This review is ONLY for The Grotto (one of the rental cabins at this resort). I'm sure the rest of…read morethe resort is lovely, but this review is for our experience with The Grotto.
It is the bottom half of a two-level cabin. Two bedrooms, small living room, kitchen, and bathroom. It's very quaint inside - 60's stove, 60's kitchen table, etc. And there are beautiful stained glass, back-lit boxes in each wall and two very beautiful stained glass doors to the 2 bedrooms, plus a very neat tin ceiling. Also, a great patio area with a really nice two-person swing and space to sit and chat. So that was all fine.
My negative points are this:
1. If you stay here, know that it is loud. Super loud. You can hear EVERYTHING from the people in the cabin above you. TV, talking, walking, I could literally hear how LONG someone peed in the middle of the night (yes, I could hear the splash of the stream). In addition, the people above us had a dog (dogs are allowed here) and kids, so there was just constant racket, banging, clicking, walking. This isn't the resort's fault, but I would say that this bottom-level space should not be used as an individual rental due to the noise. They should just join the top and bottom as one big rental unit so that whoever is on the bottom knows the people making the racket upstairs and can tell them to knock it off. Our kids had a really hard time with the noise late at night and early in the morning - they weren't able to get very much sleep.
2. Towels for the bathroom/shower are not provided. It didn't say that on the website, so we didn't bring any. The website says the cabin provides "basic bedding and pillows, kitchenware, etc." True, it doesn't say "towels," but it also doesn't say "toilet paper" and I assumed they would have it (and they did). I find it so weird that they would choose to omit bathroom towels (even a HAND towel for after you wash your hands). This isn't an $80/night rental. This place is $160/night, you know? No towels? It seems like 4 towels could be tossed in when the sheets are washed, yes...? Which couldn't help but make us wonder if the sheets were washed? Is there not a washing machine here?
Anyway, we had to drive to wal-mart and buy 4 towels and washcloths and a hand towel for the bathroom, which was kind of a rocky start. So if you stay here, bring towels.
Also, on a related note, the staff was all VERY nice, except the woman I talked to about the towels when we checked in (who was also the bartender, it appeared). She scoffed and said, "You didn't know you were supposed to bring towels?" I could have done without the scoffing.
3. I'd ditch the area rugs right away if you stay here. They don't have any kind of rubber backing underneath, so we all slipped and after a few near-falls, I rolled them all up and put them in the corner. I had to sweep underneath them because once they were rolled up, there was dirt everywhere that had been left under them.
4. Beds are super creaky. Not just, "Oh cute, a little creak." I mean, like, wake up the people in the next room when you get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. The cabin is very cute, but it seems like some of the effort/money put into the stained glass or the tin ceilings could have been set aside for updating the 2 beds.
5. The TV is tiny and old and the volume doesn't go very high. Again, I'd take one less stained glass window if it meant putting in a regular television for $300.
Again, the staff was all very kind (other than the scoffing bartender) and the area was very pretty. But for $160/night, I would not recommend to a friend renting The Grotto cabin. Our kids were a wreck after the weekend of so little sleep (due to the constant noise upstairs in the evenings and then early in the morning with their dog and kids).
Good luck planning your stay!