Kidz With Abilities: Myrtle Beach’s New Pediatric OT Clinic for Children with Autism and Developmental Delays

There is something that parents of children with autism or developmental delays understand that no one else quite can — the particular weight of a waiting list. The months that pass between a pediatrician’s referral and a first therapy appointment. The long drives to clinics in larger cities because there simply is not enough specialized care close to home. The feeling that the window for early intervention is ticking while the logistics stay stubbornly unresolved.

For families living along the Grand Strand — in Ocean Drive, in Cherry Grove Beach, in Myrtle Beach proper, and all the communities in between — the arrival of a dedicated pediatric occupational therapy clinic is not a small thing. It is the kind of addition that changes the calculus of daily life for the families who need it most.

Kidz With Abilities, a new pediatric OT clinic based in Myrtle Beach, has opened its doors — and with it, brought a philosophy of care that puts the child first, the play first, and the potential front and center. Here is what families along the Grand Strand should know.

What Is Kidz With Abilities?

Kidz With Abilities is a pediatric occupational therapy clinic in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, founded and led by Valerie — a pediatric occupational therapist with more than a decade of hands-on experience working with children across a wide range of diagnoses and developmental challenges. She serves as both founder and program coordinator, and the clinic reflects her core conviction: that every child, regardless of their medical history or developmental profile, has the capacity to grow, to learn, and to thrive.

The clinic recently celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting hosted by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce — a formal welcome into the local business community that has been serving the Grand Strand since 1938. That milestone marked not just a business opening, but the beginning of something genuinely useful for the families who call this stretch of the South Carolina coast home year-round.

The name itself says something about the approach. Not “kids with disabilities” — but “kidz with abilities.” The framing is intentional. This is a clinic built on the premise that what a child can do matters more than what currently stands in their way.

Who They Serve: Children of All Ages and Diagnoses

Kidz With Abilities works with children of all ages — from toddlers in the earliest stages of development through school-age children navigating the demands of the classroom and daily life. The clinic specializes in autism spectrum disorder and developmental delays of all kinds, but the scope of who they can help extends well beyond any single diagnosis.

Children seen at Kidz With Abilities may be working through challenges related to sensory processing, fine motor development, gross motor coordination, visual motor skills, social interaction, emotional regulation, feeding aversions, or the foundational skills needed for success in school. The unifying thread across all of it is the belief that meaningful, personalized intervention — delivered at the right time, in the right way — can fundamentally change a child’s trajectory.

For parents who have been told their child’s needs are “complex” or who have bounced between providers without finding a cohesive plan, a clinic built specifically around this population — with a team that wakes up every morning thinking about pediatric OT and nothing else — is a different kind of resource entirely.

Play-Based Occupational Therapy: How It Works

If you have never had a child in occupational therapy, the term can sound clinical in a way that does not quite capture what actually happens in the room. Pediatric OT — done well — looks a lot like play. A child climbing, balancing, reaching, sorting, building, laughing. A therapist right beside them, shaping the activity with precision, reading what the child’s body and nervous system are telling them, and adjusting in real time.

That is the model at Kidz With Abilities. Every session is personalized — built around the specific child sitting in front of the therapist that day, their diagnosis, their strengths, their struggles, and the goals their family has set for them. The play-based framework is not just a philosophy; it is a clinical strategy grounded in decades of research showing that children learn best when they are engaged, when they feel safe, and when the activity feels like something they chose rather than something done to them.

The practical targets of that play are real and meaningful: the grip strength to hold a pencil and write their name. The ability to button a shirt or tie a shoe. The tolerance for the sensory chaos of a crowded school cafeteria. The capacity to sit in a classroom long enough to learn. These are not abstract goals — they are the building blocks of a child’s independence, and they are exactly what Kidz With Abilities is built to develop.

Services Offered: From Clinic to Horseback

What sets Kidz With Abilities apart from a standard outpatient clinic is the breadth of therapeutic modalities they bring to bear. This is not a one-size-fits-all operation. Some children respond best to traditional clinic-based sessions. Others unlock entirely in the water. Others find something in the rhythm and movement of a horse that no conventional therapy room can replicate.

Clinic-Based and In-Home Occupational Therapy

The core of the clinic’s work is individualized occupational therapy — delivered either at the Myrtle Beach clinic or in the child’s home environment. In-home sessions carry a distinct advantage: therapists can work with a child in the actual setting where daily life happens, addressing the specific sensory and functional challenges that show up in that space rather than working to transfer skills from a clinical environment to a real one.

Speech and Language Therapy

Kidz With Abilities also provides speech and language therapy services — a natural complement to occupational therapy for many children with autism and developmental delays, where communication challenges and motor or sensory challenges frequently travel together. Addressing both under one roof means a child’s full therapeutic picture stays coordinated and coherent.

Aquatic Therapy

Aquatic therapy uses the unique properties of water — its resistance, buoyancy, temperature, and pressure — to target sensory input, balance, coordination, and muscle tone in ways that land-based therapy cannot always achieve. For children who are hypersensitive or hyporeactive to sensory input, the water environment can be remarkably effective at reorganizing the nervous system’s response. It is also, not incidentally, a lot of fun — which matters enormously when you are asking a child to do hard things.

