A Great Stay at The Boardwalk
Disney’s Boardwalk Inn, located on Cresent Lake between Epcot and Hollywood Studios, is a wonderful place to check out. It’s somewhere I always recommend as an escape from the crowds and fast pace we all experience inside the parks. I think it becomes a favorite of anyone who’s had a chance to spend time there. Maybe you dined at the Flying Fish Café, enjoyed the dueling pianos at Jellyrolls, or just grabbed a pastry at the Bakery. Personally, I love the Boardwalk and it’s always a stop of mine when I’m at Disney World. Last month I was lucky enough to not only spend time at the Boardwalk, but I was able to call the Walt Disney World’s Disney Boardwalk Inn my home for a week! I love how close Boardwalk Inn is to Epcot. I think any Epcot resort will always rank higher on a list of my favorite resorts for that reason. After this stay though, I think Boardwalk might rank above all the other Epcot resorts!
Every time I walk into Disney’s Boardwalk Inn, I can’t help but look up and just admire the beautiful chandelier. It’s a beautiful gold and green chandelier of cherubs and seahorses floating about you and greeting you when you come in. I recommend having a seat on the round floral couch/bench below the chandelier to get a great view. If you wait a few minutes you will also get a chance to watch the miniature carousel above the round bench begin to move and rotate to music! Now all of this is just as you walk in and there’s even more to see!
There’s plenty of comfortable couches and chairs to sit in as you wait to check into your room. The colors of the lobby are beautiful pastels which give it a very relaxing atmosphere. It definitely brings you a feeling of a Victorian beachside getaway which is what Boardwalk Inn strives for in my option. The theme of the resort is the old days of Coney Island and the Atlantic City Boardwalk by the sea and Disney does an amazing job of keeping with their theme.
Now I also recommend that you take the time to head over to the couch near the fireplace and take a look at the miniature roller coaster. It doesn’t move like the carousel does but it’s a great model of an old wooden roller coaster. The detail in this model and the carousel is amazing and I always find a new detail every time I look at them. It’s also worth looking at the photographs and art throughout the resort. They showcase the different rides and attractions and other things that you would see at the boardwalks of the late 19th century. You have all these wonderful pieces of history on display in such a beautiful resort which I find amazing to behold. One could almost look at these photos and models and see where the roots of the attractions at Disney came from because without wooden roller coasters on the Atlantic City Boardwalk there wouldn’t be rides like Test Track and more at Disney.
Disney’s Boardwalk Inn Resort is truly a unique complex. It is home to the Boardwalk shops, dining, and entertainment on the first floor overlooking Cresent Lake in addition to a great selection of rooms and villas. Boardwalk Inn’s accommodations are split with a side for Disney Vacation Club villas and the other side for hotel rooms and suites. I stayed on the right side of the resort which is home to the hotel rooms and suites. I was traveling with my mother for this trip and we booked a standard hotel room with 2 queen beds. We were in a great spot in my opinion because we were right around the corner for the Bellevue Lounge. Bellevue Lounge is located right down a small hall from the lobby with a great selection of drinks in the afternoon and evening and almost continental style selection of breakfast items in the morning.
There is no typical dining selection at Boardwalk Inn because of the restaurant availability just below the guests’ rooms on the Boardwalk. Most restaurants are not open for breakfast so and would require reservations if you did want to have breakfast. So it was great to have an option to grab something quick for breakfast every morning at Bellevue Lounge. There’s a selection of pastries like muffins, fruit cups, or my personal favorite croissants as well as coffee, tea, and juice. Not only did I have a very short walk to the lounge for breakfast but also for a drink at night too. It’s nice to be just steps away from the room if I want to enjoy a cocktail after a long day at the parks.
Now the resort has not gone through a major renovation of the rooms like some of the other resorts I’ve reported on (Yacht Club and Pop Century) but the rooms were still great accommodations. As I mentioned, we booked a room with two queen beds which had crisp white sheets. The headboards were dark wood with tall ornately carved posts on either end. There are two lights above each bed with small white lampshades and a hidden Mickey in the golden bronze metalwork. The lamps offer a great amount of light for being so small. At the far end of the room near the windows is a desk made from the same dark wood as the headboards. There is a matching chair with a great carving of Mickey and Minnie Mouse taking a ride in an old Victorian car. The carving is just one of the great Disney details I love about staying at a Disney resort!
The room did have a mini-fridge and a coffee maker beside the chair as well as a large flat screen TV and dresser. The dresser and cabinet holding the mini-fridge were made of the matching dark wood or the desk and headboards. The dresser did seem to be upgraded like some of the other dressers in renovated rooms across property. The dresser had better storage and extra plugs and USB ports on top. Having all the extra plugs is a major benefit of the upgrades that renovated rooms are getting. I considered it a happy surprise to see that our dresser had it.
We requested a room with handicapped capabilities so our room had a few differences to it from a standard room. One difference was a chair in the room instead of a couch which seems to almost be standard in the deluxe resort rooms. Having just the chair in the room does make it possible for someone in a wheelchair to get around the room better so I understand the change. Since it was just my mother and me in the room, having the chair didn’t affect our stay at all.
The bathroom was large and a different layout from other deluxe resort rooms since it was a handicapped accessible room. Instead of the vanity area with the sinks being separate from the rest of the bathroom area, everything was in one room. There was not a double sink either but these are all adjustments that were made so it would be easier for someone in a wheelchair. They were small changes but they did not affect the overall look of the room which was nice to see.
Now my favorite feature of the room was the amount of light we had from outside. There was one large window and a glass door which opened to a large balcony overlooking one of the garden areas. The garden area was very peaceful and a great way to start my day. It was a perfect place to have a seat with a book and a cup of tea to relax on which I did more than once.
I was very happy spending a week at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn and consider it a favorite resort now. With everything available at the Boardwalk for dining and entertainment in addition to a wonderful room and beautiful view of the gardens from my balcony, I could’ve spent the whole week just at the resort. Now for any Disney Nerds to say that is saying a lot! If you have the chance to stay at Boardwalk Inn, I highly recommend it!
If you’d like to plan a trip and stay at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn be sure to contact the official travel agent of The Disney Nerds Podcast, Once Upon a Time Travel.
