Well I returned from our trip to find the new forum. So I will do my best to adapt to this. I have been a member for years, and we make our once a year visit from Toledo, OH, which is a 12 hour drive. Due to new jobs and family issues, we could only fit in a small trip this year. But any time in Wildwood is great. We left after work on Wednesday, and drove 5 hours, then got up and drove the rest to Wildwood. The traffic was easy both days, and we arrived in WW at 2:00. Threw our stuff in the room and hit the Boards. We knew there were a lot of changes, and we did a whirlwind tour up and down the Boards. We checked our Randy's new place. However, he did not have air conditioning, and it was blazing hot in there, so we decided to wait for a cooler day. But he did have a decent crowd playing.
We then settled in at Lime Rickey to see the fireworks. The back deck is our most favorite place to watch them. It had been a long day, so we went to bed shortly after the fireworks.
I'm going to stop here and see if this part shows up. I tried to make a few comments a few days ago and they seem to be gone. If this works, I'll add more and some pictures.
Great report! I love all of the pictures (they keep me going while I wait for my trip...lol). It definitely sounds like it was a whirlwind and that there wasn't a dull moment. I totally agree that a small trip is better than nothing. Especially after last year when everything was up in the air, I've appreciated my time down there even more.
Nice report...thanks. Are you going to Cedar Point this summer?
July 10th. Up early and packed the car in record time. Then we stopped for our usual WAWA hoagie for lunch and headed back to Ohio. For once there was no severe weather, or bad construction. It was a long, but thankfully uneventful trip. It was one fast paced trip, as we knew it would be. But even though it was short, at least the 3 of us got back there for our yearly trip. Our son made his first trip when he was 3 months old, and hasn't missed a year. Not sure what next year will bring, since he will be graduated, but if he can find a day or two, I will be happy.
Now I will look forward to hearing about all your adventures. I know August is a big month out there, but since school's go back here Aug. 15th, this is pretty much the end of summer for us. So everyone have fun!
Time to finish this up. Our last day was July 9th, and a great day weather wise. After the daily trip to the WAWA, we set out for Gateway. We needed some points to get an item my son found at the last minute. There was a fairly large jackpot, but we couldn't hit it. We spent some time walking in the surf from N. Wildwood down to Wildwood and back. The weather was very warm, but the rip current flags were up, and the guards were being very strict, which was fine. The water was warm. Then we tried the jackpot again, no luck. So we walked off the Boards and down 26th St. to the Salty Mermaid. This is the second year for it, I think. It is just across the street from the ACME. It had a really nice "coastal vibe" and we enjoyed the food. We would like to try it for dinner some time. Back to Gateway, but the big jackpot was gone. Oh well, we had enough to get what we needed. We walked back down to the other arcades.
If you have read any of my reports before, you know I am always in full panic mode on the last day. And this trip was worse, since it was broken up so much with the trips to AC and back.
It was really fun when both Tram Cars were in this section. Then we went to Bobby Dee's, where I finally had enough points to get this. I had been trying all week to get enough.
Dropped all this off, and then back up to Gateway one final time. While I was making our final purchases, my husband texts me that he just hit the jackpot on poker. This always seems to happen on the last time we are there. So I had to adjust things, to use that up. I might have kept the points for next year, but this is the first and probably only time I will get the 25% discount, and I wanted to use it. Said our good byes, gobbled down a slice of Sam's, and back for the final part of the night. We rode a few more rides, played the Candy Wheel and Crazy Ball, and again no luck. Then I saw this on the menu.
We always finish up our last night at Lime Rickey. I had some waffles and ice cream. I really like the ones they have. We said our goodbyes to the staff. Then we left the Boardwalk, went to the room, and did the mad dash packing of everything! Off to bed, because we will be up early.
Great Report!!!!!!
What do you get at Franconi's? Do you like their pizza? Did you notice any of the baby toto's in Gateway?
July 7th- Another jam packed morning. We went to the beach for a short bit, then we went to lunch at the Mud Hen, as our son had to watch the women's soccer game. So we planned to watch the game and eat. I thought the Mud Hen was better than last year, and we all enjoyed our lunch. The US Women won, so he was thrilled.
That's nice, back to the Boards. Played a bit more in the arcades, and rode a few more rides. Because our schedule wasn't busy enough, we were also going back to Atlantic City that night, since my son could finally play. We kept watching the traffic all day, and around 3:30 it didn't look so bad, so we set off. I was watching the traffic the whole time, and saw a big back up at the Sea Isle City exit. So we got off, went up Rt. 9 a bit, then back on the Parkway. But we made it. We played until we all dropped, then up early again. No vacation on this trip! We played some more, then put him on the noon train. It was amazing, we all left AC as winners. Which means we don't have to hit the ATM. After years of saying I was going to have one, we tried the White House Subs. It was good, but it really made us miss Bonelli's! Back in the car, back to Wildwood. This time we had clear sailing, which was nice. It had been a rainy, cloudy day, but when we got back to Wildwood it cleared off, and was nice and not so hot. Played some more, but no big winners. We started getting some of the prizes we wanted from the arcades.