Equine-Assisted Therapy

Perhaps the most distinctive offering in the Kidz With Abilities lineup is equine-assisted therapy — OT delivered on horseback. The natural movement of a horse provides children with a continuous stream of vestibular and proprioceptive input while therapists engage them in purposeful activities targeting social interaction, muscle tone, attention, and problem-solving skills. For children who struggle to regulate in traditional settings, the calming, rhythmic quality of a horse’s gait can create a window for therapeutic work that nothing else quite opens.

Why This Matters for the Grand Strand Community

The Grand Strand is often discussed in the context of tourism — the beaches, the golf courses, the restaurants, the events that draw millions of visitors every year to Crescent Beach, Windy Hill, and the broader Horry County coastline. But underneath the tourism economy is a real, permanent community — one of the fastest-growing in South Carolina — full of families raising children, navigating school systems, and looking for the kind of healthcare resources that any community needs to function.

Pediatric specialty care has historically been one of the gaps in that picture. Families in Horry County have long made do with long drives to Columbia, Charlotte, or Wilmington for services that should be available closer to home. The growth of dedicated clinics like Kidz With Abilities signals that the Grand Strand is maturing as a year-round community — not just a destination, but a place where people can genuinely put down roots and find what their families need.

Early intervention in occupational therapy is not a luxury. For children with autism and developmental delays, the research is consistent: the earlier and more consistently a child receives targeted therapeutic support, the better their long-term outcomes in communication, independence, social connection, and academic performance. A clinic that can begin that work sooner — without the barrier of a long waitlist or a two-hour drive — is a meaningful addition to a community’s quality of life in the most literal sense.

How to Connect with Kidz With Abilities

If you are a Grand Strand parent looking into pediatric occupational therapy for your child — whether you are just beginning to ask questions or have been navigating this road for years — Kidz With Abilities is worth a direct conversation. The clinic serves children of all ages and diagnoses, offers multiple therapy formats, and is built from the ground up around the idea that every child has more potential than their challenges might suggest on any given day.

You can learn more about their services, meet the team, and reach out to schedule an evaluation by visiting kidzwithabilities.com. If you are not sure whether your child would benefit from a pediatric OT evaluation, that conversation starts there too — with a team that has spent more than a decade asking and answering exactly that question for families across South Carolina.

Frequently Asked Questions

Myrtle Beach Named No. 1 U.S. Summer Travel Destination for 2026

By Thomas Beach Vacations  |  April 23, 2026  |  North Myrtle Beach, SC

Tripadvisor’s 2026 Summer Travel Index

On April 22, 2026, Tripadvisor — the world’s largest travel guidance platform — released the initial findings of its annual Summer Travel Index, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, claimed the top spot on the domestic list. The ranking is based on first-party search data collected from February 1 through April 10, 2026, covering trip searches planned for June 1 through August 31, 2026. It reflects where Americans are actually looking to go, not where travel editors think they should.

The results placed Myrtle Beach ahead of perennial heavyweights including New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Nashville. The full top ten domestic destinations for summer 2026 are as follows:

The pattern across the list is hard to miss. Seven of the ten destinations are coastal, and four of those are East Coast or Southeast beach communities — a clear signal about where the American traveler’s heart sits heading into summer 2026. Myrtle Beach sits at the center of that momentum.

Why Myrtle Beach Keeps Winning

There is a reason this stretch of South Carolina coastline has been drawing families and groups for generations, and the Tripadvisor data only confirms what regulars already know. Myrtle Beach delivers. It delivers broad, easily accessible sandy beach. It delivers value that is increasingly hard to find in coastal travel. It delivers a mix of entertainment — from the waterparks along Highway 17 to the live theaters along Celebrity Circle — that keeps households of very different ages satisfied under one roof. When the group is split between a twelve-year-old who wants a water slide and a grandfather who wants a peaceful walk at sunrise, Myrtle Beach handles both without complaint.

Visit Myrtle Beach president Stuart Butler put the appeal plainly when commenting on the ranking, noting that the destination’s standing as an affordable, accessible, drive-to location remains a meaningful advantage at a time when fuel costs and inflation are reshaping how families budget their vacations. A large share of the Grand Strand’s visitors arrive by car from the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic states — and the ability to load a minivan and skip the airport is no small thing in 2026.

The breadth of the product matters too. Broadway at the Beach remains one of the most visited entertainment complexes in the Southeast, anchoring the central Myrtle Beach experience with dozens of restaurants, shops, a laser tag arena, and Ripley’s Aquarium. Further south, Murrells Inlet delivers some of the freshest seafood on the Eastern seaboard, while Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach offers a calmer, waterfront shopping and dining experience that feels a world apart from the strip. The Grand Strand, taken all together, is simply one of the most complete vacation destinations on the East Coast — and search data from one of the world’s largest travel platforms just confirmed it.

The No. 1 Spot for Fourth of July Weekend

The Tripadvisor index broke down travel intent not just by the full summer window but by specific holiday weekends, and the results reinforced what beach regulars have known for years. Myrtle Beach ranked as the top U.S. destination for Fourth of July weekend searches — not just a beach category leader, but the single most-searched domestic destination for the holiday nationally, ahead of Clearwater, Virginia Beach, and every major urban market.

The Fourth of July along the Grand Strand has its own particular rhythm. Communities from Surfside Beach north through Cherry Grove Beach stage fireworks displays over the Atlantic, the kind that reflect off the water and light up the faces of people sitting in beach chairs they dragged out hours early to claim their spot. The boardwalk hums with activity. Restaurants run packed from lunch through late evening. And the neighborhoods of North Myrtle Beach — quieter by design — fill up with families who want the celebration without the traffic jam, gathered on rental home porches watching the sky go orange over the ocean.

