We have stayed at Amicalola Lodge 10 times now. The room is nice, and the staff is sweet. We stayed over Thanksgiving this year and they were extremely unprepared.
The lounge downstairs used to have a bar open, with cheese and fruit and chairs. Not this year. This year we had to ask them to open a conference room because there was nowhere to sit. I dragged out chairs for elderly people and children to sit by the fire and TV.
The outside fireplace wasn't working. The restaurant was running 1.5 hours behind on reservations. I understood that 2 big families came in and disrupted the flow. I didn't mind waiting, but some organization and forethought would of made it SO much better. The poor hostesses were just scribbling names on a paper?!? I made my reservation in August for 4 people.
For the people actually staying there you could have coffee downstairs and muffins in the morning.
Open the bar back up. Open the conference rooms with card games, dominoes, child craft area. The printed coloring pages was the only effort made.
If you want to turn over the tables in the dining room faster perhaps have the dessert and coffee downstairs in the conference room-so people don't linger at the tables after dinner eating dessert and drinking coffee
We live an hour away, and I have recommended staying there and enjoying Thanksgiving in the past, but after this year we will stick to coming up a different time of year.