First 3 nights of an August Split Stay ending at GF: Would you pick Boardwalk Inn or Yacht Club?

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hopefully the title says it all. We're headed back to Orlando in August, for a 6-night split stay. The second 3 nights will be in a Grand Floridian Resort Studio on rented DVC points. We wanted to do a Crescent Lake Resort for 3 nights first, but are torn between Yacht Club and Boardwalk. (*Swan/Dolphin is fully booked for a convention or something for part of those first 3 nights, so they're not even an option, and we've stayed at Beach Club before, so we'd rather try somewhere different this time.)

Here are the pros and cons as I see them. Please let me know what I'm missing, and what you would choose!

PRICE: Both stays would be at a 25-35% discount thanks to the VISA promo, but Boardwalk offers a slightly better price, with a total cost that will be $200 (~$65/night) less than Yacht Club.
LOCATION: Both resorts are in easy walking distance to HS and EPCOT.
ROOMS: We'd be in a garden view room at either resort. Same size and furniture. Boardwalk rooms are freshly refurbished with a light and airy turn-of-the-century feel, but Yacht Club rooms have a darker, masculine feel, which will be a bigger contrast to the GF resort studio we're moving to afterwards.
POOL: Stormalong Bay at Yacht Club is bigger and offers a bigger variety of experiences than the Boardwalk Inn pool, but we'll be there during the third week of August, when it's going to be very hot and humid, and rainy. We may visit the hotel pool once, if at all.
RESTAURANTS: Our meals are already planned and selected, and don't include TS at either hotel. We might have a CS lunch, for which YC/BC has the edge, given that its CS places have indoor seating (which is desirable in August) and Boardwalk doesn't.
CONSTRUCTION/NOISE: The construction of the new restaurant that's replacing ESPN at Boardwalk will presumably still be ongoing at the time of our visit, and additional "enhancements" to other areas may still be occurring. The refurb of the DVC side may or may not have begun. I hate not really knowing what may or may not be closed or disrupted (especially since we've already got that going on for the second half of our split stay at the GF, which will be undergoing a lobby refurb when we're there). On the other hand, there's no way to escape those sorts of things: for all I know, I could go with the Yacht Club instead, and then sometime within the next few months, Disney will decide it's going to tear that up too!

Are there any factors I'm not considering? If the choice was yours to make, which resort would you choose and why? Any help you can give me will be much appreciated: when polled, my own family members were ambivalent, with my son thinking we should go with whatever is cheapest, and my daughter thinking we should go with the resort with the theme that is most different from GF, but everybody saying in the end, "but I don't really care either way."
 
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RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
I would do Boardwalk and save the $200. The only big factor for me in maybe picking yacht would be the busses. Getting off the bus first is definitely nice when they are shared between yacht/beach/boardwalk. It’s exhausting to be last. But I wouldn’t pay $200 for that.
 

plutofan15

Well-Known Member
What age does the group consist of? We find the Yacht Club to have more of an adult crowd and thus a bit quieter. From what we have experienced, the Beach Club seems to have the most families followed by Boardwalk and then Yacht Club. The quiet pool at the Yacht Club is very relaxing.
 

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
What age does the group consist of? We find the Yacht Club to have more of an adult crowd and thus a bit quieter. From what we have experienced, the Beach Club seems to have the most families followed by Boardwalk and then Yacht Club. The quiet pool at the Yacht Club is very relaxing.
It's me, DH, and our 2 kids, DS17 and DD15.
 

plutofan15

Well-Known Member
It's me, DH, and our 2 kids, DS17 and DD15.
Same ages as our kids. Our kids prefer the Yacht Club, they enjoy the Stormalong Bay pool over the pool at Boardwalk along with Beaches And Cream for the ice cream. We stayed at Yacht Club in February 2022 and had a great time. Don't sell the pool time short, we visited this past August and found a late night dip in the pool very refreshing. If the price difference is not a deal breaker, I would recommend Yacht Club.
 
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Eric Graham

Well-Known Member
But, a word of warning. One year we were there they were limiting how many people could be in the pool, but that was during the pandemic.
 

tpoly88

Well-Known Member
thats a tough one, but i always liked the YC better as one time at the Boardwalk our room i think was closer to HS than Epcot! I always felt the boardwalk was too spread out and trying to get rooms close to the boardwalk itself was never guaranteed. YC the rooms were always quiet and big, plus the pool there is great. no bad choice and wont go wrong at either.
 