What the Grand Strand Offers This Summer

The Grand Strand stretches roughly 60 miles of South Carolina coastline and contains more than enough to fill a week without repeating yourself. This summer, the mix of established attractions and newer arrivals gives visitors strong reasons to explore beyond the beach itself — though the beach alone, stretching wide and flat under a Carolina sky, is reason enough for most people.

For families with younger children, Myrtle Beach’s concentration of waterparks — Wild Water and Wheels in Surfside Beach, Myrtle Waves Water Park on Highway 17 — provides full-day entertainment when the sun is simply too much for prolonged beach time. The SkyWheel on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk offers a gentler aerial view of the coastline and has become something of an unofficial landmark for first-time visitors. Ripley’s Believe It or Not, adjacent to Broadway at the Beach, continues to draw curious crowds through its multiple attractions.

Evening options shift the tone considerably. The area’s live entertainment venues — Carolina Opry, Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show, and Alabama Theatre in North Myrtle Beach — have been drawing audiences for decades with the kind of stage production that feels specifically designed for a family vacation crowd. Seafood is everywhere, but it ranges from the no-frills buckets-of-shrimp variety at places like Joe’s Bar and Grill to the upscale waterfront dining along the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk. The common thread is freshness — much of what lands on your plate was in the Atlantic water that morning.

Golf remains one of the Grand Strand’s most recognized draws, with well over 80 courses still operating along the corridor — a density that has made this region one of the premier golf destinations in the country. Summer morning tee times, when the heat is still manageable and the fairways are quiet, carry a particular pleasure that serious golfers plan their trips around.

North Myrtle Beach: The Quieter Side of No. 1

When people search Myrtle Beach, a meaningful share of them end up staying in North Myrtle Beach — and not by accident. The two cities sit about 15 miles apart and operate independently, each with its own government and identity, but they share the same coastline reputation that drove Tripadvisor’s summer ranking. North Myrtle Beach tends to attract the crowd that wants a real beach vacation: more house rental, less hotel strip; more front porch and morning coffee, less neon and all-night noise.

The four beach communities within North Myrtle Beach each carry a distinct feel. Ocean Drive is the oldest and most historically resonant — birthplace of the Carolina shag, a beach dance so embedded in local culture that it has its own official state recognition. Fat Harold’s Beach Club on Main Street is the shrine. Crescent Beach is a quieter residential stretch that families return to year after year for precisely that reason. Windy Hill sits at the southern edge of the city, closest to the Myrtle Beach entertainment corridor and convenient for visitors who want access to both. And Cherry Grove Beach, anchored by its fishing pier and marshside waterways, carries a laid-back charm that is increasingly hard to find anywhere along the East Coast.

Early 2026 occupancy indicators across North Myrtle Beach have been strong. The data that placed the region at the top of national travel searches is not disconnected from what rental calendars are reflecting — summer 2026 is shaping up to be one of the busier seasons in recent memory, particularly for oceanfront home rentals and oceanfront condos that give groups their own space rather than a stack of hotel rooms.

Myrtle Beach has earned the top spot. The people who already know this coast were not surprised by the Tripadvisor ranking. And if you have been circling a summer trip to the Grand Strand for a year or two, waiting for some confirmation that this is still the right call — there it is, in the data, from the largest travel platform on earth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Family Kingdom Amusement Park: Myrtle Beach’s Seaside Classic Gets a Thrilling New Chapter

There is a particular kind of magic that only a seaside amusement park can produce — the specific combination of salt air, carnival music, the distant clack of a wooden roller coaster, and the smell of funnel cake drifting in off the ocean breeze. Most of the parks that once defined that experience along the East Coast have long since closed their gates for the last time. The ones that remain tend to occupy a special place in the hearts of the families who keep returning to them, year after year, because they carry something that no amount of corporate polish can replicate: genuine history, genuine community, and rides that have made real people genuinely happy for decades.

Family Kingdom Amusement Park at 300 South Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach is exactly that kind of place. Open since 1966 — the same year the Beatles played their final concert tour, the same year Star Trek first aired on television — this 13-plus-acre oceanfront park has spent six decades being exactly what families need it to be. It sits just steps from the Atlantic, just a few blocks from the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk, and firmly in the center of one of the most visited stretches of coastline in the American South. Admission is free. The rides are real. And in 2026, as the park marks its 60th anniversary, it is about to enter the most exciting chapter of its long life.

Whether you are based in a vacation home along the North Myrtle Beach shoreline or spending a day exploring the full Grand Strand, Family Kingdom is worth a dedicated trip. The drive from Cherry Grove Beach or Ocean Drive takes about twenty minutes on Ocean Boulevard, and by the time the Swamp Fox comes into view through the windshield, the kids in the back seat will already be awake and asking questions you cannot answer fast enough.

The Swamp Fox: A Wooden Legend With Ocean Views

Start here. Everything else at Family Kingdom radiates outward from this ride, and if you are visiting for the first time, the Swamp Fox should be the first thing you do before the sun gets too high and the lines begin to stretch. The coaster was designed by John C. Allen, one of the most celebrated roller coaster architects of the twentieth century, and it opened in 1966 — meaning it has now been rattling and roaring above the Myrtle Beach oceanfront for sixty years without losing a step.

