2022 Mountain Falls Luxury RV Resort Trip.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView today we have a great show for you all about our trip to Luxury RV Resort mountain falls in the beautiful Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.

intro
Welcome to RView with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez. Each week listen in as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. Georgia and Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A Tiffin motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure

Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView. I’m Lisa RichartHernandez.

George
And I’m George Hernandez.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Today we have a great show for you all about our long weekend getaway to Luxury RV Resort Mountain Falls, which is located up near Lake Toxaway. North Carolina in the beautiful Smoky Mountains.

George
Yeah, it was a beautiful place. It is six hours from HiltonHead just to give you a little reference direction close to Ashville.

Lisa RichartHernandez
About an hour and a half from now.

George
Yeah, so relatively close.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So before we went, we’d heard all of these things about Oh, you gotta go up to mountain balls and check it out. You know, you always hear pros and cons about things. Some people were like, there’s really not a lot of stuff to do there.

George
We always heard the you gotta go it’s beautiful. But there’s always the but

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, but there’s nothing to do or whatever. And the road up there is really wretched. Do it. Yeah. So you know, we had we were there we we had heard all these things. So we’re excited to try it out in a little bit nervous also at the same time. Not gonna lie. I was like, gotta hit. I hope you don’t go up there and number just bored for the weekend. So fortunately, we brought our friends Chris and Tracy. And Tracy sells RV lots and held that island motorcoach resort with us and view properties. So it was a great opportunity to see kind of what other resorts do for their lot sales. And just, you know, just to kind of get an idea of not really our competition, because they’re in the mountains and we’re at the beach. But just like other motorcoach places, and how they run things and what they do. So both of us kind of had that in mind as well, while we were traveling up there. And Tracy and Chris have been there before, and they don’t have a tow vehicle. And I think that makes a huge difference.

George
Yeah, if you don’t have a tow vehicle, there is nothing to do. You cannot walk anywhere. There is a pizza shop and a small grocery store that ice right at the outside the gate. But if you don’t have a tow vehicle, that’s it. Those are your options.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, like you’re not going anywhere. And it’s about 30 to 40 minutes to a grocery store.

George
Yeah, so I looked it up, the closest grocery store is 27 minutes away, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you drive 27 minutes away. And if you have a tow vehicle, it’s not so bad. But you do have to drive.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, you just have to be mindful of that and plan ahead. But we did bring our tow vehicle we brought our our for our Jeep Wrangler. So it kind of opened up like a whole new world, I guess. For for Tracy and Chris. And it gave us gave us an opportunity to do a little bit more exploring, I think which was, which was really fun.

George
Yeah. We were able to go into what was the name of that town cashiers?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. Yeah, that

George
was a cute little town, nice restaurants, lots of shops. We didn’t

Lisa RichartHernandez
make it to Highlands, which is supposed to have even more shopping and be a little bit bigger. And that’s about 40 minute drive from the resort.

George
Yeah. So tip number one if if you’re going to go there, and you want to explore you need a car. Yeah, if you want to go and just relax, it is a beautiful place to go and just relax. will tell you all about the resort. They I think they did a fantastic job setting it up. I was very happy. And so let’s just get into it. Let’s

Lisa RichartHernandez
just start from the beginning. So you pull in and there’s a welcome center. Like their, their their main office. It’s a gated resort and the you know, it’s so funny because we have wood, just different landscape there but it was just green and lush and the flowers it was very, very beautiful just immediately when you pull in with like, stone gates and just very, very beautiful. So we went in and checked in they like normal they had a golf cart person that you know, escorts you to your to your sites. Yes, we had two sites. So we got kind of a feel for both different the one that George and I were staying on. Because Tracy and Chris had their dogs so they wanted a bigger space to take care of the pets and stuff like that. So we just had a very, very plain sight it was literally just a 40 by six D parking pad really Yeah, it was a little chairs, the

George
most basic of basic, there was nothing, nothing there. There’s others with casinos. There’s others with pavilions, and we’ll get into all that also. So we had the basic one, they had a more upscale one that was I thought it was beautiful. It’s

Lisa RichartHernandez
beautiful it had. So it was like a covered pavilion pavilion, I guess, is what it’s called. And then there was a fireplace. And mountain Falls is one place that allows you to have actual fire with wood, which I do love. I mean, there are things when I go camping, like rustic camping that I don’t like to have that like smoky bonfire smell in me all the time. But there’s just something about like being in the mountains and having a wood burning fire and like adding wood to it. It was actually cool in the evenings, which was awesome for us. Coming from the heat of South Carolina, the

George
temperature that drop at night, which was very nice. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah. So we got there, we got settled into our spot, and it was a Thursday night. And so we rented a golf cart, which I highly recommend. It’s very, very hilly. To get around the resort, you’re really going to want to have a golf cart. I think it was about just under four. It was like $380 for three days of a golf cart. We had it for the whole time we were there. It’s a

George
little pricey, but it’s worth it when you see the hills that you would have to climb to get to the pool. Yeah, to get to the pool to get to almost everything. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah. So you’d either have to you could drive your actual vehicle up to the pool. If you want to go to the mountain top pool.

