room. The room looks decent with a smell. We will deal with the smell since we will only be in the room to sleep. As we went to sleep that night, I just felt weird in the room. It’s just all in my head, I was thinking. I finally go to sleep only to wake up to a scratching noise. Sigh #3. I lay there a minute and start praying that I am just hearing noises. Sure enough, the scratching continues and it is right beside me in the nightstand. There are mice in our hotel room. Sigh #4. It is almost 6am in the morning so I hurry and start packing all our things. We are getting out of this room ASAP. As I am packing our things, the smoke alarm goes off in our room. I hurry and swoop up L to carry her, M and her friend start running outside down the halls. As I am running to follow them, I realize we are the only people running in the hotel. Sigh #5. Our alarm was the only one going off. At this point, I just start laughing.
After we get our things packed and in the vehicle, we head across the street to have a talk with the front desk.
Associate: “Do you have a pet with you?”
Me: “Well, actually no we do not.”
Associate: “Why are you in our pet hotel then?”
Me: “Your clerk is the one that put us over there.”
Associate: “Let me go show you a room we have over on this side of the property.”
I go check out the room. It is a little more decent and it is by the creek. I proceed to get hubby and the girls. We begin unpacking our things once again. The girls open the door to see the creek. We have a nice view of a run down hotel and pool. Sigh #6 Someone is outdoors smoking on their balcony and it immediately sets off L with an asthma attack. Sigh #7. We are all just bewildered by this point. Hubby and I vow to never ever stay in Gatlinburg, TN again. We will stay in Pigeon Forge, TN where the hotels are not run down and provide clean and classy rooms. What an experience!
By the way, this hotel was the Sydney James Mountain Lodge. This was our worst hotel experience as a traveling family.