The stats tell part of the story: 72 feet tall, a 62-foot first drop, 2,640 feet of all-wooden track laid out in a figure-eight configuration over the historic waters of Withers Swash — a natural stream that has met the ocean at this spot since long before there was a Myrtle Beach to speak of. The land beneath the park was part of a 66,000-acre king’s grant to Robert Francis Withers in the early 1700s, which means when you ride the Swamp Fox you are, in a very real sense, riding over the same coastal ground that a colonial indigo plantation once occupied. History does not get more kinetic than that.

The city of Myrtle Beach officially declared the Swamp Fox a historic structure in March 2017, and the American Coaster Enthusiasts placed a historical marker at the ride in 2016 to mark its 50th anniversary. It is one of roughly one hundred wooden roller coasters still operating in North America, and it has appeared on multiple lists of the most underrated coasters on the continent. What those lists tend to undersell is the ocean view. As the train climbs the first lift hill, the Atlantic opens up to the east in a way that stops arguments mid-sentence. Whatever you were debating with your travel partner before you got in the car disappears the moment that drop comes.

More Thrills: The Rest of the Ride Lineup

The Swamp Fox is the headliner, but Family Kingdom has built a solid supporting cast around it. The Log Flume is a perennial favorite — a winding water ride that climbs through the park before dropping riders down a water-soaked chute that provides exactly the right amount of cooling on a hot August afternoon. The Twist ‘n Shout is the park’s fan-favorite steel coaster, offering a different flavor of speed and movement than the Swamp Fox’s wooden rumble. And if you want to understand why teenagers gravitate toward the more extreme end of the lineup, the Vertigo Thrill and the Flip Side are worth a look.

The Flip Side seats riders on a boom arm and whisks them 40 feet into the air before swinging them through a series of rotations that leave you momentarily unsure which direction the ground is in. The Hurricane sends you around a hilly track at speeds that make the ocean breeze suddenly feel intentional. The Lunatic spins riders outward on long arms in the time-honored tradition of carnival rides that have been separating brave souls from their loose change since the county fair circuit was the closest thing to an amusement park most towns ever saw. Bumper cars round out the lineup for those who prefer their chaos to be self-directed.

The park also has go-karts — a detail that deserves its own sentence, because go-karts have a way of converting the most reluctant participant in any family group into the person who insists on going around one more time. All told, Family Kingdom runs more than 32 rides across its oceanfront acreage, with more arriving in 2026.

For the Little Ones: Family and Kiddie Rides

One of the things that makes Family Kingdom genuinely good for mixed-age groups — the kind of vacation parties where the oldest and youngest members are a generation or more apart — is the depth of its kiddie and family ride selection. The park does not treat younger guests as an afterthought. The Puppy Roll, the Tea Cups, the Choo Choo Train, the Kiddie Speedway, and the Samba Balloons give smaller children their own version of the full amusement park experience, complete with the lines and the wristband-checking and the moment of anticipation just before the ride begins that is the same whether you are five or fifty.

The Dragon Coaster is worth particular attention. It threads the line between kiddie ride and genuine coaster experience in a way that makes it the perfect introductory ride for children who are curious about what the bigger coasters might feel like, without committing to anything they might find overwhelming. A child who rides the Dragon Coaster in the afternoon and talks about nothing else for the rest of the evening is one who will be asking about the Swamp Fox before the next trip is over.

The Giant Wheel — Family Kingdom’s Ferris wheel — deserves a mention here as well, because it belongs to everyone. At 100 feet, it lifts riders above the rooftops and the palmettos and into a clear view of the Atlantic that stretches from the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk south toward Surfside and north toward Crescent Beach. It is a gentler experience than the SkyWheel a few miles up the strand, more affordable, and still absolutely worth the stop — especially near sunset when the light turns everything on the water gold. Stroller and wheelchair rentals are available inside the park for families who need them.

What’s New in 2026: The RMC Raptor Is Coming

If you follow the roller coaster world even casually, the name Rocky Mountain Construction carries weight. RMC is the Colorado-based engineering firm responsible for some of the most celebrated coasters built in the last fifteen years — rides that have transformed regional parks into destination attractions and generated the kind of social media buzz that used to require a theme park the size of a small city to produce. In November 2025, Family Kingdom announced at the IAAPA Expo in Orlando that an RMC coaster was coming to 300 South Ocean Boulevard. The coaster community reacted, in the understated parlance of enthusiasts everywhere, with considerable enthusiasm.

The ride is a custom single-rail Raptor model — the first of its class in the entire Southeast United States. It will stand 100 feet tall, nearly 30 feet higher than the historic Swamp Fox, and reach speeds of 50 miles per hour on a track layout designed exclusively for the Myrtle Beach park. The single-rail format positions riders in open-sided cars that move through sharp transitions and rapid direction changes in a way that feels fundamentally different from anything else in the Family Kingdom lineup. The park has offered one hint about the name: they are near the ocean. Given that the rides targeted opening window is late summer 2026 — coinciding with the park’s 60th anniversary season — the timing feels deliberate and apt.

Three additional new rides are also joining the roster this season. The combined effect of these additions is to position Family Kingdom not just as a beloved local tradition but as a legitimate destination for coaster travelers — people who plan trips around rides the way others plan them around restaurants or concerts. For families already coming to Myrtle Beach, it adds one more compelling reason to carve out a full day. For enthusiasts who have not yet added the Swamp Fox to their track record, the window to do so before the new coaster becomes the headliner is narrowing.

