jrobinette
Nov 30, 20204 min
Hello all -
I know I mentioned that I would be posting more over this holiday period... but I got so distracted in gaming and other fun things... that I ended up forgetting to do some extra posts.
That said - I figured I would give you guys a quick review of the Cabin that my Mom and I stayed at this past weekend (not 28 and 29, but the 21-22 weekend). And about some activities we did while there!
First off - so everybody knows, the state we live in is Virginia. So that means we usually go to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains usually within the Shenandoah area as this is close to most if not all of the major metropolitan cities.
The Virginia area is really quite good for having a full round of seasons. That said - this means that the fall weather brings beautiful scenery and colorful scenes. I believe this is why Virginia has so many of those "for Lovers" sayings. It really has a great overall offering of things to do. The only downside I would say about Virginias scenery is that you do have to do a bit of a drive to get "the best" of ONE world. There isn't really any key areas, like in California, where you can see the Ocean and the Mountains in one nice view. But there are nice views of Rivers and Lakes... which makes the Ocean view less needed.
If you want to do a nice "glamping" experience, there are so many options to choose from in Virginia. You can do good old fashioned campgrounds in State Parks, KOA Campgrounds, and even Cabins! For this adventure, we choose to do the Cabin experience. We typically stick to these types of experiences as they have most if not all the amenities right there in the area.
For a great list of places you can rent cabins you can visit these sites:
All Star Lodging: https://www.allstarlodging.com/ . Mostly serves the Northern and Mid-Area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia (so Shenandoah and above) from what I can tell from their listings. They manage property for home owners within the area.
Shenandoah Cabin Rentals: https://shenandoahcabinrentals.com/ . As the name states - serves the Shenandoah Region.
Then if you want to find other places not focused within the Shenandoah Region you can go to Virginia's Website and Browse their "Places to Stay" Page. https://www.virginia.org/PlacesToStay
So which one did we use? On this adventure we used All Star Lodging. My husband and I have used them on several previous escapades and really enjoyed our experiences. This made us feel like that All Star Lodging was definitely a repeat "vendor" to use.
This cabin Mom and I used was the "River Escape" Cottage/Cabin (https://www.allstarlodging.com/vacation-rental-home.asp?PageDataID=47338).
So what was my review/rating for this cabin and the overall adventure? I would say 4 out of 5 stars.
Scoring Breakdown:
Location: 5 of 5. The home was easily accessible using a regular 2-Wheel Drive vehicle off a semi-major road. There is a Walmart about 20 Minutes away right in the Luray Caverns area. There is also the Shenandoah River Outfitters, but they did not seem like they are regularly open and a Campground down the street where you may be able to get small goods if needed.
Scenery and Privacy: 4 of 5. The home was located near a decent view, but you had to walk around the neighborhood to get some of the best views. As for your visibility into other areas of the neighborhood, the house was pretty well "covered" from view from other houses, it was also hard to see other houses, with the exception of the one directly across the street.
Other Amenities' Availability:
Internet: 0 of 5. The house did not have Wi-Fi, but this was expected, the post even says that.
LTE/4G: 4.5 of 5. Interestingly enough, enough though there was no Wi-Fi, the house happened to be in an area that has a 5G tower for ATT. So we had excellent LTE signal on our ATT phones.
House Score (Breakdown into a few categories):
Cleanliness: 4.5 of 5. The house was very clean, it smelled very fresh. The only complaint on cleanliness was that the refrigerator had a slight smell.
Kitchen Amenities: 4 of 5. It appears that the house may be a vacation home for someone from the UK or some other place... the Oven and the Stove Top both used temperatures in Celsius. For us Americans it was a bit hard to understand for the oven... the stove top was pretty straight forward. The oven was an IKEA brand oven, and there were no instructions on how to use it.
Sound/Noise Level: 3 of 5. This was the worst part of the experience. Overall the house was in a quiet area and for the most part you could tune out the Heater turning on and off... but when you couldn't man it was hard to deal with. At some points I felt like there was an alarm going off because of how loud the heater cycle was. This also made it hard to sleep.
Overall - the experience of the house itself was great. With the exception of the noise, I could not have asked for a better experience :). 5 of 5
While there my Mom and I did many activities including:
Walking Around the Neighborhood (picture of the house from the car. Other pictures of the house included in the All Star Post)
Doing some Arts and Crafts (below is a picture of some of the stuff we worked on)
In addition to doing resin crafts, we also did some candle making and fudge making. I will post a picture of the candle made later (amendment to this post) and you guys have already seen the fudge :).
Reading News/Blogs/Articles, etc. Getting cool ideas for other things to do.
Watching TV (Mostly Cooking Channel and SVU )
and just sitting... yes... just sitting. You need to just relax sometimes and do nothing.
I am thankful for the time that I could spend with my family this week, both with my Mom on the little cabin adventure and with my husband just chilling out, playing video games at home.
Until next time all - have a good one and enjoy!