George
If you bring a vehicle if you don’t have a vehicle, then you’re walking. Yeah, you better get a golf cart.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Unless you’re just really into walking uphill exercise, which yes, me bar totally ended that. So anyways, just be prepared for that. Don’t don’t think you’re going to be able to just kind of walk up to the top of the mountain.

George
And it’s a fairly large resort. I mean, it’s it’s it’s walkable. It’s just the hills. Just keep that in mind.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So we got on our golf cart. We went around and we realized that Liberty coach sponsors a free cocktail cart every Thursday, apparently.

George
Let me repeat that. Liberty coach sponsors, a free cocktail golf cart that drives around all what afternoon for a couple of hours?

Lisa RichartHernandez
No, I think it starts at like, four o’clock or something. And it’s they they go kind of around the whole resort

George
5pm to 7pm. I have it here. Okay. Yep.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And that’s, that’s one of the things it’s pretty cool. When we checked in, we got a packet with all the rental stuff, and it had all the events that they’ve got going on and all the different days. And I thought that was, you know, it’s really nice when you come in as a renter to have that information and feel like you’re part of the community.

George
Yeah, I think they did a fantastic job with the packet. It has everything from like Lisa said, the events to the closest grocery store to the closest dealer if something’s wrong with your RV, dealer. RV washes everything. They did a great job with it. Yes. And of course, lots for sale.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we definitely let loose and enjoy the cocktail cart that evening and had some drinks and we rode up to the top of the mountain, which they call the ridge in our golf cart. And it is just an incredible view. I mean, it had just maybe we had rain, right it was just

George
had just rain, and we got there and the rain stopped. So it was

Lisa RichartHernandez
so you kind of know why they call it the Great Smoky Mountains. I mean, it was just beautiful view, vast, vast view of the mountains and you could almost see like the smoke like the you know, the clouds were settled in into the mountains and it was just so beautiful. And at the at the they call it the ridge, which is the top of the resort. That’s where all of the like luxury mack daddy super duper nice. Like I think almost every spot had a primo in it.

George
Yeah, and I guess like they say in real real estate, location, location, location, that is prime real estate and I can see why but like Lisa said, the views are just unbelievable.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So I we the owners that we met during because we were riding around with a golf cart kind of chasing the cocktail car and also exploring the resort at the same time. So we met a lot of the owners that were out who are all super friendly to us. And we were just talking about, you know, we mentioned that we sold real estate at Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort and they were talking about the real estate there. So the there were 12345 lots available for sale on the ridge. And they ranged from $700,000 which was literally just a 40 by 60 parking pad. And then up to 1.9 million that had a coach house on it. They had 1.2 1.3 and 1.8 million. So it all kind of dependent on the size and the quality of the coach houses that were on there. But we’re not talking about like, I think one of the owners told me if you sliced it up like by the size of the lats and put them all together, it’s about $8 million an acre, is what they are selling for. Yeah, I think

George
that’s that’s what the but you know, and when we say Casita, these things are absolutely beautiful. So, you know, 1.9 seems really, really high. But again, location, location, location, the casinos these people

Lisa RichartHernandez
did, it’s more like a house. Yeah, it’s like a tiny house. It really is

George
a house, but you can’t have a bedroom. Right?

Lisa RichartHernandez
I I’m not sure of the exact rules to be honest, but I’m sure people probably do sleeping in but they have beautiful kitchens inside of course, the bathroom. You know, a lot of them are two stories, a living space, and then like a beautiful like covered porch. Most of them have like, beautiful fireplaces. So I mean, you would just be sitting, i is just standing at the top of the mountain and looking not even sitting from your own spot. It was just so beautiful and so peaceful. I could really imagine just really enjoying that space.

George
Yeah, I could totally see why they bought there. And why they built these things. I mean, there was one that was under construction that was gonna have an infinity edge pool that was right on the edge of the mountain. That’s gonna be just incredible when that’s done.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I don’t know if that is for sure. Infinity Edge pool. I feel like that looks like something that they’re gonna do landscaping in but

George
anyways, well, we saw the the catch basin on the other side.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, maybe. Anyways, at the top of the ridge is where their clubhouse is and pool. So you also have like the main pool and the top of the mountain is just incredible views there also. Yeah, and there’s got some fire pits out there. What is it? What was it like shuffleboard or bocce ball?

George
Bocce Ball. They had shuffleboard. And I think they had two pickleball courts up there at the main

Lisa RichartHernandez
top of the mountain they call the ridge the ridge. Yeah. So I mean, sitting in the pool. You’re just overlooking the mountains. It’s really beautiful in the clubhouse was, it felt like a Mountain Lodge, which you walked in and there was like a bar. So I mean, I’m assuming we didn’t make it up there for any of the events that are believed there was one we were invited to on Friday, but we ended up going to dinner that night. And I was like, wow, this is just like a really beautiful place to hang out.