Food, Games, and the Boardwalk Next Door

An amusement park without funnel cakes is a philosophical failure, and Family Kingdom has no such problems. Concession stands throughout the park serve the full range of boardwalk food: footlong corndogs, chicken on a stick, cold lemonade, fries, funnel cakes, and the category of treats that vacation nutritionists have collectively agreed not to think too hard about. An arcade sits alongside the ride lineup, and midway games occupy the spaces between attractions in the classic tradition of every fair and carnival that has ever set up along a waterfront. The park also permits outside food and drink in certain areas, which is worth knowing for families traveling with young children who have specific dietary needs or strong opinions about their snacks.

The broader Myrtle Beach Boardwalk and Promenade runs just steps away, connecting Family Kingdom to the rest of the downtown oceanfront entertainment district. Broadway at the Beach — the massive lakeside entertainment complex with restaurants, shops, and attractions — is a short drive north and makes for a natural pairing with a Family Kingdom day if your group wants to extend the outing into the evening. In 2026, Broadway at the Beach is also welcoming Ole Smoky Distillery and Yee-Haw Brewing Co. to its lineup, adding a new indoor-outdoor brewery and distillery with a beer garden and full-service bar for the adults in the group who have earned a quiet drink after a day of Log Flume and Dragon Coaster duty.

Planning Your Visit

Family Kingdom is located at 300 South Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach — about three miles from Myrtle Beach International Airport and a straight shot down the oceanfront boulevard from most points along the Grand Strand. The park is open seasonally, beginning in late March or early April, and runs through Labor Day Weekend. Weekend hours during the shoulder season typically begin in the early-to-mid afternoon; peak summer season brings expanded hours and seven-day-a-week operation. Check familykingdomfun.com for the current season calendar before you go.

Park admission is free — you pay only for what you ride. Individual ride tickets are available for purchase, with different rides requiring varying ticket quantities. All-day unlimited wristbands offer the best value for families planning to spend several hours working through the full lineup, and discounts on wristbands are periodically available through local coupon platforms. On-site parking is available nearby. Strollers and wheelchairs are available for rent inside the park.

A few practical notes worth keeping in mind: Family Kingdom’s evening atmosphere is genuinely lovely, with the ride lights reflecting off the ocean and the park taking on that particular glow that amusement parks have always had after dark. If you are visiting with very young children, morning arrivals before peak heat are easier on everyone. And if the RMC Raptor is part of your reason for coming, the ride is targeting a late summer 2026 opening — plan accordingly, and keep an eye on the park’s social channels for announcements as construction moves toward completion.

For those staying along the northern stretch of the coast, Family Kingdom pairs well with a full day on Windy Hill Beach in the morning and an early-evening drive down to the park once the temperature drops a few degrees. The whole thing — beach, lunch, park, boardwalk, dinner — fits comfortably into a single vacation day with the right planning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Slime Kitchen Opens at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach — A Chef’s Unexpected New Venture

Published March 31, 2026 · Thomas Beach Vacations

From Fine Dining to Slime Making — A Chef Changes Course

Michael Donovan had his eye on a kitchen. The award-winning chef had been scouting locations across the Myrtle Beach area for months, envisioning a restaurant of his own — the kind of place where he could finally call every shot, from the menu down to the music. Then he stumbled across a listing for a kitchen franchise, and the trajectory of his career took a hard, gloriously unexpected turn.

It was not the kind of kitchen he had ever worked in before. No walk-in coolers. No line cooks. No sizzling flattops or prep lists. This kitchen dealt in glitter, not garlic. It was Slime Kitchen — a California-based franchise where families create custom slime from scratch using KitchenAid mixers, colorful bases, and dozens of scents and textures.

Donovan had never heard of it. But his 10-year-old daughter had. She had seen Slime Kitchen all over TikTok and Instagram, and she made the case with the kind of conviction only a kid who really, truly wants something can deliver. After consulting with his wife, Maria, the couple decided to bring the franchise to Myrtle Beach — and not just anywhere in Myrtle Beach. They chose Broadway at the Beach, the sprawling 350-acre entertainment complex that draws upwards of 14 million visitors a year.

This is the first Slime Kitchen location in South Carolina, and it sits near Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach, one of the Grand Strand’s most visited family attractions. It is also a business that has become a true family affair — the Donovans’ daughter and 12-year-old son are fully invested in the operation.

What Is Slime Kitchen?

Slime Kitchen is a hands-on, interactive experience where guests create their own custom slime from scratch. Founded in the San Francisco Bay Area, the franchise has been spreading across the country with locations in California, Oregon, Kentucky, and Lake Tahoe. The Myrtle Beach location at Broadway at the Beach marks the brand’s first expansion into South Carolina.

The concept is simple but irresistible, especially for anyone who has ever watched a slime-making video and felt the pull to try it themselves. Guests walk in, choose from a variety of slime bases, then layer on scents, colors, glitter, and textures before mixing everything together on a real KitchenAid mixer. The result is a stretchy, perfectly squishy creation that goes home with the guest. All materials are food-safe and non-toxic — something Maria Donovan was particularly proud to point out.

