Review of our resort holiday at the Blue Ridge Village resort in Banner Elk, North Carolina

Overview of Blue Ridge Village

This resort appears to have been around for quite a while, and they were rennovating a couple of buildings up the hill from us.

Having seen a few of the photos of the rennovated rooms, I have to say they look really nice! Lots of nice earthy tones and very tasteful kitchen, sleeping, bath and living area upgrades. Warm and comfortable looking.

That said, we were staying in a 1-bedroom unit that was just fine. We took a short video of our trip, which includes a clip from the resort itself. We have posted this video here on our Fine Resort Vacation website, and it is also posted on YouTube (our YouTube user name is MountainOceanKath).

For us - and we've mentioned this elsewhere on our site - units containing washers and dryers are important to us, and Blue Ridge Village had this wonderful ammenity. Considering that we had just spent the winter traipsing back and forth to a laundramat, having this convenience at our fingertips was worth its weight in gold.

Kitchen and other Resort Ammenities

Again, our YouTube video will give you a nice overview of the resort, which we thought was very lovely, and tastefully set into the hillside.

The resort has a small "putt putt" mini-golf setup - which is really nothing fancy. A cute diversion for little kids.

There is a very pleasant if somewhat small pond where visitors can throw in a line to try their luck catching trout (no license needed), or take a spin in the paddle boats.

We enjoyed the tennis courts there - in fact, we were extremely impressed that the resort had hundreds of tennis balls for us to use and practice with - literally buckets of them. This was a treat! We are by no means experienced tennis players; however, it is a sport we have recently been introduced to, and we enjoy it.

We also enjoyed walking around the grounds - which are beautifully landscaped.

Birds and Other Wildlife

As much as we enjoyed our room, the tennis, and the friendly people, however, I think that our favorite part was watching the birds - particularly a small family of 2 geese and a duck that were always together. Always. We seriously never saw them more than a few yards apart from one another. 

One thing to note is that this resort IS in a mountain area, and we could not help but notice that our welcome package devoted a bulleted safety list regarding bears. Where we live in northern New Hampshire, bears are frequent visitors to our home, so we are aware of the precautions necessary. If you visit Blue Ridge Village, take these suggestions seriously, and watch where you put your food and trash.

Thoughts About Potential Improvements - Suggestions for the Resort

The only issue we had with our stay at Blue Ridge Village was that wireless internet is not resort-wide. In order for us to work (yes, unfortunately this was not ALL vacation), we needed to bring our laptops up to the main lodge.

While this was not crippling, it was inconvenient at best. To be fair, however, we have noticed that a lot of resorts are still not quite up to speed with providing internet for their guests. Hopefully they are listening to guest comments (we weren't the only ones who mentioned this).

The only other suggestion I would have - not only for Blue Ridge Village, but for all resorts everywhere - is to encourage recycling. There are seldom recycling bins on these properties. This is something that tends to really bother us since we work hard to be conscientious stewards of the environment.

Would We Return to Blue Ridge Village?

All that said, would we return to the Blue Ridge Village resort? Absolutely. The grounds are wonderful, the location is convenient to many area attractions, and it's just a comfy spot! 

To return to our main Banner Elk, North Carolina review page, Click Here. Or, to return to our main Vacation Review page, Click Here.