George
I got the feeling of a Mountain Lodge, ski lodge and Country Club feel.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, that’s a that’s a perfect way. Yeah.

George
It was that beautiful inside very well decorated, very well put together. You could see that it’s just so inviting. The word.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It was comfortable and casual but yet, like that country club he Lodgy you felt at home there. It was really nice. Yeah.

George
And I did drive by there. Friday night when we got back. I don’t remember why I was driving around the golf cart, but it was packed. There was a ton of people there. I think they really do a lot of stuff together.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, that’s what that’s what it seemed like anyways. So there’s a total of 230 Lots there, which is about just really actually about half the size of Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort we have 402 or three I forget the exact number about but um, they have 144 original lots and then 86 lots on the ridge, which was interesting. They had like a whole frequently asked questions, sheets that I thought it was, that was pretty cool, because I’m sure everyone that comes in as the same thing.

George
When you have a list. It’s because you’ve been asked a million times. Yep. Yep, that’s

Lisa RichartHernandez
right. We really, really enjoyed our Thursday night and on Friday afternoon, they have a nine hole golf course. Three par right.

George
par three golf course built into the resort. And Tracy Chris and myself decided to go play and I was a little hesitant because it’s built into the resort. And I’m like, Man, I don’t want to hit a golf ball into one of these RVs but they did a great job and there’s just really no way to hit an RV you would have to be really, really bad.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Now you could hit the sand traps in the water holes.

George
We did that a couple times. But it was for par three It was a beautiful Golf Course laid out beautiful. And for me it was really nice because I play here in the low country and hence the name Low Country everything’s flat. We don’t play any elevated holes, basically. So it was nice to get back in the in the hills and There was one hole that was Oh, my God had had to have been 300 feet elevation down, you know, hitting down to the green. So that was really cool.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I was the golf cart driver, and I enjoy that. It was it was. I’m not a golfer at all.

George
But he did a fantastic job driving.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Thank you. Thank you. That’s the least I could do. So that night we went.

George
Oh, and by the way, the golf course is free. Just jump on and play.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, yeah. Yes. So saying that there’s nothing to do. If you’re a golfer, that is one thing that you can do there. You may not be, you know, something that you want to do every single day, but there are a whole bunch of golf courses in the area, right?

George
Yes. And Liberty coach also sponsors a golf tournament. So they were having one well, I guess we missed that big time but may 20. They had a golf tournament at the place I can only imagine what that was that was probably a drink up with golf on the side.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so it says it’s golf your game check out some of the area’s finest golf courses. Is so they this was came in the packet also looks like there’s 123456 golf courses in the area. It says sapphire National Golf Club is a 18 hole golf course about six miles away. Ken Nestie falls golf course another 18 hole golf 18 hole golf course says approximately seven miles away.

George
Yeah, so the closest one is seven and the furthest one is 37. If I remember correct,

Lisa RichartHernandez
Red Bird golf club, nine holes executive seven miles away. Falcons lair golf club 18 holes 22 miles away. And then yeah, 35 miles and 20 miles. So yeah, plenty of golf up there. If you’re a golfer, this might be something for you to check out.

George
And from, I spoke to somebody there and they told me that the golf courses are very well kept. And there’s a couple that are really, really fancy high end golf courses. If you’re really into golf,

Lisa RichartHernandez
so I had stalked the website before we went there just to find out like okay, you know, is there anywhere that we can go out for dinner or just to get out of the resort one night. And so we found that there was Greystone in, which is it was really only like 10, not even 10 minute, 10 minute drive away. You order the gates go left, and it’s up a couple miles, and then you go this, all the roads are so winding in the mountains, you know, they’re like mountain roads. So maybe only like three miles, but you can really only go like 35 miles an hour. So

George
yeah, that was exactly 4.1 miles away. And it took 10 minutes to get there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. So we really enjoyed the Greystone and if you’re staying in mountain falls, I would highly recommend checking it out, get a reservation, go early, have a cocktail, where they have that so like up on the hill where the N is. And it’s like, it’s kind of like an old it’s there’s a lot of history there. It’s like, kind of like a ski lodge feel again, but it’s like a lake house. Mountain Lake House and I think I love Mountain Lake houses.

George
Yeah, it was beautiful. And I think the we went up to it’s called a mansion bar, which was part of the resort, the not the resort, the country club. And that was really stone

Lisa RichartHernandez
it. Yeah, that

George
was that was really

Lisa RichartHernandez
nice hotel. Yeah, yeah. And they did make very good cocktails. You had a Espresso Martini and I had, I don’t even remember.

George
Well, they they made great drinks, and they had a lot of, I call them fufu drinks. So they tasted great. The only complaint I have is I ordered a smokey old fashion which just ended up being an old fashion because their smoke machine was broken. But it was it was a good drank.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, maybe I was the one that got the Espresso Martini was made with real espresso. It was really, really delicious. And it even even in the cooler season, it would be a great place to just go like have a cup of coffee or a hot chocolate and sit out. You can sit in Adirondack chairs, overlooking the lake. And then you walk a little bit down the hill to the restaurant and the restaurant is all of you have the lake also. And it’s like a high end restaurant. We had a excellent dinner.