If you have spent any amount of time around kids in the last five years, you already know the appeal. Slime content dominates social media platforms, and the tactile, sensory nature of slime-making has turned it into one of the most popular hands-on activities for children and families. Slime Kitchen takes that internet fascination and gives it a physical space — a place where you can actually get your hands into it.

The 10-Step Slime-Making Experience

Slime Kitchen structures each session around a guided 10-step process that walks guests through the creation of their own custom slime. It is part craft project, part science experiment, and part sensory adventure — and the whole thing unfolds at stations designed to make every step feel like a choice, not a chore.

Guests start by selecting their slime base from six different varieties. From there, they move through stations where they pick scents — everything from cotton candy to tropical fruit — and add color using dyes and pigments. The texture station is where things get creative: options include glitter in multiple sizes, foam beads, clay mix-ins, and specialty toppings that give each slime a completely unique look and feel.

Once everything is selected, guests use a KitchenAid mixer to combine the ingredients — a step that gives the whole process the feel of an actual kitchen. The finished slime is stretched, tested, and packed up to take home. Kids earn a diploma in slime culinary arts at the end, a small touch that adds to the experience. The entire session promotes sensory learning and creative expression, making it more than just a novelty activity.

Birthday Parties and Group Events

Beyond the walk-in slime-making sessions, Slime Kitchen offers birthday party packages that have already made the franchise a hit with families across its existing locations. The parties are hosted by dedicated staff members — referred to as Head Chefs — and include games, prizes, diplomas, and a special birthday slime cupcake for the guest of honor.

Two party tiers are available. The standard package includes one slime creation per guest, while the premium option allows each child to make two slimes from any of the six varieties. Parties typically run between one and two hours depending on the package selected. Group workshops are also available for school field trips, summer camps, and team-building events, making the Myrtle Beach location a versatile addition to the Grand Strand’s family entertainment scene.

Why Broadway at the Beach

The Donovans chose Broadway at the Beach because it was already a place their own family loved to visit. Located at 1325 Celebrity Circle in the heart of Myrtle Beach, the complex is South Carolina’s largest entertainment destination — more than 350 acres of shops, restaurants, attractions, and live entertainment venues surrounding the 23-acre Lake Broadway.

Slime Kitchen fits naturally into the mix of specialty shops and interactive attractions that define Broadway at the Beach. Families who visit Ripley’s Aquarium, WonderWorks, or the Hollywood Wax Museum now have another reason to extend their day at the complex. The location also benefits from Broadway’s free parking and its position as a stop on the Myrtle Beach Connector bus route.

For visitors staying in North Myrtle Beach who are looking for a rainy-day activity or an afternoon break from the beach, Slime Kitchen adds yet another option to the long list of reasons to make the drive south to Broadway. It pairs especially well with a visit to the aquarium or lunch at one of Broadway’s more than 20 restaurants.

Grand Opening — April 10, 2026

While Slime Kitchen has already opened its doors to guests, the official grand opening celebration is scheduled for April 10, 2026. The event will feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony and is open to the public. The timing places the launch right at the front end of the spring tourism season along the Grand Strand — a smart play for a business that thrives on foot traffic and families in vacation mode.

Walk-ins are welcome at the Myrtle Beach location, and reservations are not required. However, weekends and holidays tend to see higher demand, so booking ahead through the Slime Kitchen website is recommended if you want to guarantee your spot.

More Family Activities Near Broadway at the Beach

One of the best things about a trip to Broadway at the Beach is that a single activity can easily turn into a full day. Slime Kitchen sits within walking distance of some of the most popular family attractions on the Grand Strand.

Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach remains the anchor attraction, with its 85,000 square feet of marine exhibits, the famous 330-foot Dangerous Reef moving walkway, a penguin playhouse, and interactive touch tanks. WonderWorks offers an upside-down adventure with over 100 hands-on science exhibits. The Pavilion Nostalgia Park brings classic amusement park rides to the complex, and the Hollywood Wax Museum lets families pose alongside lifelike celebrity figures. For older kids, Backstage Escape Games provides immersive puzzle-solving challenges.

Broadway at the Beach is also welcoming several new businesses in 2026, including Ole Smoky Distillery and Yee-Haw Brewing Company, which will bring a distillery, brewery, beer garden, and tasting rooms to the complex. It is shaping up to be one of the most exciting years the entertainment district has seen in some time. For families visiting from Cherry Grove Beach, Ocean Drive, or Crescent Beach, a day trip to Broadway at the Beach is always worth the short drive.

Getting There from North Myrtle Beach

Broadway at the Beach is located at 1325 Celebrity Circle in Myrtle Beach, roughly 15 to 20 miles south of North Myrtle Beach depending on which beach section you are staying in. From Windy Hill, the drive is typically around 20 to 25 minutes. From Cherry Grove, plan on closer to 30 to 35 minutes depending on traffic.

The fastest route is typically Highway 31 (Carolina Bays Parkway) south to Robert Grissom Parkway, which leads directly into the Broadway at the Beach complex. Highway 17 is the more scenic coastal route and offers plenty of stops along the way if you want to break up the trip with shopping or lunch. Parking at Broadway at the Beach is free.

Plan Your Grand Strand Vacation

Slime Kitchen is just one more reason the Myrtle Beach area continues to add new experiences for families every season. Whether you are visiting for a long weekend or spending an entire week on the Grand Strand, staying in North Myrtle Beach puts you within easy reach of Broadway at the Beach and every major attraction in the area — while giving you a quieter, more relaxed beach experience when you head home at the end of the day.

