Holiday Inn Club Vacations Smoky Mountain Resort

The honest review

Holiday Inn Club Vacations Smoky Mountain Resort is an IHG timeshare property in Gatlinburg built around Splash Hollow, its indoor water park. For families who want a reliable, weather-proof water attraction without paying Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort's price point a few miles away, this is the more budget-conscious version of the same basic idea: villa-style accommodations, full kitchens, and an on-site water park that turns a rainy Smoky Mountains afternoon into a non-issue.

Villas run from studios up through multi-bedroom configurations, all with full kitchens — the same cost-control logic that applies across this catalog's Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge timeshare-style resorts: cooking breakfast and a few dinners in the unit meaningfully offsets a week of Smoky Mountains dining. Larger villas add in-unit washer/dryers, useful for longer stays or families packing lighter.

The honest comparison point is Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort, the larger indoor/outdoor water park property in the same city: Westgate's Wild Bear Falls water park runs bigger (60,000 square feet, multiple slides, a lazy river) and the resort adds a spa and mini golf course that this property doesn't have. Splash Hollow is a smaller-scale indoor water park, and the rest of the amenity list here is more modest — an outdoor pool, a hot tub, and an arcade, without the spa or golf extras. What this property gives up in scale, it generally gives back in price; families should compare current rates directly, since the value gap is the real reason to pick one over the other.

As with most IHG Club Vacations and Westgate-style properties, expect a timeshare sales presentation to be offered (not required) if you book a promotional rate — standard practice across this category of Gatlinburg lodging, and easy enough to decline.

Who this fits: families who want a genuine indoor water park anchor in Gatlinburg at a lower price point than the area's larger resort options, and who don't need a spa or golf course to round out the trip. Families prioritizing water park scale over price should compare this directly against Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort before booking.