George
Yeah, the food was incredible. The service was incredible, great, great wine selection. And like Lisa said, you can’t you can’t beat the view. And unfortunately, it was raining because I was there. And we’ll tell you a funny story about that in a minute. But I wish we could have sat outside because they had tables outside that would have been a credible but you know, it is what it is. We still had a great time. The view is phenomenal.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So I think Chris had the trout I had we had the steak. It has like a sauce with it and potatoes. The bread was excellent. They had

George
salted butter, but I think it was the salted butter that really just put the bread over the

Lisa RichartHernandez
please. Could we have some more butter? Salted butter?

George
Yeah. And then I wonder why can’t lose weight.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And then we had dessert to I believe. Yeah, we had. Oh, you had a creme brulee? That was a espresso Chrimbo lay?

George
Yes. So we had dessert and I ordered and it’s espresso cream. Belay. crumbling, crumbling, which was really different and really good. Yeah. I wasn’t expecting it to be that good.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So we had a great dinner, went back to the resort. And I think we were done by that time. We had a long day, because we’d stayed up kind of Thursday night, fall when the free drink got around. So you had a nice relaxing dinner. And then Saturday, we got up and Tracy wanted to go to the pool and Georgia and I wanted to take an opportunity to just go do some off roading and do some more exploring. So oh, that Friday before we went to dinner, that’s when we went to

George
cashiers. Yeah. And we explored the town a little bit. It’s

Lisa RichartHernandez
still a little bit of shopping. Yeah,

George
it’s very small. Nothing. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, you know, it’s

George
nice to get into.

Lisa RichartHernandez
You want to just get out of the resort for a little bit and you’ve got a car and want to do a little shopping. See some different restaurants. What was the name of that? tavern, we went to a little tavern that actually had great food. It would have been a good place to have dinner, but we just had an appetizer.

George
Yeah. And all the food that was coming by with something dog. Yeah. tavern, keep talking.

Lisa RichartHernandez
We’ll put it in the show notes. So we we kind of left early on Friday went to the dinner came home, it was our night. And Saturday morning, George and I were like, Alright, let’s go hit some trails. So George takes the doors off the Jeep, which and the top down and you know, which is great when you’re like driving around. But when you’re going off road and rained the day before, you’re probably going to find mud. So one of the guys actually that works at the resort, told George about he’s like you take that Jeep off road. And this gave him some ideas of places to go. So we wanted to check it out. So the only place we really got to but it was it was just like a really super easy, but a nice trail. It was in gorgeous State Park is at a state park State Park State Park. So you kind of like would go left out of the resort. Though about a mile down the road to the gas station. Take a left you’ll see the science as gorgeous, gorgeous State Park, go right in there. Follow the trail and then it will say like ATV four by fours only. We check it out. Was that off road X app? Yes. If you do off roading, and you have that app, you can probably find the trail on there. I had a little bit of a difficult time finding the trail, but I did track it. When we went in. We spent about two and a half, three hours maybe I

George
was gonna say around three hours.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it was a very easy ride. Mostly dirt road, not any really challenging. I mean, you could go back there probably with any four by four with at least with it with at least a six inch lift.

George
I don’t even think you need a six inch lift but you need some you need definitely a four wheel drive. There was some some parts that were very loose gravel, steep climbs that if you don’t have a four wheel drive, I would imagine would be very difficult. But that was it the rest of it. The only other obstacle is that it is a one lane road so if somebody’s coming back when you’re going down you got to figure out who’s going to move that happened to us once and no big deal they’ve got a lot of

Lisa RichartHernandez
pull pull to the side yeah,

George
pull whatever they call those and so yeah, we got through no problem.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And so you take the trail and you get to the very end well you could go further but the trail is only open September 1 to January 1 to go over this like metal bridge but we got to the end of it and you can actually camp out there there’s two people camping right by the side of the of the of the river and it’s sort of like like the water was running like rapid water. It was just you can hear that sound of the flowing water and cold crisp water so we got to the end and we took her shoes and socks off and kind of waited around in the water a little bit and took some which

George
was not as cold as I thought it was gonna be. Well it was it was July so no but usually those mountain streams are always cold.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it’s true. But it was refreshing because Yeah, absolutely. So that was that was pretty cool and worth just the ride back there. And then we did a couple little offshoots of that trail. Like I said, it was easy trail we did, because of the rain. We had like two mud puddles. And of course, this one had to, you know, get the whole entire Jeep muddy, which included the inside of it by going through. Like you’re in charge of cleaning this mess up now. So I don’t even know if it’s cleaned yet.

