Stay at this fun, Atlantic City inspired waterfront resort. Complete with a carnival themed pool, there is so much to see and do at this property.
The Boardwalk itself is complete with tons of restaurants, bars and entertainment nightly – you never know what street performers you might come across! This family friendly spot is great for all ages and offers villas to accommodate larger groups.
What We Like
The Epcot Resort Area is a great location – you can walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios (or take the boat). Buses run everywhere else. Having the ability to walk to not just one, but TWO parks is huge, and something we take advantage of when we’re staying in this area.
Another perk of this location is the Boardwalk itself. There is so much to do – there are great restaurants and bars, and it’s a good mix of adult and kid friendly activity. The nightlife is great busting here, especially with Jellyrolls, the popular dueling piano bar. It’s worth a stop on your next visit without the kids!
The rooms themselves are great, and this resort offers villas if you’re traveling with a bigger group or maybe just want some more space (and a kitchen, washer and dryer!).
My husband and I stayed in a studio villa and had a great location AND view. This was by far one of the best rooms I’ve ever had in my years of visiting Disney. We were right off the lobby (so close to the buses), and we also overlooked the front courtyard facing the Boardwalk and water (just beautiful!).
Things to Note
The nightlife is different at this resort (with the bars on the Boardwalk) – it can be a little busy and loud, especially on the weekends. So if you have young kids, request a room not overlooking the main courtyard and Boardwalk itself for some quiet!
WDW Park Planner Tips:
When should you consider staying at the BoardWalk Inn?
If you know you’re going to be at Epcot a lot on your trip (if it’s the Flower & Garden or Food & Wine Festival, etc.), this is a great option for you! Being able to walk to/from Epcot in less than 10 minutes is a game changer at Disney. We like to spend our evenings at Epcot visiting World Showcase, so being a quick walk home at the end of a long day is great.
Hearing the question “You’re going to Disneyland in Florida?” makes me cringe a little, as I’m sure Disneyland lovers feel when people confuse their park with Disney World. While yes, they are both Disney parks, they are not the same – and my recent visit to Disneyland confirmed that.
Growing up a Disney World go-er, I wasn’t quite sure what I would think of Disneyland. I had been once before when I was young, so this was my second experience there but first time as an adult. We got there for rope drop and had the BEST day visiting Walt’s creation. It was really special to experience the park that started it all.
For those of you who haven’t been, Disneyland is made up of Disneyland (comparable to Magic Kingdom) as well as California Adventure. There’s also Downtown Disney which has some restaurants, bars, entertainment and shopping.
What We Liked
It’s doable to do both parks in one day – and visit Downtown Disney, too!
If you get a Park Hopper and MaxPass (which I recommend doing both), it’s so easy to go back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure and to hit all of the attractions. We started at Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland, hit the big attractions and had lunch at California Adventure, went back to Disneyland for the afternoon, had dinner at Downtown Disney, and then went back to Disneyland a third time! Since you go through security before the entry to the two parks (they face each other and share a common space), you don’t have to go through security again when you go between the parks – you simply scan your ticket to re-enter. It’s so easy!
Disneyland has better versions of some attractions.
While Disney World and Disneyland have some of the same rides and attractions, they are NOT always the same. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked some of Disneyland’s versions better than Disney World – Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, and last but not least, Space Mountain. Space Mountain (called Hyperspace Mountain a t Disneyland) is Star Wars themed, and within the first five seconds I was in love!! It was our last ride of the day, which was a bummer because I would have ridden it over and over 🙂
Galaxy’s Edge was quiet ALL day!
Like I mentioned, we ran at Galaxy’s Edge at rope drop with the crowds. We were able to walk right on Smuggler’s Run with no wait. I kept checking wait times throughout the day, and I was shocked to see that Smuggler’s Run was never more than 45 minutes! We went back to Galaxy’s Edge in the evening, and it was EMPTY – even quieter than our AP Preview at Disney World. We went into the Droid Depot and there was no one to be found. I spontaneously decided to build a droid and had so much fun since we had the place to ourselves!! Overall, Disneyland and California Adventure were much quieter than Disney World, but it was especially noticeable at Galaxy’s Edge.
What Was Different
The MaxPass system.
The Disneyland version of FastPass+ is called MaxPass. The biggest difference is that nothing is booked in advance – you can’t select Fast Passes until you enter the parks. Oh, and you have to pay $15 to use it. If you don’t, you can still get paper Fast Passes from the attraction kiosks that allow you to come back during a designated window (like the good old days ;)).
For MaxPass, you can only make one selection for your group at a time (link your party’s tickets together so one person can do it), and there are only specific time slots available for each ride. The time slots vary based on the popularity of the ride – they will get later as the day goes on and the popular rides will fill up, so keep an eye on them! After a certain window of time you can make additional selections even if you haven’t used your Fast Pass yet, and the app will tell you when that is. This means you could have multiple Fast Passes booked at one time once your waiting period is up. Set an alarm on your phone for the time you can book your next Fast Pass so you don’t forget!
