Starr Crest Resort Cabin Rentals Review »
When we took our trip to Pigeon Forge, we decided to make it a regular family reunion. The big problem with doing so is trying to figure out just how to make enough room for the entire family. It's not like there aren't any hotel rooms in the area - it's just that trying to get one that's large enough for our family (the two of us, plus the two kids) is bad enough. Throw in trying to organize things with both sets of parents and it can turn into a nightmare.
So we decided that we'd try out a cabin. Specifically, we turned to Starr Crest Resort, which isn't really a resort at all, in the typical use of the word, but a collection of properties (cabins, specifically) perched on a mountain. And when I use the word "perched", you may want to take me literally. Some of these places are right on the edge. Our choice was As Good As It Gets, a four bedroom monster right at the top of the mountain.
This may not be the right course of action for everyone. And I'm not even sure if we'd do it again, or if we did it again, if we would do it the same way we did it this time. But for this trip, it worked out great.
From what we learned, it seems that the folks at Starr Crest Resort developed the mountain, and sold the cabins to individual owners, and now the act as an intermediary for the people who don't live there full-time (which appears to be about everyone). Something like a time share. There are, in fact, cabins on the mountain that aren't managed by Starr Crest Resort, so you don't even have to go through them. Of course, there are also cabins galore in the area, so there are plenty to choose from.
In this case, the "resort" offers some goodies on check-in (mostly coupons, which you can probably find elsewhere around town), and a sort of hotel experience, as well as the maintenance crew and piece-of-mind that you like to have just in case something happens. For instance, we arrived at the cabin to find that the door didn't work quite as expected and we weren't able to get in. A quick call to the bottom of the mountain and we were fixed up in no time. Well, not quite fixed up, but we did get in, and figured out how to hold things just right to get in the rest of the weekend. I'm not sure if we would have had service quite as nice if we had another company on the mountain.
There is also a pool at the base of the resort, but it's way down there, and it was a little chilly - so we didn't use it. Coupled with the fact that the cabin was awfully nice, we didn't even miss it, except to notice when we were leaving that we had again forgotten about the pool.
The cabin itself was awesome, well-appointed and decked out with everything you'd expect in a cabin - flat screen televisions, DVD players, foosball, pool table, video games, gourmet kitchen, washer and dryer, bathrooms on each floor, hot tub - wait a minute. Maybe this isn't the sort of cabin you're used to. We weren't either. And if you're looking for the "back to nature" experience, well, this isn't it. But for a nice weekend getaway where the whole family can fit in, with plenty of room to spread out as needed, it was awfully nice.
Aside from the lack of wilderness feel, there were some downsides. The hot tub on the upper deck was loud. Even if you are a city person, it was really loud. My parents took that room, and they had to turn the heat down to get it to shut off enough to sleep (don't tell anyone). The foosball table wasn't well put together, and we had to screw some bolts together so that it didn't fall apart. And finally, the road was long and it was a ways from town, but that's not an entirely bad thing - only if you wanted to go into Pigeon Forge. But if you wanted to get away from it all and spend some time with family, while being close enough to do some activities now and again? It wasn't bad at all.
