Disney Boardwalk
Walt Disney World resort hopping is a great activity to do on a day you are not planning on visiting the parks. It is a great way to checkout properties for future visits. Since not all guests have a car when visiting Walt Disney World we decided to cover the resorts by areas that can be easily reached via Disney transportation. Here is part II of our Walt Disney Resort Hopping Series.
If you are staying on Disney property and you do not wish to drive take Disney transportation to Epcot or Disney Hollywood Studios. The resorts we are visiting today are in walking distance from both parks but can also be reached via a leisurely boat ride from Epcot or Disney Hollywood Studio.
Walt Disney Resort Hopping: Epcot and Disney Hollywood Studios Resorts
Bedroom Yacht Club
Disney’s BoardWalk and the Yacht & Beach Club Resorts share a boardwalk, marina, and swimming complex. The Yacht Club Resort has a breezy Nantucket and Cape Cod atmosphere with its own lighthouse and boardwalks, lots of polished wood, and burnished brass. Its sibling resort, the Beach Club, shares most of the facilities but is a little sportier and more casual in atmosphere. The resorts offer a shared mini–water park, Stormalong Bay, with a white-sand beach and marina, and an unusual number of sports facilities, such as croquet, tennis, and volleyball. Many of the rooms have balconies with views looking out across the lagoon toward the BoardWalk.
The BoardWalk Inn is a detailed replica of an early-20th-century Atlantic-coast boardwalk. Facades of hotels, diners, and shops create an inviting and exciting waterfront skyline. In reality, behind the facades, the BoardWalk Inn & Villas are a single integrated structure. Restaurants and shops occupy the boardwalk level, while accommodations rise up to six stories above. Painted bright red and yellow along with weathered pastel greens and blues, the BoardWalk resorts are the only Disney hotels that use neon signs as architectural detail. The inn and villas share one pool with an old-fashioned amusement-park theme and also have two quiet pools.
Disney Swan Resort
The Swan and Dolphin Resorts were not designed by Disney Imagineers, though you might certainly think they were. They were the playgrounds of postmodern architect Michael Graves; in fact, they are not Disney-owned properties at all, though guests have most of the perks. Business types and adult travelers rather than families patronize the Swan and Dolphin, and their theme runs more to the surrealistic rather than to the whimsical.
That being said, a quick glance at the Swan and Dolphin’s strengths will verify that they have as much or more to offer families than the Disney resorts.
All of these resorts are amazing properties and especially lovely to visit during the Christmas season.
For more complete information on all Disney Properties check out The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.