George
Still not clean. Yeah, I haven’t had time. I gotta bring it to the detailer. But that’s a whole nother show. Yeah, so we just quick side story. We were on the trail, and we saw this kind of motorcycle, like big. The dirt bike, kind of enduro bike, half street bike half mile motocross bike. And we kept seeing him and I was like, damn, this guy’s just rocking it. And then all sudden, we got to where the puddle was, and he was stuck. So he asked if I could help them. Luckily, he’s a smart guy. And he’s probably been stuck many times. So he didn’t throttle it down, dig even deeper. So jumped out and basically muscled the bike up, lifted it up and got it out of the way. And he was like, Oh, my God, thank you so much. I would have been so stuck. So that’s where the puddle was. And it was way deeper than I thought. And when I hit it, I hit it hard. Yeah, yeah. And I got little mod inside, whatever. Oh, yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, after, so we got back. And then George spent like two hours trying to clean the mud out of the outside so that I could even get in and out of the car since it was our only vehicle to go in. And then Saturday night, we made dinner Dinner at the lot. And it was no. Friday, we made dinner. The first night, I made my chicken. And we were supposed to have ribs that night. And after we went mudding we went to the pizza place.

George
Yes. And that was surprisingly very good. And that is right outside the main gates who mountain falls. And the pizza was very good. But remember the family that was sitting next to us. So it was a family of five, I think three small kids. And the dad ordered a medium, medium calzones and this thing was massive.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Family like literally what he tells them felt fat, the whole

George
Yeah. And then he looked at us and he’s like, can you believe they have one size bigger? That’s the family size. I can’t even imagine how big that thing was?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so actually, yeah, we had I got a pepperoni roll. That was gigantic, and it was really good. And a salad. I thought it was a city La this little pepperoni roll and mostly focused on the salad. And no, it was a giant pepperoni. I didn’t even eat I only had half of it.

George
No, I was. I was very impressed with the place. I would definitely go back there. And

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, and then there’s also like a little it’s kind of it’s don’t I wouldn’t say grocery store. They just sell a few little necessity convenience store. Yeah, but they’ve got like some meats and cheeses and stuff like that.

George
Is that where the wine shop was? Yep, same place. Yep. Okay. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So that was right outside the gate. So we got back in Christmas was making ribs that night. That didn’t work out. We ended up getting pizza again.

George
Also, a side note, you can get to that little shopping center with your golf cart. There’s a path that goes straight to that shop.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. So if you don’t have a tow vehicle, don’t let that stop you from going. I just wouldn’t, you know, you just have to have the right expectations and know, be prepared that you’re gonna need to, you know, bring some stuff with you. If you just want to hang out at your lot.

George
Yeah, if Okay, so let’s let’s do this real quick. How many days would you stay there if you didn’t have a tow vehicle? And this is us. Everybody’s different. But I don’t think I could do more than three nights three nights. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah. Yeah, definitely. Because you know, you go to the pool and you can play a couple three around a golf. I

George
mean, I love golf, but there’s only so many out a couple

Lisa RichartHernandez
nights and so it really just depends on what you like to do. There isn’t really TV or anything up there. They do their internet with their internet cable TV hookup. Well, yeah. But I mean, it wasn’t.

George
But you’re not going there to watch TV. That’s the whole thing. Right? Right.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I guess Yeah, that’s

George
what I’m saying. We never even hooked it up. But they did have it available. I

Lisa RichartHernandez
forget they did list it.

George
I think there were some hiking trails that connected to the resort wasn’t there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
There was actually a lot of hiking trails in the area. I suppose if you wanted to. I mean, it’s good enough exercise just walking around the resort. A lot of people have pets so just walking your dog would be good exercise.

George
The best exercise we got was chasing the beer truck. The liquer golf cart that’s not true. Yes it is. The lady kept looking at me like golf car lady looked at me and she’s like, how many lots Do you own here now? Because she kept running into me everywhere in our running joke.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah, it really just was good. You’re wondering like when they come by your lot.

George
Oh, I only got one at a time.

Lisa RichartHernandez
They’re probably like dang renters.

George
I don’t really think they care.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. Anyways, we we believe it or not ran into some friends that we knew from Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort, so we invited them over for dinner, to Tracy and Chris’s law. And we all just on now we made a made a fire that night. And just relax. It was really really nice and relaxed. So relaxing. Yeah. And

George
the other ironic thing. Well, not really ironic. But we met some owners at Mountain falls that are also owners at Hilton hood. So that was good talking to them to get kind of a comparison. And the husband brought up a couple good points which we’ve already talked about. They’re both beautiful resorts but they offer completely different opportunities. I guess. They go there to relax and get in the mountains and when they go to Hilton Head, it’s it’s all about convenience. Everything is right there. The restaurants everything.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So if you’re looking for a place where you can just go right outside the gates and do all kinds of things. Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort is amazing. You really I mean, we have not in our travels yet found another place. That is so convenient is Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort. We have like your walk literally right outside the gate and there’s a Mexican restaurant, block up there’s a seafood restaurant to the right, a seafood restaurant to the left. A pizza plays a steakhouse. There’s there’s 15 restaurants within literal walking distance. If you want to ride your bike, you got about 50 restaurants, oh my god nightclubs. Not really nightclubs, but bars and there’s golf courses everywhere. We can ride our bike to the beach in 20 minutes. We’ve got our pool there pickleball tennis amenities. So well, we don’t have the casinos and the coach houses and that kind of thing. We do spend time on our lots but a lot more time is spent riding our bikes around and stuff like that enjoying actual island of Hilton Head.

