Hales Bar Marina & Resort

We were fortunate to call Hales Bar Marina/RV resort home while on assignment in Chattanooga. We have traveled all over the country and this is one of our favorite places. Nestled on the Nickajack lake with great fishing and views. They are family owned and operated tand are constantly making improvements. The Dam is a historic building and you can do tours on the weekends. The month of October there are haunted tours. They also have a distillery and bar and feature live music most weekends. You can rent cabins, tiny homes, and boats! Their floating cabins are great aka The Redneck Bora Bora!

This is not your ordinary RV park! The RV park is just a small part of this family owned and operated business. They are fairly new owners and are constantly making improvements. There is also a historic Damm with a unique history that you can tour on the weekends. The Damm is transformed into a haunted house the month of October with actors for a scary experience! They also have a distillery with a bar and live music on the weekends. There are cabins, tiny homes, and boat rentals. There are also floating cabins aka The Redneck Bora Bora! We have traveled all over the country and this is hands down one of our favorite camp sites.

We love Hale’s Bar Marina/RV resort. We called this place home for 3 months while on assignment in Chattanooga. The RV park is just a small portion of their business. Family owned and operated they are constantly working on improvements. There is a historic damm on the property with a unique history that you can do tours of on the weekends. They also have a distillery and bar open on the weekends and feature live music. They also have floating cabins you can rent calling it “The Redneck Bora Bora!”. This is not your typical RV spot for sure but it is a truly unique experience! We enjoyed our time here and fell in love with the people and area. During the month of October they do Haunted Tours!

This could be a really nice campground. It’s right on Nickajack Lake surrounded by beautiful mountains. However, it’s a dump. Full of weeds, duck poop (literally everywhere), old cars, machinery with weeds grown up around them. We could hardly find our hookups because it was so weedy. Zero amenities. The bathhouse we didn’t go near because the windows were busted out. It’s also a hike to Chattanooga, about a 30-minute drive. The floating cabins look cute but I’m sure they’re as nasty as the rest of the place. There was a cabin next to our RV site, and the folks told us the a/c was broken, and it was burning up inside. This place needs to close for refurbing.

Hales Bar Marina August 7-9, 2020
We rented the floating Cabin 1, with a check in of Friday, August 7 and checkout Sunday, August 9, 2020 and there were numerous issues:
The state of the cabin was horrendous (this is coming from a very seasoned traveler – both nationally and internationally).
1. Main Entry
a. There were months, and I’m being generous, of

spiderwebs all over the main entrance deck.
b. While I’m a “city girl”, I am used to bugs and

spiders. However, when it appears that there is an infestation of at least 20

spiders on the front deck (main entry door, ceiling, strand lights, which were

coated in spider webs), this is an issue. We could not sit on the deck and

enjoy ourselves.
c. The side table was filthy
d. The main entry doors were filthy. And during a

pandemic, I would think that your cleaning and sanitization practices would

have been stepped up a notch. Alas, I was sorely mistaken.
e. The main entry door would not lock.
2. Kitchen Area
a. The toaster oven was filthy and in disarray

b. The microwave was beyond disgusting and looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in years
c. The coffee pot was dirty and had not been cleaned in months

3. Bedrooms

a. The front bedroom had hairs on the bed as well as spiders on the ceiling, so we moved to the back bedroom facing the lake.
b. The “central air” unit was so loud we had to turn it off. Given the back bedroom does not have a window AC unit, we wanted
to open the screen door. But there was a massive hole in the screen door.
c. There were dead mayflies in this bedroom that had been there for a while
d. Shears on the back door allows no privacy and as this is a public dock, this was unacceptable.

4. Miscellaneous Items
a. Charged a cleaning fee when it is clear that this place had not been cleaned in months (again being generous). Whoever you are paying for this job is ripping you off
b. Layers of dirt and dust on baseboard
c. Bathroom sinks clogs
d. Mold in bathroom
My cousins after seeing the state of the cabin opted not to
stay at all. My wife and I checked out the next morning, and would have left before unpacking, if I weren’t so tired from traveling all week.
I have stayed at a 5-star hotel, with 3 pools, seven onsite restaurants,
a helipad, and my own butler that cost less than this “resort cabin”. My entire party (4 for Cabin 1 and 10 people in a 3-bedroom cabin), was very disappointed in our accommodations.

I would give zero stars if possible.
Our family lives in our RV, relying on honest campgrounds for safe places to stay... we were in lockdown in Oregon and desperately needed to get back to the east coast so we could safely stay nearby family so we reserved with this campground just to be certain we had somewhere to land once we arrived in the area. When our situation changed and we weren't able to make it all the way into the area, they refused to refund us our $200 deposit claiming that just because they were open, our situation didn't matter to them. Instead of keeping one night or even a percentage, they took the whole deposit.

Unless you want to deal with folks who could care less about their customers and only their pocketbook, AVOID THIS CAMPGROUND.
Also, there's zero cell reception from any carrier per the manager, so even more of a reason to avoid for remote workers.

This place looked nothing like the website. The mini gold course was completely run down and we’re not able to use. The pool was green and disgusting. There are a lot of full time residents at this part who were friendly but had completely taken over with plants, outside furniture and extra vehicles/boats. The bathrooms should have been closed completely!! They were so gross i wouldnt even step foot in them. I would not stay here again.