Overall feel to the parks.
Disneyland feels smaller and more condensed than Disney World. There’s less land than in Orlando, so it makes sense. If you haven’t been to Disney World you likely wouldn’t notice, but it gave me a new appreciation for how spacious Magic Kingdom is. However, Magic Kingdom needs to be bigger to accommodate the crowds. Even in the most crowded areas of Disneyland, it never felt overwhelming (and it was a Saturday on a holiday weekend).
While California Adventure has a ton of awesome rides (and some unique ones from Disney World), the feel of that park was a little strange. All of the different areas/lands didn’t quite seem to go together. Again, if you haven’t been to Disney World you probably wouldn’t notice, but it made me appreciate the theming in each of the WDW parks.
WDW Park Planner Tips:
Get a Park Hopper. It’s a necessity if you want to hit both parks in one day. The “big” rides are split between the two parks, so if you want to do all of those you need a Park Hopper ticket.
Pay the extra $15 for MaxPass, especially if you only have one day. Again, this allows you to make Fast Pass selections from your phone for your entire group (you just simply link the tickets). We wouldn’t have been able to do a fraction of the rides without it. And most importantly, make sure you have a good understanding of it and have a gameplan before you enter the parks. My husband was our MaxPass expert and handled it for the four of us all day.
Take advantage of the hidden Single Rider lines. The Single Rider lines are not as obvious as they are at Disney World, and they don’t list a wait time. We didn’t notice them at first because it’s so subtle! Not all rides have them, but the ones that do will have a sign somewhere that instructs you to ask a Cast Member about the Single Rider line. So that’s what we did! We took advantage of Matterhorn (literally walked right on) as well as Indiana Jones (took about 15 minutes, but still not bad!).
Select nights at Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom (not Epcot)
$125/person, $95 with Annual Passholder discount
3 hour window after park closes (i.e. 9:00pm-12:00am)
Can arrive starting at 7pm at the park for the event (without a regular park ticket)
Limited restaurants and stores open
Some snacks and drinks included with price of ticket (Mickey bars!!)
Our Experience:
The Tree of Life at night is a totally different feel than during the day.
My husband and I went to our second Disney After Hours, this time at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We had never been to that park at night before, so we were excited to check it out!
We got there at about 8:30pm since we flew in to Orlando that evening, and that was when the park closed to the public. As we were walking in, floods of people were leaving, so we took that as a good sign. We headed straight for Pandora.
The floating mountains at night are spectacular.
Pandora at night did not disappoint – it was pure magic! I love the Avatar movie and the World of Avatar, so seeing everything lit up at night was breathtaking. We were starving when we arrived, so we went to the walk up Pongu Pongu for dinner (yum!). As soon as we finished dinner, the crowds were noticeably quieter. We walked on to Flight of Passage around 9pm, when the event was scheduled to start and waited maybe 10 minutes for the ride! It took about 25 minutes to get through the queue/pre-show videos.
Expedition Everest at night is so cool!
After that, we hit up Na’vi River Journey, Dinosaur, Expedition Everest and watched the Rivers of Light Show! We had never seen the show before and absolutely loved it. We walked right up as the show was starting and it was empty – it felt like we had a personal viewing of the show. Then we headed back to Pandora to ride Flight of Passage one more time before we left and got through it even quicker the second time. We got off the ride at 11:59pm and were wiped.
Rivers of Light is an amazing show – we had never seen it before!
It was the perfect amount of time for us to hit all of the available attractions, but still feel like we got to enjoy the park and weren’t rushing around. We would highly recommend this event and felt like it was worth the money to experience Animal Kingdom at night with very limited crowds.
WDW Park Planner Tips:
Get there at 7pm
You’re able to enter the park starting a 7pm. If you want to do any of the attractions that are closed during the event (Kilimanjaro Safari), or dine a any of the restaurants that are closed (I wanted to go to Nomad Lounge), get there early! We weren’t able to because of when our flight got in, but if we do another one I would definitely get there early!
Ask and you shall receive!
The cast members let us stay on Dinosaur twice in a row without having to go through the queue again (as much as I do love that pre-show video). Usually cast members will be pretty accommodating when the crowds and lines are quiet! Maybe not for Flight of Passage, but always worth asking 😉
Take an Uber/Lyft home
We had a long day of work, travel and hitting the pavement at Animal Kingdom, so by midnight we were exhausted! The bus line was surprisingly long for the Boardwalk (and was combined with the Beach and Yacht Club), so we didn’t even know if we’d make the first bus. We decided to “splurge” on our $7 Lyft back to the resort. Worth every penny to be in bed by 12:45am 🙂