George
Yes. And I can vouch that so the beach is a mile away from the resort. And if you walk back from the beach, there is a bar or a restaurant with a bar on every block.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, we did that when you’re for university. But I think it’s a little bit longer than a mile bike ride to the beach, but it’s only about 1520 minute

George
ride and there’s what like 50 miles worth of bike trails was

Lisa RichartHernandez
right outside the resort to Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort is the breeze trolley which is a free trolley and so you couldn’t be if you have no tow vehicle. Hilton Head Island is like the bus place like that’s why we went there so many times before we had a tow vehicle. Yeah. You know, we probably got spoiled by that

George
we really need we I don’t think we’ve ever done a full broad of podcast on Hilton Head. We need to do that. But for right now let’s get back to mountain falls.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay. So that was really it. I mean, it was such a relaxing time. It was funny because I told George I said I don’t know what it is. I’m just so tired today. By nine o’clock I was ready for bed and I’m usually a night owl and I don’t usually sleep very well. And it was just I think maybe it was just so calm and peaceful there. I just finally relaxed for a minute and had a great night’s sleep and and really just enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting the people that were there. Like I said, we met some other owners from Hilton motorcoach resort. We The lots are just incredibly beautiful. I wish that we could have covered pavilions where we own because it made such a difference. So you can choose your lots when you go to rent. They’re at Hill at a mountain falls mountain falls? I’m pretty sure. And I guess the one yes, when

George
you go on the website, you can choose the exact lot that you you want. And they’ll vary in price. I think the or the price is set by the owners.

Lisa RichartHernandez
No, no, no, it’s it’s set by the resort. Oh, why don’t I go through some just real quick as a recap, some of these frequently asked questions that they gave us the sheet for because I don’t think this was on their website. We got this when we were there. So it says how many lots are there there’s a total of 230 Lots 144 and phase 186 and beige two on the ridge. The standard dimensions of the pad of the lots. Each pad measures 20 by 60. Each lot measures approximately 38 by 92. On phase two, they’re larger, which the pads are 20 by 70. And the lot measures approximately 50 by 100. So just slightly larger. What options are available For the lats, in phase one pavers, outdoor living spaces, meaning kitchens and fireplaces, etc. They’re all of course all of these are subject to the architectural control committee. And then on phase two, they can have coach cottages, pavers, arbors, outdoor living spaces. They have a 50 amp hookup. Phase two has a 200 amp hookup. So that’s where the coach houses and stuff they do have full heat and air and all of that kind of thing. The clubhouse and recreational facility amenities include a library bar fireplace, lounge meeting room, outdoor firepits, garden terrace fitness center, two pools, two bath houses, two hotspots, and executive nine hole par three golf course pickleball carts and bocce ball. And it says How does ownership work? Each fee simple lot is individually owned. All common areas such as streets, buildings, and amenities are owned in common by all the lot owners through the POA. They have standard 50 amp hookup, and they’re Oh, what are the maintenance fees associated with ownership? It’s 12 $1,260 quarterly. So every three months $1,260. And that provides upkeep and maintenance of the common areas, including the Golf Course, and individual lots, water, sewer, cable TV, trash pickup and Wi Fi. What I thought was interesting is that they maintain the individual lots there. And I one thing I really loved and I think it made the resorts so beautiful, not to get off track. But all of the lots were so beautifully landscaped and perfectly maintained. Like there wasn’t like one crappy one that someone hasn’t really done that much. Net. You know what I mean? Like, they were all beautiful. So if you’re choosing a lot are going to go up there, like, you know, debate based on how much you’re a lot is upgraded may be different. But the actual landscaping is all very beautiful and very consistent throughout the resort, which I thought was really, really nice. Very clean. Yeah, the owners are responsible for paying for the electricity and any telephone service that

George
they have. How big can the cottage houses be,

Lisa RichartHernandez
and they can be up to 400 square feet of enclosed finished area. covered porches can be an additional 500 square feet. So I would guess those ones up on the ridge were maxed out, especially the ones that are listed for 1.81 point 9 million. I did notice some of them are two stories and they make that possible. So I’m guessing maybe they can put four on the first floor and four on the second

George
because they were definitely bigger than 400 square feet. Right. Right.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And they said for cost of building. As a rule of thumb, it was $800 a square foot. Ouch. Yeah, yep. says what will the downpayment be? You can get financing on them. They required 10% earnest money down. Once you purchase the lot, you can begin approvals for your coach house. The resort is open year round for owners and renters. And they only allow Class A motorcoaches 26 feet or longer. And I thought it was very interesting. George took a ride around a couple of loops and counted all the prevas and if you’re not familiar with what a primo is, they usually started a used one is about a million dollars for about a 45 foot motor coach.