Thomas Beach Vacations offers a wide selection of oceanfront homes and oceanfront condos across all four sections of North Myrtle Beach — Cherry Grove, Ocean Drive, Crescent Beach, and Windy Hill. Book your stay and start planning your family’s next Grand Strand adventure. Call us at (866) 249-2100 or visit northmyrtlebeachvacations.com to browse available properties.

Frequently Asked Questions

Lights, Camera, Grand Strand: Myrtle Beach Is Becoming a Film Industry Hub

There has always been something cinematic about the Grand Strand. The way morning light slips sideways across the Atlantic and catches the lip of a wave. The Spanish moss hanging still and silver over old plantation oaks. The way Ocean Boulevard in North Myrtle Beach hums on a summer Friday night with neon and laughter and the smell of salt and sunscreen. People have been coming here for generations to feel something — and it turns out that what makes a place feel worth visiting also makes it worth filming.

With a film currently in production along the Grand Strand, the Myrtle Beach area is drawing attention from an industry that tends to be selective about where it sets up its equipment. And this is not a one-time thing. Visit Myrtle Beach — the area’s official tourism marketing organization — is actively working to position the coastal region as a bona fide destination for film and television production. The conversations happening right now between producers, local officials, and tourism leaders could reshape how the world first encounters this stretch of South Carolina coastline.

For visitors planning a trip to Myrtle Beach or North Myrtle Beach, this development is worth paying attention to. A rising film profile changes a destination — it brings new visitors, new energy, and a kind of cultural credibility that no marketing campaign can manufacture. Here is what is happening, why it matters, and what it might mean the next time you look out at the ocean from a North Myrtle Beach vacation rental balcony.

A Coastline Worth Putting on Camera

The Grand Strand is sixty miles of coastline, but that phrase alone doesn’t capture what makes it visually remarkable. Within a short drive of Myrtle Beach’s famous oceanfront, a film crew can find settings that most coastal destinations simply cannot offer. There are wide, windswept beaches where the horizon seems to stretch past the edge of the frame. There is the Intracoastal Waterway threading through marshland that turns gold at dusk. There are waterfront communities in North Myrtle Beach — Cherry Grove, Windy Hill, Crescent Beach — where fishing boats bob beside vacation homes and the local rhythm of life has not been entirely consumed by tourism.

Move inland and the landscape shifts again. Working farms dot Horry County. Antebellum plantation properties with their broad verandas and live oak canopies offer a visual contrast to the coast that is striking on screen. The rice fields of the Georgetown area, just south of Myrtle Beach, carry a weight of history that few settings in the American South can match. All of this — beach, waterway, farmland, antebellum architecture — sits within 15 to 20 minutes of each other. For a production manager trying to minimize company moves between locations, that kind of geographic density is extremely valuable.

Why Producers Are Choosing the Grand Strand

Film production is a logistical enterprise as much as a creative one. A location that looks beautiful in a photo may become impractical the moment you try to park three grip trucks, source a catering operation that can feed eighty people twice a day, and find hotel rooms for a cast and crew on short notice. The Grand Strand handles all of those demands with relative ease — which is one of the core reasons producers are beginning to look seriously at the area.

The accommodation infrastructure here is enormous. The Myrtle Beach area has tens of thousands of hotel rooms, vacation rentals, and resort properties. North Myrtle Beach vacation rentals through Thomas Beach Vacations offer extended-stay options ranging from oceanfront condos to large beach houses that can accommodate multiple crew members under one roof — the kind of flexible lodging a production company on a multi-week shoot genuinely needs. That scale of inventory, outside of peak summer season, means a production crew is not competing with a convention and a family reunion for the same rooms.

The restaurants and vendors along the Grand Strand round out the picture. A production crew of fifty-plus people eating and spending daily at local establishments like Nacho Hippo, Sea Captain’s House, or Filet’s Restaurant in North Myrtle Beach adds up quickly. The area has the dining depth and retail variety to sustain that kind of prolonged economic engagement without strain.

How Visit Myrtle Beach Supports Film Productions

Landing a film production is not purely a matter of a location looking good on a scout. There is a bureaucratic reality to every shoot — permits, insurance requirements, coordination with local government, and the constant logistical scramble that any large traveling operation requires. Visit Myrtle Beach has positioned itself as the connector between incoming productions and the local resources that make a shoot feasible.

That means helping production crews navigate the permitting process — which varies by location along the Grand Strand and can be a significant barrier for out-of-area crews unfamiliar with the regional landscape. It also means connecting crews with local vendors: hotels, florists, caterers, equipment suppliers, and the other behind-the-scenes businesses that a production depends on but rarely considers until they are actually on the ground and the shooting clock is ticking. That kind of concierge-level navigation through a community’s infrastructure is exactly what makes a destination attractive to repeat productions.

Visit Myrtle Beach has also announced plans to launch a dedicated website later this year with specific information for those interested in filming along the Grand Strand. That kind of targeted resource signals a long-term commitment to the film sector — not a one-off accommodation, but an evolving infrastructure built to welcome production work year after year.

The Off-Season Economic Boost Nobody Is Talking About

Every coastal tourism community wrestles with seasonality. The Grand Strand is no exception. Between Labor Day and Memorial Day, hotel occupancy dips, restaurants trim their hours, and the workforce that powers the summer economy either waits or migrates. Film production does not follow a beach calendar, and that is precisely its value as an off-season economic driver.

The production currently underway along the Grand Strand illustrates the model clearly. A six-week shoot with more than fifty crew members means six weeks of hotel stays, restaurant meals, gas station stops, grocery runs, and retail spending — all in a period when those same businesses might otherwise be quiet. That is not vacation-industry money; it is production-industry money, which runs on a different schedule and responds to different incentives. Attracting even a handful of productions per year, particularly in the shoulder seasons, creates a meaningful economic buffer for the local community.

There is also the local talent dimension. The Myrtle Beach area has a community of people who work in film, television, and commercial production — camera operators, production assistants, makeup artists, location scouts, and others who often have to travel far from home to find consistent work. When productions choose the Grand Strand, they typically prioritize hiring local talent when available. That keeps money and expertise within the community and builds the kind of local production ecosystem that makes future shoots more attractive and more efficient.

Set Jetting: When the Screen Sends Travelers to the Shore

There is a travel trend that has been gaining momentum over the past several years, and it has a name that sounds like it was coined in a marketing meeting but describes something genuinely real: set jetting. It is the habit of seeking out the actual locations where a film or television show was filmed — not a theme park approximation, but the real street, the real beach, the real diner where a favorite scene was shot. For destinations lucky enough to be featured in a widely seen production, the effect on tourism can be substantial and long-lasting.

Think about how the Outer Banks of North Carolina became a magnet for a certain kind of young traveler after the Netflix series of the same name found its audience. The connection between a screen story and a real place is powerful precisely because it is personal — viewers form an emotional relationship with a setting before they ever visit, and when they finally arrive, the place carries a resonance that purely promotional content cannot manufacture.

For Myrtle Beach, the promise of set jetting is significant. A viewer in Chicago who watches a film set against the backdrop of the Grand Strand’s ocean and marshes and beach bars may have never considered a South Carolina vacation. But a well-told story filmed in a compelling place has a way of making the abstract feel concrete, and the concrete feel like somewhere worth going. That is a kind of marketing reach that no tourism budget can fully buy.

South Carolina’s Film Legacy — and What It Means for Myrtle Beach

South Carolina is not new to the film industry. The state has served as a backdrop for some of the most recognized titles in American cinema and television. The Notebook, with its sweeping Lowcountry visuals, was filmed partly along the South Carolina coast. Forrest Gump passed through the state’s landscape on its cross-country journey. The Righteous Gemstones, HBO’s darkly comic look at a televangelist dynasty, has used South Carolina locations season after season. And Outer Banks — the Netflix series that helped define coastal drama for a generation of streaming viewers — drew heavily on South Carolina geography for its production.

What is new is that the South Carolina Film Commission has begun specifically recommending the Myrtle Beach area as a filming location. That institutional endorsement matters. Productions looking at South Carolina for the first time will now encounter Myrtle Beach on the official list of recommended locations — which means it is in the conversation at the earliest stage of a location search, rather than discovered as an afterthought.

What the Grand Strand Offers That Other SC Locations Don’t

Charleston has long been the state’s most filmed city, and it deserves its reputation. But Charleston’s historic district comes with significant restrictions, high permit complexity, and intense tourist foot traffic that can complicate location shooting. The Grand Strand offers something different: equivalent scenic variety with a more flexible logistical environment, a larger accommodation base, and a regional culture genuinely invested in welcoming the production industry.

The mix of events and seasonal activity along the Grand Strand also means that a production filming in the area can capture authentic crowd energy when it needs it, and find near-solitude in the off-season when a quieter setting serves the story better. That flexibility is rare and genuinely useful.

What Film Tourism Could Look Like Along the Grand Strand

If the Grand Strand’s film profile continues to grow — and the current trajectory suggests it will — the experience of visiting Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach may eventually include a layer of film tourism that doesn’t yet exist. That could mean guided location tours through spots featured in local productions. It could mean pop-up exhibits at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center or along Main Street in North Myrtle Beach around a film’s release. It could mean the kind of film festival programming that draws a different traveler demographic — one interested in cinema as much as the coast — and that tends to support a more year-round tourism economy.

Cherry Grove Pier in North Myrtle Beach. Barefoot Landing, with its waterfront dining and entertainment. The broad flat expanse of Huntington Beach State Park, just south of Murrells Inlet. The weathered character of downtown Conway, Horry County’s seat, with its riverfront brick buildings. These are locations that already draw visitors for their own merits. In a film tourism context, they become something more — destination stops on a journey shaped by story as much as scenery.

It is worth remembering that Myrtle Beach’s appeal to travelers has always been grounded in the way the place makes people feel. A film can deliver that feeling to an audience that has never crossed the state line into South Carolina. And once someone has felt it — even through a screen — the pull to experience it directly tends to be hard to resist. That is the deeper promise of the Grand Strand’s emerging film identity, and it is one that travelers who love this coast should be paying attention to.

Frequently Asked Questions

Whether you are coming to the Grand Strand because a film brought it to your attention or because you have been making the drive down Highway 17 for decades, North Myrtle Beach is ready to welcome you. Thomas Beach Vacations has been helping families, couples, and groups find their ideal place on this coast for years — oceanfront condos, spacious beach houses, and everything in between. When you are ready to plan your visit, give us a call at (866) 249-2100 or browse available properties at northmyrtlebeachvacations.com. The Grand Strand is having a moment — and there is no better time to be here for it.