Rodeway Inn

The Set-​Up:
My missus booked a get-​away vacation through the Bass Pro Shops Blue/​Green vacation partnership about a year ago in the Orlando store, and we were fortunate enough to be able to push the reservation to the following Memorial Day weekend (2015). We drove from Fla (10 hour drive), and arrived in Pigeon Forge a little after midnight. Blue Green had booked us at the Roadway Inn.
First impressions:
It looks old. Very old. It is right on the main road about a mile, probably less, from the main strip. If I were not toting a 3 and 5 year old, I’d say its easily walking distance up the road to most of the tourist spots. The kids would make that a marathon of herding house cats.
There was a sign on the door that said «Be back in 10 minutes» when we arrived. 20 minutes later, the lady came down the stairs and opened the office door. After the misses went to check in (not bad, about 10 minutes) we were on our way to our room.
The room:
Second story, facing the road. The door sticks. Have to give it the heave ho… Walked in and the room was freezing. (We are from FL so anything below 60 is already considered arctic) It was 55 outside, and the AC was set to the mark between polar bear and penguin. The room was super damp, and smelled like old stale cigarette smoke. The carpet was not vacuumed and was littered with little «bits». I cranked the wall shaker over from ice age to global warming and it instantly started burning off the junk. About 10 minutes later, the kids were in bed and not worried about a fire. It smoked a bit at first, but I explained Smokey the Bear lived right up the road and we were good.
The room is old. There is an old table with 2 old chairs near the window, a small dresser, with a cool looking vintage TV (its really just a 15 year old tube tv but my kids thought it was the oven. I had to explain that it is suppose to look like that) on it. There is a decent sized room fridge, a small freezer, and a multipurpose heating device that poses as a coffee maker on top the microwave. A series of power strips was zip tied together to power it all. and then zip tied to the wall.
One of those pedestal mounted floor safes was on the far side of the dresser, pre-​populated with kids toys. My kids thought that was planned. :-)
The beds are a little stiff for me. I like some cushion in my mattresses, but my misses likes laying on a smooth piece of plywood, so… The pillows were dumb. One was folded in half in the pillow case. I assume that was the «firm» pillow, the other one was not. That was the soft pillow. The comforters were … well … hotel comforters freak me out to begin with, so the went on the floor. We don’t use them.
The bathroom has a unique security device that secures the toilet paper. It is a keyed metal box that holds the TP. We use the same ones in a couple of rooms where I work, at the Sheriff Office. huh. neat. The fan in the bathroom is filthy, there is mold on the shower curtain. huh… not so neat. The sinks water faucet is reversed, so hot is cold and cold is heated in the center of the earth and flows from a lava tube to our very room. It gets my kids every time they flush their security paper, and wash their tender little hands. :-[
The carpet is that kind of weird velour material that always feels either greasy or wet? I can’t explain it. We keep our shoes on.
Its LOUD here… The street, walls, the overweight kid upstairs playing kickball.
In a nutshell, I can not recommend this place to anyone. Sure, you get free pancakes and you’re right down the strip. But this is Pigeon Forge– pancakes are every 14.7 feet, and there is only one strip.

The Good:
Low Price
Pet Friendly with no large pet fee
Comfy bed, two different pillow sizes to choose from.
Very Good Service from motel staff.
We had a spill and needed a set of sheets changed. They made sure it was taken care of while we walked the dog.
The free breakfast coffee is decent and the four big, hot pancakes are as good as pancakes can be. Breakfast is in a real sit down and be served restaurant and not just a serve yourself counter where you have to bump elbows with the other guests to get something. If you don’t want the free pancakes, you get $ 1 off of something else.
The Bad:
Noise
It’s right on the parkway, so traffic noise is unavoidable in the second and third buildings. If you are a light sleeper or have difficulty falling asleep, you may need earplugs or medication. This may not be an issue in the first building since the rooms are accessed on the back side of the building, away from the main drag.
