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Disney less than two hours from Pinellas County

Disney's BoardWalk

We spent a few days at Disney World near Orlando last week. You may feel that a discussion of the Mouse House has no business on a blog that talks mostly about North Pinellas real estate, but if you live in Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Clearwater or any other community in or around Pinellas County, sooner or later you are going to spend some time at Disney.

What to do at Disney used to be a simple decision, because when you visited Disney World you visited the Magic Kingdom. Then came Epcot not long afterward.

Yacht Club hotel

But now you have to be much more specific than that because there are so many nooks and crannies at Disney World — besides Epcot and Magic Kingdom, there is Downtown Disney, the Animal Kingdom Park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and a bunch of other offerings, including Disney’s BoardWalk.

Disney’s BoardWalk is where we spent our time on this visit. It’s an area modeled after Coney Island and other great boardwalk attractions of the Northeast of years gone by. There are several big hotels, two of which are based on the old rambling clapboard hotels of the the late 1800s- early 1900s. Between these two huge hotels, the Yacht Club and the Beach Club, is a big convention center facility.

Dance Club

We stayed in the Yacht Club Hotel and attended a three-day event in the convention center.

In front of these two hotels is a good-sized man-made lake, Crescent Lake. Beyond the lake is a boardwalk which hosts all kinds of restaurants, shops and clubs, all housed in about 9,000 square feet of buildings of different shapes and sizes. Walking along that boardwalk is reminiscent of the old beachfront boardwalks of years gone by.

We didn’t get as much of a chance as we would have liked to make good use of the food and entertainment that the boardwalk area offers, but we did take a nice walk around the boardwalk early on Thursday morning. The only people out at that hour (around 6:30 a.m.) were joggers and power-walkers, plus a number of Disney staff people and groundskeepers. We got some good pictures of the area, and a few of them are posted here.

It’s hard to beat Disney on a number of levels. Everything is always perfectly kept and maintained. You NEVER see so much as a cookie wrapper or a peanut shell on the grounds, the grass and shrubs are perfectly manicured and everything looks as though it was just painted or polished. If you pass a chambermaid in the hotel hallway, she will unfailingly smile and say hello.

Is there a downside to all that? Not really, although I always find myself thinking that everything is just too perfect for my liking. Sometimes I feel as though I’d like to see just one little imperfection to remind me that we’re all human beings. But I know I’m just being crabby — no one does it like Disney.

Disney World is not next door to Pinellas County, but it’s only about 90 miles away, all of it on interstates. It takes less than two hours to get over there, and Disney occasionally offers some very attractive Magic Kingdom and Epcot passes at low rates for Florida residents. 

If you move here from up north, you can be sure your friends and relatives from back home will be writing and calling, looking for an invitation so they can come visit when the air turns cold. The first question they will ask is, “Can we come visit?” The second question will be: “How far away is Disney?” Tell them it’s just a quick hop away.

Tags: boardwalk, disney