Cherokee / Great Smokies KOA Holiday

This is the 3rd year in a row camping at the campground. I am not sure what has changed from the previous two trips to now, but it seemed like a different place. We usually camp in a group, and they messed up one of our members in our camping group reservation. Please keep in mind, you have to pay an additional $10 to secure your requested site, if not they will bump you. In our case it was a booking issue on their end. The pools are not kept up or cleaned for indoor and outdoor use. The staff is not helpful and were rude at times, plus the choose at their convenience when they want to enforce the rules. The planned activities did not have enough help to work with the children, and the help that was available did not have any interest to be there! I am not sure as a group we will be going back in the future. Besides the staff, the surrounding area/scenery is fantastic and has exceptional views.
2 8 years ago (30-05-2018)

Absolutely beautiful area. Nice spacious campground. Mostly very clean. Stayed in a nice very basic cabin with only lights and a fan. Outstanding bathroom and shower facilities. Outstanding WiFi. Very children friendly atmosphere and facility. (However, this KOA might want to stop the campground wide sound on outdoor movies at 9 p.m. for those who want some sleep. Just FYI.) Trout ponds next door are great if you can get the KOA staff to open their gates when fishing can legally begin in the mornings and drop their feud with the Cherokee tribe. The "fish cleaning station" provided at the rear of the facility was wholly inadequate and most certainly not maintained by any staff. Disgusting is an understatement but I will say it was "opening day". Finally, and the main reason for my rating is the absolutely rude attitude I witnessed of two Yankee trash on staff that Chief Thomas would have dispatched in a heartbeat. My advice for management/ ownership: Hire only staff with a heart for Southern hospitality and a welcoming friendly attitude like the Cherokee are known for and you'll have more business than you can handle.
3 8 years ago (08-04-2018)

One star is actually too many!! Extremely rude employees and manager was no better!! There are so many other campgrounds in the area and now that I know that I will stay somewhere else next time. Got in late after driving 11 hours in rain, the employee that was taking us to our site couldnt find the site, then we lost her in the dark, she did not even try to come back and find us, HELLO we had our truck lights on, we parked in an empty site figured we would go to office early morning and move, two men in a golf cart came flying up to us and told us we would have to move, I informed them we were only going to be there until morning then we would go to office to move, was told very nasty that we could not pick and choose our site and the site we were in was booked for the entire week starting the next day, and the entire campground was booked so we would have to move RIGHT THEN. They took us to our site, could not put out our slides as trees were in the way. We were so tired we just slept in camper without slides out. Went to office to move to different site was told there were only two sites left, they were book for entire week, did get a site where we could put out slides. Asked for manager started to explain what happened she cut me off, talked over me, and was nastier than her employees!! If we had not been so tired and had not traveled so far we would have left that campground IMMEDIATELY never to return. Oh yes we were there for a week and the site we wanted to stay in for the night NEVER got used. As a matter of fact the ENTIRE campground was only about a quarter of the way full. MANY MANY EMPTY SPACES WERE AVAILABLE THE ENTIRE TIME!!!
1 8 years ago (29-05-2018)

This is one of our favorite places to camp in the Southeast US. We have young kids and teenagers. They all have fun. Great fishing in the ponds and river. Don't forget your pole. Haven't been there in the summer but the pool and slides look fun. Easy in and out campsites .
5 8 years ago (24-03-2018)

Bedbugs and the manager ((Megan)) couldn’t even come out of her office and give us a apology for what happened after they even told us they already had a problem with bedbugs and didn’t fix them. The guy that was sent to handle that with us who was another manager but refused to give his name was very rude and acted like he was doing us a favor for giving us 20$ to wash all of out clothes and they even own the washer and dryers there so they were getting the money back. I will never stay here again we wee covered in bedbug bites
1 8 years ago (31-05-2018)