LAM378

Well-Known Member
YC is my forever favorite and go-to resort, but I stayed at BW last July. We had daily rainstorms, and the thing I missed the most about YC was everything being under one roof. At BW you have to trek out to the boardwalk for everything; YC is more compact, and it’s a quick indoor walk to the lobby if you need anything. That’s clutch when it’s pouring.

All garden view rooms at BW are pretty much tucked away on the back side of the resort, whereas a lot of the garden view rooms at YC are on the Crescent Lake side of the resort and offer a partial water view.

The YC rooms are a little darker than the BW rooms, especially after the BW refresh, but the YC rooms still feel fresh to me, and you’re going to get that light and airy feel at GF anyway, like you said.

I don’t know if you’re a light packer and laundry-doer on vacation like me, but BW has a small number of machines compared to Y&B, and they were out of order for half our trip.

They’re both great, and you get the benefit of being in an awesome area either way. But I’ll be staying at YC this week with my party of 10, and although we could have saved about $900 total on our 3 rooms by staying at BW instead, we were all like nope, YC is worth the extra money. Good luck choosing!
 

Scott B

New Member
Hopefully the title says it all. We're headed back to Orlando in August, for a 6-night split stay. The second 3 nights will be in a Grand Floridian Resort Studio on rented DVC points. We wanted to do a Crescent Lake Resort for 3 nights first, but are torn between Yacht Club and Boardwalk. (*Swan/Dolphin is fully booked for a convention or something for part of those first 3 nights, so they're not even an option, and we've stayed at Beach Club before, so we'd rather try somewhere different this time.)

Here are the pros and cons as I see them. Please let me know what I'm missing, and what you would choose!

PRICE: Both stays would be at a 25-35% discount thanks to the VISA promo, but Boardwalk offers a slightly better price, with a total cost that will be $200 (~$65/night) less than Yacht Club.
LOCATION: Both resorts are in easy walking distance to HS and EPCOT.
ROOMS: We'd be in a garden view room at either resort. Same size and furniture. Boardwalk rooms are freshly refurbished with a light and airy turn-of-the-century feel, but Yacht Club rooms have a darker, masculine feel, which will be a bigger contrast to the GF resort studio we're moving to afterwards.
POOL: Stormalong Bay at Yacht Club is bigger and offers a bigger variety of experiences than the Boardwalk Inn pool, but we'll be there during the third week of August, when it's going to be very hot and humid, and rainy. We may visit the hotel pool once, if at all.
RESTAURANTS: Our meals are already planned and selected, and don't include TS at either hotel. We might have a CS lunch, for which YC/BC has the edge, given that its CS places have indoor seating (which is desirable in August) and Boardwalk doesn't.
CONSTRUCTION/NOISE: The construction of the new restaurant that's replacing ESPN at Boardwalk will presumably still be ongoing at the time of our visit, and additional "enhancements" to other areas may still be occurring. The refurb of the DVC side may or may not have begun. I hate not really knowing what may or may not be closed or disrupted (especially since we've already got that going on for the second half of our split stay at the GF, which will be undergoing a lobby refurb when we're there). On the other hand, there's no way to escape those sorts of things: for all I know, I could go with the Yacht Club instead, and then sometime within the next few months, Disney will decide it's going to tear that up too!

Are there any factors I'm not considering? If the choice was yours to make, which resort would you choose and why? Any help you can give me will be much appreciated: when polled, my own family members were ambivalent, with my son thinking we should go with whatever is cheapest, and my daughter thinking we should go with the resort with the theme that is most different from GF, but everybody saying in the end, "but I don't really care either way."
Both resorts are beautiful. I have never stayed at the Yacht Club but have stayed at the Beach Club. For proximity to EPCOT or Skyliner, BW is probably better. Also, there are a few more things going on outside of the BW. If you like to see some of that "NightLife". I have stayed at the BW too. The only thing about the garden view rooms is that when coming and going, you have to walk up steps to get to the lobby and then back down to get to ground level. The garden rooms are nice and quiet but it seems like they are a little difficult to get to.
 

Ayla

Well-Known Member
Both resorts are beautiful. I have never stayed at the Yacht Club but have stayed at the Beach Club. For proximity to EPCOT or Skyliner, BW is probably better. Also, there are a few more things going on outside of the BW. If you like to see some of that "NightLife". I have stayed at the BW too. The only thing about the garden view rooms is that when coming and going, you have to walk up steps to get to the lobby and then back down to get to ground level. The garden rooms are nice and quiet but it seems like they are a little difficult to get to.
Beach Club is closer to the Skyliner and Epcot than Boardwalk.
 

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