Parking
The front lot has a pretty steep incline right in the middle. The single row of flat spots right in front of the building fill up quickly if it’s a busy time and you may have to park by the road or in the back. The outdoor pool eats up parking area in front of the third building.
The rooms are a tad small.
We stayed with a large dog and there was only one place to fit his bed where you wouldn’t have to walk over it. We just couldn’t get to the table by the window.
The property is small
If you have to walk your animal, there’s not a lot of space to do so. The only non paved area to walk your dog is on a steep hill behind the building. At least if you can’t park right in front of your room, it’s not really a huge walk.
The ugly:
It’s old and it shows. Just enough money has been spent on this place to keep it useable. It’s not going to win any beauty contests. The room had a tube TV in it. That should tell you something (the Goodwill where I live hasn’t accepted them in years). It did work just fine though.
The Iffy:
The wifi that popped up as Rodeway Inn was secured and we were never given the password in person upon check-​in or in the room guide. I didn’t really need it anyway so I didn’t bother asking about it.
In summary,
most of the negatives I listed aren’t something that can be easily changed. Short of leveling the place and building an 8 story building in it’s place, there’s almost nothing that can be done about any of the above. Of course then you’d have to wait for an elevator and most likely pay much more. In comparison with other places, Rodeway Inn is behind the eight ball on image, location, and space and has to make up for it with it’s price, pet policy, and level of service.
The only real gripes I would mention are there was an old coffee filter left in the coffee maker when we arrived, and the A/​C vent could have used a cleaning. No big deal. Also, behind the building could use some tidying up around the dumpster area and behind the third building. Old tires and beer bottles along with flooring debris and old tables strewn about don’t help when you’ve got little going for your image to begin with.
We did not have a bad time here. The A/​C was adequate, the appliances worked, and I had everything that I needed. A larger room would have been nice, but again I had what I needed. The shower adjustments were sensitive but, I did find a sweet spot between too hot and too cold. The fridge was turned to the coldest setting so things began to freeze on top but, I turned it down a couple notches and it was fine. The towels are small but, the point is to dry off and not wear them. They had everything we needed and left us money to spend elsewhere and there are plenty of places to spend money around there. We stayed 4 nights. The money saved on the room was a nice steak dinner for the wife and I.

There are not many options for hotels that allow pets in Pigeon Forge, TN. The Rodeway is one of the few who allow dogs/​cats. Since we had to bring our chihuahua with us on our New Year’s Eve trip, we were stuck booking the Rodeway.
The motel resembles any roadside motel you will encounter on any US or state highway in America. I can only imagine this place was built in the 1960’s-1970’s and hasn’t been updated since. Have you ever seen the TV show «My Name is Earl»? If you have then you know this Rodeway resembles the Palm Tree Motel that Earl and Randy live in.
We had 2 rooms there. A pet room and a non-​pet room. The pet rooms have a fake wood linoleum floor which is good since I wouldn’t want to stay in a room that has 40 years of animal urine soaked into it. The non-​pet rooms have musty old carpet. The showers have 2 settings. Scalding hot and ice cold. The refrigerator either doesn’t work at all or only freezes your drinks. The beds were comfortable I must say, and the toilet didn’t run all night.
The heaters sounded like a Freddy Kruger boiler room when they ran. One room’s heater sounded like a Harley Davidson and the other’s sounded like the sound of a needle being drug across a record.
I gave the hotel 2 stars for the simple fact of allowing pets. If it hadn’t I’d probably have given it 1 star. If you absolutely have to bring your dog/​cat on your trip to Pigeon Forge I guess you really can’t go wrong booking the Rodeway. But if you are just staying there with only human guests there are much better and nicer hotels for your money.

Location: 4 out of 5
Bad news: it’s on the Parkway in Pigeon Forge. Good news: It’s at the very end of the Parkway in Pigeon Forge. That way, you can get a head start into the mountains. To get to the main «attractions» and dining options, you’ll have to take the trolley or use your car/​motorcycle. I’d recommend the trolley — it’s quick and cheap, and has fairly regular service.