George
Yeah. And I took a ride in the golf cart from the entrance to the top of the ridge. And I counted 30 pre bows just in the row on the road that I was on. So a lot of high end on the ridge are they’re all pretty good. Yeah, I think 95% of them were prevail. And that’s

Lisa RichartHernandez
probably why Liberty coach who sells those was the sponsor for a lot of events at the resort. Some other things that they have going on that like for example I should probably read through that or just in you can check out on their website but like Fourth of July weekend they were having muffins and marathon and

George
they were having a Jeep rally which I wish we would have known about so one of the owners is big four by four Jeep guy and he put this thing together and then we’re gonna have vendors and rides and just sounded like a really fun time.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it says Independence Day celebration music by Benton blowout from America’s Got Talent and food prepared by Sergio Castro and his culinary team. And then Saturday July 2, they had outdoor games, bounce house, BBQ lunch, and more. And then they had classes like fly fishing 101 starting June 3. fly tying class. So I guess there’s probably a lot of fishing up there in the rivers actually. Two scoops Tuesdays sponsored by marathon coach on Tuesdays, sips and sounds I think that’s what was on Friday. is so a lot of different you know activities going on just right in the resort which I thought was you know, if you’re going up there and saying really isn’t anything to do there were they’ll find stuff for you to do and there are a lot of activities within the

George
resort that a lot of these events are sponsored by Liberty coach and Provost which is really nice to have, you know, somebody sponsor it and that they care about the resort that much especially since there

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I mean, the percent of the coaches like I think we’ve got like $100 million worth of coaches

George
just on that one road probably worth their investment to give we might have to go back in August for the Millennium disco party. Sounds like fun. Yes, that does. So what did the resort do right? Oh, so for me anything for me as a driver I’m going to start right at the gate for me as a driver it was very easy to pull in they had three really big lanes for staging for to check in. And then they had a dedicated entrance right down the middle for the owners I can only imagine and then obviously the exit lane but it was very easy to pull in park disconnect your rig and then you follow the Escort and which was very nice also.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, like Sunday Times people complain about different resorts being really tight to get in and out of I don’t think that was a challenge at all there.

George
No, no, we went right in and right out streets are wide enough for two RVs to pass each other side by side. It would be a little tight but I think plenty of room. The escorts got me right in the spot. No problem. There are a lot of hills. So it makes it interesting parking but no big deal. As far as I love their main office. It was very nice, big roomy. And they offered swag, which is nice. So they had T shirts, mugs, hats, umbrellas, just everything that mountain falls on it to make a little extra money for the resort which I think just helps in the operation. When is

Lisa RichartHernandez
it going to shirt but when I one of the I mean they had some things but it wasn’t like a ton but there was a flyer in the in the little pocket that I saw but there wasn’t a huge selection and

George
Oh, but it’s something you know and if somebody wants a mug so they remember mount vols they can get it. We’re I don’t think Hilton Head has anything.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I don’t know they might I haven’t been we always just drive right past where the Welcome Center. Yeah,

George
I mean we don’t stop for anything but there was I thought that was nice. Yeah. Golf Course. par three, nine holes. I thought that was a really really nice amenity to have.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It was free golf.

George
Very well maintained. I enjoyed playing golf there. Yeah. Obviously the drink cart, which we mentioned a million times. That was a lot of fun. The clubhouse was beautiful. They have two clubhouses right one on the ridge and one down below.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It wasn’t really a clubhouse they were just like a smaller pool with like a little bathhouse with their

George
Okay, yeah. What else would you say they did, right?

Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, really everything the the women in the front office, when we told them that we wanted to go jeeping, they were super helpful. Actually, the new left the light on on the Jeep, and we call the front desk and they sent a maintenance guy over and he helped jump your Jeep. When we got back from mudding the lady was so nice at the front, she was like, Oh my God, let me let you into the maintenance area. So you can use a hose and clean your Jeep off all of the people that we met, you know, on the little golf cart, we really probably wouldn’t have met a lot of owners if we hadn’t been there on a Thursday or maybe gone to one of the other events which we weren’t there for. But they came out to the to the cocktail card and everyone was sort of like standing in the road and just very, very friendly people. I had read some reviews about people being like snobby or whatever. And I didn’t get that vibe at all from at

George
all. Everybody was very friendly and warm. And I didn’t get snobby at all even even up on the ridge where you would think oh my god and millions, you know, they were outside and having fun and talking with us and having cocktails.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. teasing us for writing down that one. They’re like, okay, get the golf cart down. Yeah.

George
That was a cool lot. Yeah, yeah, this one lot was off by itself. I wonder if that’s like, the original owner or something because that thing is way off by itself. Beautiful view and massive lot.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. But it’s not really developed yet. So, but I think they did a lot of great things. I really don’t have anything negative to say. I think the biggest negatives would be You know, people say, Okay, well how long is it going to keep me entertained to be in this area. And it really just depends on your personality and what you like to do. If you’re looking for a place that you can do a bunch of different things, bring your kids. I think my kids would be bored there, unless you just go to the swimming pool, or if they really liked to go hiking, yeah. Search out some things to do for kids. It wasn’t like, oh, let’s go for a bike ride because you couldn’t ride your bikes there.

