Hickory Ridge Living History Museum Tours and Activities

Don't book this place (insert sad face here) We arrived and the property is really run down. They checked us into a room that had paint peeling from the bathroom. The bedspread had a cut in it and the dirty mattresses were showing. It smelled musty. We went to the office to let them know of all of the damage in the room, so we wouldn't be charged. They stated they knew this room had damage. Yet, they put us there anyway with an almost empty resort. We get back to the room and realize that there is no running water at the resort. No shower, no sink, no toilet. The office had shut down at 5:00pm and we immediately call after-hours and they say it may be fixed in about 6 hours. We call and cancel our room and want a refund. Once we drive back home that evening we call hotels.com to get a refund. They say it will take 72 hours to get it sorted. Hotels.com sent an email saying they weren't able to reach the resort to confirm the no water. So, sorry- no refund.

Rooms were clean and staff was extra friendly... But the pictures on the site don't accurately represent this property. The inside of the lodge is very cool... but the game room pictures are apparently very old. The games shown in the pictures were not the same. The cool arcade games were missing... The exterior of the building is in stages of disrepair and need some serious updating. The main issues we had were the hot tub was not hot. All day Saturday, the temp was about 85 degrees... which is not a hot tub... it was very chilly. There was also the smell of a skunk at certain times outside and locals said they have had issues with them under the property. It wasn't a big deal, so we didn't bring it up. All rooms have window units for A/C... again, upgrades need to be made. However with all that said, we'd still probably stay there if the hot tub was fixed and some minor upgrades were made. For the price, it was reasonable and the staff again were very nice. It's also very conveniently located to Banner Elk and some great places to eat.

The staff were very friendly and helpful. The room was very comfortable.