Cleanliness of Room: 2.5 out of 5
Ok, let’s get the ugly out of the way first. Nothing was in terrible or disgusting shape, but there were some visible signs of wear and tear that I think need to be addressed. I stayed in 1114, and the predominant things I noticed were: the mesh screen that serves as a ‘filter’ for the AC/​heat unit was riddled with lint and small gravel (?). I don’t have breathing problems, but I could imagine that if someone were more sensitive to dust, this could cause a problem. The linoleum in the bathroom was in poor shape around the edges, as were the edges of the wallpaper in the bathroom. The shower liner had a bit of a black line on it towards the bottom; it’s hard to completely get rid of and it’s clear they tried, but they could probably afford to replace them once in awhile, or just give them a really good cleaning. The floors were nicely vacuumed, and the lady that took care of my room did a very neat job each day in the areas where she could. Obviously, I don’t expect her to patch up the wallpaper or be in charge of when and how to replace the shower liners and the AC unit mesh filter. I left a comment card citing the mesh filter when I checked out.
Amenities of Room: 3 out of 5
Basic soap and shampoo. Similar to what you’d find in a place like Motel 6, Super 8, or Microtel. Lots of towels of different sizes, but a bit rough and scratchy (you know the feeling…). There was a small mini fridge the room, and the TV was a tube-​type one. The sink for the room was actually just in the main room (as opposed to being in the bathroom) which is actually not a bad idea. I noticed that the sink leaked a bit if the handle was turned all the way up, and left a note indicating as such when I checked out. I mean… again, it’s one of those things where if they just had a few slow weekdays in a row, they could just go in there and take care of the issues all at once. I don’t think it was gross negligence, I think it’s just that this property funnels so many visitors that it’s hard to get to small non-​urgent things.
Amenities of Property: 4 out of 5
Free pancake breakfast consisting of 4 generously sized pancakes, butter, and syrup with coffee or juice is part of the rate. Remember to tip your server at the pancake house for the full amount. They give out free sweet tea and popcorn in the reception area. The WiFi, when I went — was a bit spotty. It would work alright for a few moments, and then glitch out. I found that even when it was working, 3G was faster. There is an outdoor pool, but for somewhat obvious reasons it is closed in October. The public areas were very clean, and there is ample parking in the rear. Which is important… because if you’re riding a motorcycle, it’s safer to park on a flat surface than an incline, and most of the parking spots in front of the property are at an incline, which could lead to hilarity/​catastrophe later on.
Price: 3.5 out of 5
With all taxes and fees, it came out to be 65 or 66 dollars a night, averaged over 3 nights. Rates are lower during the week, and I had one weekend night rate and two week day rates. In other words — if you go during the week and only during the week, it’ll be cheaper. Not terrible for what you get, and I’m sure that you can get a little nice of a hotel for more money; and you can maybe even get a little nicer of a hotel for less money. But like I said, I’m not upset by the cost.
Customer Service: 5 out of 5
Fantastic customer service, capped off by how they treated me when I had to leave my motorcycle right beside the office for two days. You see, I had a slight mishap while fueling (I did NOT crash on the Tail of the Dragon) right across the street at the BP, and broke off the switch assembly on the right hand side of my bike. Well… I pushed it back to the Rodeway, and stuck it between two employee cars. The managers were ok with it, and even on the morning when I called for a tow truck, one of the managers came out to make sure that I was ok and didn’t need any additional help. Everyone was genuinely kind and nice, and even when it was busy — they seemed to work quickly. One young lady was even so gracious as to let me check in early because a room was already available.
Overall: 4 out of 5. Yes, I rounded up, as I typically do. This is a nice property, and if they could just spend a little effort in the «off months» to fix a few aesthetic and mechanical things, that would really add the extra something something to their already existing 1 – 2 punch of a great location and great customer service.