I'll start this review off on a positive note: The Hocking Hills area is beautiful.
Perhaps that is because nature doesn't have the capability to be rude. Being rude is a human action.
We had never been to the Hocking Hills before, and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about. Old Man's Cave, staying in a cabin in nature, and enjoying a hot tub outdoors are things that people always talk about when Hocking Hills is brought up. Obviously, this review is about the cabin.
Things started off well. We were a little early, so we happened upon who I later learned was the proprietor's son and his family when we arrived. They were friendly-ish and suggested we visit Conckle's Hollow if we had time to see more than just Old Man's Cave. The cabin was cute: a small kitchen, a small table, a tv, a couch, an easy chair, a rocking chair, a king-sized bed, and a bathroom, and lots of Christian decorations. The cabin is on a private lot of five acres, including a one-acre stocked lake. You have the option to canoe on the lake, but you are not allowed to swim. We walked around the property and admired the trees and the giant catfish in the lake. There were a few board games, including the Genius Edition of Trivial Pursuit, which proved difficult, but fun, as we played on the picnic table.
After we ate dinner and relaxed for a while, we decided to try out the hot tub. The proprietor told us that we would be only the second people to use the hot tub. We pulled off the cover, and the water was cool, so we attempted to heat it up per her hand-written instructions, which she left inside the cabin. The actual owner's manual was nowhere to be found. The indicator kept blinking 75 facing us standing outside the hot tub. It would also blink 104 upside down, indicating the temperature we wanted it to be, and also 82. The instructions said nothing about three different temperatures. After a half hour, the three numbers had not changed, and the water had not warmed up at all, and due to lack of cell phone reception, usually a nice thing when you're trying to relax, we couldn't consult the internet for a fix. We abandoned the effort well after ten. We did not call the proprietor because we didn't feel comfortable calling with a non-emergency situation late on a Sunday night.
When we did call in the morning to alert her to our check out, she immediately began chastising us for not calling her at 10:00 p.m. the night before. We explained that we weren't comfortable calling so late on a Sunday night, and we also stated that we liked the cabin and would like to come back, but we thought that we deserved a credit for our next stay due to the non-functioning hot tub. She said she would send her husband out to look at it and get back to us. When her husband arrived, close to an hour later, he was less than friendly. He said that the hot tub was in sleep mode, and he would have to consult the manual to fix it.
We didn't hear anything back, so this evening we sent her an email reiterating what had happened and our request for a partial refund or partial credit for our next stay. She began by saying that she would not issue us a credit because we did not call her the night before, and that she spoke to many people and the hot tub was not broken. Her son cleaned it and set it to 99 degrees F before he left, so WE must have pressed the wrong button to put it in sleep mode! That is decidedly untrue as the hot tub was never more than cool, and 99 degrees F water is not goose-bump inducing, and I told her this. She stated that she was taking a hard line on this because we didn't call her the night before, and she said that we should call with any problems. Then asked her if her solution to our problem was for us to have called her at 10:00 p.m., wait for her husband to get to the cabin, identify the hot tub problem, consult the manual, and then fix the problem, leaving us to enjoy the hot tub finally around 11:00 p.m. or later. At that point she said that she had tried to be nice to me but I wasn't listening to her and she hung up on me.
If you want to take your chances with the property, you may have a lovely experience. If you do not, however, your complaint will not only not be handled professionally, you will be blamed for your problem if you don't call the proprietor, day or night.
There is a little wooden sign in the bookcase that says, "God is love," but nothing about the Golden Rule. The proprietors of the Tree House need a brushing up on that one. read more