Walt Disney World - Traveling With Teens

Disney's Boardwalk Inn is an Epcot area resort that along with its Disney Vacation Club sister resort, Disney's Boardwalk Villas, offers a fun and exciting vacation experience for families with children of all ages especially teenagers.

It has been our family's experience that if the children are not kept busy, boredom sets in quickly. One would think that spending the day in one of Disney's four theme parks would satisfy their need to go and do, but even after running around in one of the parks for 8-10 hours the children still want to know what they will be doing next. Although mom and dad may want to relax a bit, the children want to keep busy.

The Boardwalk Inn and Disney's Boardwalk Villas has become our favorite resorts because both offer plenty of activities and entertainment opportunities that will keep everyone busy so that we never have to hear the children say "I'm bored."

So what do the children like to do to keep busy when we are not in a park? Usually, the first thing everyone wants to do at the resort is to swim. The resort's main pool is located on the Villas side of the property. It is called The Luna Park Pool and it has a 200 foot water slide called Keister Coaster. It is a recreation of a 1920s roller coaster. The slide empties into the pool through the mouth of a clown with the slide as the clown's tongue. The pool is colorful, exciting and it provides enough fun to keep the children busy for several hours.

In addition to the pool, The Boardwalk Inn and Villas also offer other free activities like tennis, a small playground, and a fitness center. There are other activities that cost extra that can be enjoyed as well. There are two arcades on the property. The biggest is at the ESPN Club located on the Boardwalk.

One activity that we enjoy as a family is renting a surrey bike. The rental stand is located on the Boardwalk just beyond the courtyard area of the resort known as the Village Green. You can rent a 2, 4 or even a 6 seat surrey bike to take for a ride along the Boardwalk and around the ' mile walkway that circles Crescent Lake. The walkway has plenty of small hills and even a few not so small hills that make it lots of fun and sometimes a bit of a challenge for those who are pedaling the bike. Most of the time our family ends up laughing so hard after struggling with the smaller hills that we have to get off and push the bike in order to make it up the larger hills. This experience provides us with some good old fashioned family fun and enough memories to share for years to come.

Even though we enjoy all of these activities, we especially like to walk around the boardwalk at night. The sight of bright neon lights, the sounds of midway games, the energy of the live entertainers and the smell of the food coming from the restaurants and the venders all combine to make the Boardwalk come to life with an energy and excitement that only Disney could create.

So the next time you want to take your family on a vacation where the children will be occupied and entertained consider going to Walt Disney World and staying on property at The Boardwalk Inn or Disney's Boardwalk Villas. Not only do these two resorts offer fun and exciting activities and recreation opportunities they have the added benefit of being conveniently located next to Disney's Hollywood Studios and at the International Gateway entrance into Epcot.