Westgate Smoky Mountain Timeshare Release

We are owners and exchanged one week from our Orlando property. So-called “studio” was a dungeon, in a poor state of repair and so small you had to step over your luggage! When asking for an upgrade to a similar property we own in Orlando, the concierge spent 3.5 hours of our vacation time trying to upgrade us to more timeshare at Smokey Mountains, no interest whatsoever in our problems. Have never seen so much buck-passing as this, the property was a shambles and we have never been treated so poorly as a customer. Shame on Westgate, so very sorry we ever got involved with this disgusting company !

Our two kiddos loved the water park here at Westgate and the staff were very friendly and accommodating.

Other than that, we didn’t really enjoy our stay here.

The beds and sofa beds were very uncomfortable and we could hear everything at our neighbors (and I’m sure they could hear us). We ended up attending the timeshare presentation for some discounts at the resort. Our guide was very friendly, but we ended up being turned over to another man. I guess the other man was supposed to close the deal with us even though we said we weren’t interested. He told us that he normally didn’t “sell” but so many salesmen came in drunk (???) that he had to step in (it was January 1, 2017).

He basically talked very harshly to us, telling us we were stupid for saving up for our vacations instead of paying a $10,000 down payment and $800 a month for their timeshare offer. He was very rude and insulting. He was trying to bully us into giving him our money. After spending almost 2 1/2 hours (versus the 90 minutes) and being treated like garbage, I stood up to leave with tears in my eyes.

The man told me that I COULD NOT leave until I was signed out by a 3rd man. The 3rd man also continued a sales pitch. I finally told him that his salesman was so rude that I never wanted anything to do with Westgate. He finally signed the paper. Then the salesmen went to a corner of the room, pointing at us and shaking their heads.

If you don’t fork over thousands of dollars for their timeshare, they treat you like garbage.

It was a horrible experience and definitely wasn’t worth the mediocre accommodations that are offered at the resort.

There are so many other hotels, cabins, and resorts at the Smoky Mountains. I recommend staying ANYWHERE else.

My wife’s grandmother passed last week and we had to make the trip to South Carolina. Our original plan was to drive straight through as we did coming down, but unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and instead we decided that Gatlinburg was about the furthest we wanted to drive on Sunday since I had driven 700 miles the previous day.

We booked an express deal on Priceline and were shocked that we got a room at the Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort and Spa for less than $120. As my wife looked at pictures of the resort she was really excited about it and was looking forward to spending part of the day in Gatlinburg doing touristy things.

A word to the wise on finding this place….if your GPS tells you to get off at exit 447 or 443, tell it to shut up and go down to I think it’s exit 410 or something like that. We ended up going through all sorts of one lane mountain roads in the middle of a snowstorm trying to find this place. When we finally got there, I was initially blown away by the level of service upon arrival. There are uninformed guest services members all over the place and the uniforms (which is pretty much a knockoff of the US Forest Service uniforms, probably to fit with the sales pitch I’ll discuss later.) And that was when everything began to unravel….

When we checked in, we were flagged as non-members of the resort, we had to pay $12 for resort fees, and a $50 deposit was placed on the credit card. Fine, whatever, it’s pretty much standard hotel fare. But, then we were directed to another counter where we were told because we booked through Priceline and we were not owners, we had to attend a mandatory presentation at either 9 am or 10 am the following morning about ownership at this “wonderful” resort. And we were charged $20 in cash for this privilege, and it should only take us 90 minutes. I immediately objected but was told it was mandatory and there were no exceptions to the policy. I was then forced to use an ATM that charged an exorbitant fee (they refunded it) and then I was told I would get three free gifts just for sitting through the presentation, $100 in cash, a 3 day two night stay at any of these Westgate Resorts, and a 25 gift card to some local restaurant.

Anyway, it was about 930, we went to the room and we tried to order room service. We were told that even though room service was available until 10, because it was after 930, they stopped taking orders for the night and our only option was to either go out or order pizza. We ordered an expensive pie ($32) from Gino’s, and when the delivery driver got there, he called us and told us we had to meet him down at the check-in building because the resort would not allow him to deliver to the cabins. So we had to drive back down to the check-in building to get our food, which honestly a $5 hot n ready from Little Caesar’s would have tasted better than this garbage.

The room itself wasn’t too bad. It was about the equivalent of the Candlewood Suites hotel we had stayed at in Columbia, South Carolina, but with fancy wood panelling to give it a rustic log cabin look. The furniture was decent, but everything had a cheap feel to it. The shower was nice….had decent water pressure and was hot.