George
I would say I think if we brought kids, and our kids are older, so I’m talking about younger kids to older kids, I think we would have to rent like a pontoon boat and go out on the lake and do something because they would be bored to death after three days. And it’s a beautiful place for us. But for kids, it’s like

Lisa RichartHernandez
whenever we go swimming at the pool, and that, you know, depending on the weather, but if it wasn’t good weather, you’d be like me so what I’m gonna do today Yeah, right. Yep. So I think that will be the only negative and the winding roads getting up there truly was nothing compared to we always compare everything to the road going into the redwood forest in California that was like so treacherous. I swear to God, I was like, standing on my feet as we’re going downhill and on into a curve and there’s these like flashing lights things slow down, slow down, like, yeah, I guess after we’ve been through that, like the winding roads to get up to mountain balls is really not that quote unquote, treacherous.

George
They there, they weren’t as bad as everybody made it out to be. I was a little worried, to be honest. But once we got there that if you’re a new driver, yes, it’s kind of white knuckle you there’s a lot of turns and you’re going uphill, you’re going downhill. And if if you don’t know how to swing it wide, you could get in trouble. But when we were talking with our friend that we met up there, he was towing a rather large trailer behind his RV and he did say that on one of the turns. He didn’t swing it wide enough. And he did scrape the guardrail with the trailer.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I think he had like a 20 foot trailer. Yeah.

George
So you know, you’re talking about 60 plus feet that he’s trying to maneuver. That’s that’s really tough. That’s ballsy, I would say. But there were a ton of 20 foot trailers up in the storage place. So people do it. It just you just got to know your limits. And go slow, go slow. Don’t worry about who’s behind you. Don’t worry about who’s honking you, do you? And it really wasn’t that bad. I wouldn’t do it in the winter. That’s for damn sure.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Right. So that’s it. I think that’s a great, a great episode. I think maybe maybe next time we’ll just talk about Hilton and we’re going to go to Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort.

George
Yeah, I think we need to do one because we always reference Hilton Head with everywhere we go. And, you know, look back through our podcast and I don’t think we’ve done a dedicated podcast to Hilton Head

Lisa RichartHernandez
while we’re going to be there for the Fourth of July. So next week, we will give you our podcast about everything that we did and tips and tricks for Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort, and what to do in the area. We could probably talk about that forever, because we live there part of the time and and then what else we’ve got coming up for show I was

George
gonna say that we’ve got a trip to Michigan coming up,

Lisa RichartHernandez
we’ve got a two week trip to Michigan, which I would love any, any tips on that we’re going to see some I grew up in Michigan, we’re going to see some friends from high school for four days, like in Southern Michigan, and then we’re going up to Mackinac Island or staying in macro city. And then we’re going up to pictured rock in the Upper Peninsula. We’re going to come back down, we’re gonna stay at her side and Pataki that we’re going to drive down to another one in Harbor Springs, that’s also has owners there, we’re going to do a couple harvest hosts in the middle of that. And then we’re going to end up in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a long weekend at windrock, doing some jeeping and camping in the air. So we’ll tell you all about that.

George
And if you’re in any of those areas, please reach out to us. drop us a note, let us know. And we would love to have you on the podcast and talk about the area and what we should do and what we can just any advice would be great.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So we’ve got that in August and September. We’re looking forward to Bourbon and beyond.

George
Oh my god,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I cannot wait. Yeah, so that’s in Louisville, Kentucky is a four day music festival that includes bourbon and gourmet food trucks. And so lots of live music. We’ve got about like five other motor coaches from our resort going to Bourbon and beyond this year. And then that’s in September and October. We’re going to fantasy fast for a week in Key West Florida. And then we’ve got tailgating season so we’ve got a really packed schedule for the rest of the year. And we’re we’re going to have a lot of great shows coming up for you. So look at forward to that.

George
Yes, we’re gonna crank out the podcast because we’re finally back on the road and the wheels are turning.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. So follow us on our TikTok, which is RView. We got a lot of videos on there. We haven’t been too good at doing a YouTube videos but we do like to do the short videos on RView on tick tock, and you can look at our website it’s called RViewpodcast.com. You’ll have all the pictures from all of our social media Instagram and travels. I think RView from the road is our Instagram handle. And RViewpodcast.com is that’s “R” the letter “R” “V” like “RV”, RViewpodcast.com We’ll have a link to all of our shows our show notes. And you can read all of our other podcasts and subscribe and contact us from there. So if you have any questions or comments or want to tell us a great places or advice and tips on any of the things that we’ve got coming up, we’re always welcome to that we enjoy you listening to us. Thanks so much and have a great one safe travels our friends.

George
Bye bye.

intro
Thanks for listening to another episode of RView. Don’t forget to drop us a line at RViewpodcast.com That’s the letter RViewpodcast.com And like, subscribe and follow us so you don’t miss out on our next adventure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai