The main amenity here is the 18-hole disc golf course, partially in the woods and taking in some interesting changes in elevation.Ĭlose to the Duck Creek Pathway Trail is a little pond that attracts water birds in the summer, while the playground here in Middle Park is possibly the best in the city. Important to the community, this is the setting for Bettendorf’s Fourth of July fireworks, and is more of a place to walk and ride a bike than a sports hub. Middle Park Source: Diego Trabucco / shutterstock Disc Golfīettendorf’s premier park is a little way south of the Family Museum and lies on the north bank of Duck Creek. The Isle Casino also has three restaurants under one roof, and live entertainment at the Isle Center Ballroom and the adjacent Quad Cities Waterfront Convention Center. With 35,000 square feet of gaming space, there are now 935 slots, table games, from roulette to blackjack to craps, and sports betting on the casino floor courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook. Formerly a riverboat, Isle Casino switched to land with that renovation, and is accompanied by a 514-room hotel. Right by Bettendorf’s Channel Cat terminal is a casino that opened in 1995 and was given a facelift in 2016.

Isle Casino Source: Virrage Images / shutterstock Casino Many of the exhibits have subtle Quad Cities theming, and there’s a maker space and art room to spark their creativity.ĥ. There’s an amazing water-play table that is actually a scale model of a stretch of the Mississippi, and a play area geared towards littler children replicating a domestic environment, including a garden and virtual pond.

Here kids can roleplay professions like a vet, firefighter, or mail carrier, or help out on a farm, picking vegetables and feeding animals.

Family Museum Source: Farragutful / Wikimedia | CC BY-SA 3.0 Family Museumĭesigned for children eight and younger, Bettendorf’s Family Museum is a wonderland of experiential exhibits that combine learning and fun. That dock is right in front of the Isle Casino, which started out as one of the first modern-day riverboat casinos in the 1990s, but moved to dry land with a contemporary redesign in 2016. There’s a trail along the waterfront delivering you to downtown Davenport, while Bettendorf has a landing for the Channel Cat Water Taxi, which serves both sides of the river in summer. On this stretch, the Mississippi flows east to west, and Bettendorf has a lot of ways to enjoy that great river. The third-largest and fastest-growing city in the Quad Cities sits opposite Moline and east of Davenport, moments from the area’s best attractions and entertainment venues.

Quad cities riverboat casino