Now, to get to why this place is horrible….the timeshare presentation! Yes, they look great and they take you through their history and show you all of the pictures of the owner of Westgate Resort with all of these B and C list celebrities, and then through the development. They take you through a demo unit, and then you go through the initial selling offer with the sales rep. They quoted us $35,000 for a one bedroom, with $7,000 down, payments of $520 a month for ten years, and 17.99% pre-approved financing. I passed on that. And then I passed on four more offers. They had me down to a starter package for $6000, $920 down, and payments of $97 a month for ten years…a “CRAZY deal” that would allow me to stay at the Westgate one week a year every other year. For $12,560, I could go on Royal Caribbean and stay in a junior suite every year for the next decade. Which is actually a better use of my money,

I finally had to get almost borderline rude with them before they would let us go. And then instead of taking the hint, we were not buying a timeshare….we got invited back to the property for a week-long discounted stay…which for some reason….we agreed to. Maybe it was because we had been there for almost five hours and just wanted to go home. I dunno. But we’re going back….yay….. maybe this time we can actually do some sightseeing in Gatlinburg like we wanted to, but I suspect we will be forced to sit through another one of these presentations…..again.

I just stayed here with my daughter and her two boys aged 10 and 8, both pretty good swimmers. We had a one bedroom unit. There was no problem with the furnishings to my mind, although the old sofa bed may not have been too comfortable for adults. We had the boys sleep there. The king-sized bed in the bedroom was quite comfortable. I loved the rain shower, but missed having a bathtub. But what I really missed, being in the Smoky Mountains was a patio or deck or any kind of a view — even a front window would have been nice. There is one very small window in a corner of the bedroom. Aside from that nada, no window, no balcony, no nothing. Nothing outside the unit, not even a community place for the building where people could sit and look at the mountains.

Our unit was 509-25 — way up high. It was, fortunately, walking distance to a nice pool with a view and a snack bar. We enjoyed this area the most of anywhere in the resort. I am walking challenged due to heart failure but was able to get back and forth to this area without much difficulty. The resort’s other amenities were down at the bottom of the mountain and accessible by shuttle, still not too difficult, but if you want to take the shuttle back after the last night’s activity, be prepared for a wait — maybe 20-30 minutes.

Our first day, we took the boys to Dollywood. If I had been alone with the boys, I would have been in big trouble when we got back, as there was no parking anywhere near our unit. My daughter dropped me off, and the place she finally found was about 6 buildings down. The boys were very tired, and the little one, who has asthma, almost got sick walking back up the mountain. It is absolutely ridiculous not to have at least one assigned parking space per unit. Many spaces are blocked off marked handicapped. I understand that this is an ongoing problem.

On the last day, we thought we would take the boys to the $20 a piece extra water park, kind of against my better judgment, as I thought the water was murky, may be polluted. But this was a no go, as an adult must be in the water continuously with any child under 10 years old. We went back to the swimming pool.

Additionally, we were charged an extra “resort fee” — don’t know what was included except for the swimming pools. Also, I think my daughter may have paid extra for WiFi which did not work. Very few TV channels came in, also.

The setting is very lovely and most of the employees were very nice. However, this resort was not what I would describe as user-friendly, and this matters a lot to me and to my family. The biggest negative, however, was the lack of any sort of view from where we were.

We belong to Interval International and have previously stayed at this resort eight years ago. At that time we had a very nice one bedroom unit.

However, on our way to a holiday in the southern USA, I found a deal on Groupon to stay at the Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort. As we wanted to extend our holiday by a few more days and having spent previous time at this resort, we figured this would be a good place to stay.

So very disappointing, we were given a studio suite which is what I booked but this was located in the lower level 300’s and at the very end of the building. We had to walk at least 1/2 mile to get to our unit as there was no parking allowed outside the door, not an easy feat when you have lots of luggage and a bad knee.

It was difficult to tell what the weather was like as our unit faced out to a big wall and one actually had to walk out the door to determine if the sun was shining or if it was raining.

There were only approximately 10 TV stations, the internet hardly worked and the most annoying was the A/C which did not work and was called about, we were told was fixed but still did not work.

Was the resort completely full certainly not and was this the only studio unit that they had, most certainly not but it is my feeling as a purchase bought through Groupon they just stuck us in the worse unit they had.

I enjoy the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge area and I will say my husband and I have contemplated buying a timeshare in the area but it will certainly not be at Westgate Smoky Mountain.