How many TV channels would you like?

When we were in Gatlinburg last week, I called our cable/phone/Internet provider to find out when my rate would change.  Turns out it was up for renewal in just a few days.  So I drove the 20 miles to the nearest Charter office, waited in line for awhile and finally got to talk to a nice lady named Judy.

It seems that Charter has changed it's pricing structure from special one or two-year deals to "bundles."  I wondered how this new structure would affect my pricing.  Sure enough, my price was only going to increase 35% per cabin for exactly the same thing we offer now.  Hey, what's another $76 per month?!

BUT - they were sweetening the pot a little to take the sting out of the price increase.  So here's the good news.  When you stay at All Decked Out or Smoky Mountain Tower, you now get to watch HBO, Cinemax, The Movie Channel and Showtime!

And Charter has made available a whole bunch of new channels.  With everything included, you now have your choice of 152 different TV channels!  You can also listen to any of 46 music channels.

Oh, there's a slight catch.  All these channels are only available on the TV sets in the living rooms of each cabin.  On the other 8 TVs (4 at All Decked Out, 4 at Smoky Mountain Tower, I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a measly 53 channels for now.  We're working on that.

So if you get tired of hiking or shopping or sight-seeing, you now have PLENTY of choices for TV watching.  Enjoy!

We promised to tell you about Thermostats

Okay, it's time for something different that a picture of All Decked Out.  We promised you in an earlier post to tell you about our new thermostats at Smoky Mountain Tower.  You know from paying your own electric bills that utility costs are not cheap.  But they can be especially expensive when your house is empty, but your furnace is roaring away!

We found out recently about some new technology that let's us control thermostats over the Internet.  So we decided to try these new devices at Smoky Mountain Tower.  And it works!  I can even raise or lower the temperatures on my smartphone.  Take a look:

Not only does my phone show me the current setting, but it also shows me the current temperature in the room.  I can raise or lower the temperature, turn the fan from auto to on, or move the thermostat from heat to cool.

Now I know what you're thinking.  NO - we will NEVER change a thermostat setting while there are guests in Smoky Mountain Tower.  But when a guest leaves and nobody is coming in for a few days, this will give us the ability to change the temperature (lower in winter, higher in summer) and thus saving on electricity.  And when our electric bills are running several hundred dollars a month, we think it's important to try to have some savings.  It's things like this that enable us to keep our rental prices among the lowest in the area - which ultimately helps our guests.  And THAT'S the REAL idea behind all this.