Played in Randy's again, but it was a sparse crowd. Had dinner at Franconi's which is one of our favorite places on the Boardwalk. Rode a few more rides and off to bed.
Nice report. It looks like you can now open up your own toy shop.
As for Randy, he told me that he ordered a couple swamp coolers...so that is what you probably saw on pallets in his store. They just use water and a strong fan to cool the room down...so I don't expect them to be as good as A/C. Also, when you play Fascination with quarters, you automatically get a ticket to save up for prizes. You don't need to win fascination to get the prize ticket...just pay with quarters. If you use tokens to play fascination, it only costs a quarter to play a game, but you don't get prize tickets. When you win fascination, you get some tokens for additional free plays..but no prize tickets. It's kind-of confusing at first, but Randy did it this way so he wouldn't need to get a gaming license.
That's quite a haul of prizes you got! Wow a 12 hour drive, props to you for making that. That Peace Pie sounds delicious, I will have to be on the lookout for those next go around. I'm happy Randy seems to be doing well, I'm bummed we didn't get to support him as a storm cut our last night short. I hope this location treats him well.
July 6--Up early again. We needed to be in Atlantic City by 11:30 to pick up our son from the train station. Like last year, he is interning in DC. But it is easy to take the train and join us for a few days. This time was a short trip for him, but any time with him in WW is precious. Before we left town, I went to the Farmer's Market at Byrne Plaza. It was small and there weren't many vendors. However, I got some new magnets, a neat Doo WW bag, and they had a whole bunch of t-shirts based on the magnets, so I got one of those. I also got some sea salt from people who harvest it in Avalon, and then dry it somehow. It is actually very good.
Before the trip to AC, we went to breakfast. I am not a breakfast fan, but we go out once a trip. We tried the Key West Cafe, and it was very good. We will go back for sure. There portions were huge, but yummy. Then we headed up to AC. We had been checking traffic all morning, and there were no issues. But the second we got on the Parkway, it all fell apart. We left ourselves over 90 minutes, and we were still showing up just as the train did. Grabbed our son, then back to WW. This time on the way down there was a problem, so we took an alternate route back. It added some time, but we got there! We were up on the Boards by 1:00, doing a full out run to all his favorite things. First thing was to grab a few slices of Sam's. He will also eat Mack's. Then we went to Gateway, where he began to hit several jackpots. He also loves to play the cranes there. The last few years it seemed like it was harder to get things, but we did better this year.
We were playing the Willy Wonka game, when I realized that a whole set there was only worth 1,000 points. In other places it was worth 5,000. So we stopped playing that at Gateway. I'm getting used to the card system, but still not my favorite. It is a good value to add a lot of money to the card upfront, but when you play on the card for several days you don't have tickets for the daily drawings. We have won many drawings over the years, but none this year. But we still like playing there. I think we had a total of 5 poker jackpots, though nothing really large.
After playing for a while, my son wanted to eat at Joe's Fish, because he had turned 21 in June, and wanted to have a drink. The food was better than we remembered, and we all had a really good time. Then we rode a few rides, and did some strolling. I wanted to be up at Gateway at 9:30 for the first big drawing. We were, but we won nothing. We then went and played at Randy's for an hour. It was still hot, but bearable. It was pretty full, which was nice. He has two ways you can play. First, you can buy a roll of tokens, and each game is one token. Or you can use 2 quarters, and get tickets if you win. You can then save the tickets for some small stuffed animals. Kind of confusing, but we did both. It was so nice to be able to play again. And it is always interesting to talk to Randy! I hope this works out for him. We played 3 times in our short trip to support him. We then went down to Lime Rickey, Bobby Dee's and Mariners. On the way down it was clear that some strong weather was coming. So we made sure we were where we wanted to be when it rained. It started to rain around 10:15, and they made an announcement that they were closing the rides for the night. We were actually just headed to the gift shop when they make this announcement. So this flood of people came at us, and we were the only ones going the other way. I left my son and husband in an arcade, and I fought my way to the gift shop. I was on a mission to get a Peace Pie for my son. As I told the woman at the shop, I knew she'd be open because I had worked at our zoo for years, and the gift shop is the last to close in bad weather. She laughed. Anyhow, a Peace Pie is a delicious ice cream cookie sandwich served on these awesome shortbread cookies. They are only in a few towns, and they came to Cape May a few years ago. We all love them, and we had discovered earlier in the trip they sell them at the Morey's Store. They aren't advertised very well, but if you are in the store, give them a try. We waited for the worst of the rain to stop and eventually left the Boards around 11:30 It was pretty empty by then.
July 5th- Got up early and headed down to Cape May for the morning and lunch. We visited the usual stores, and also went to the West End Garage, which opened a year or two ago and is run by Congress Hall. It is a mix of small stalls selling a little bit of everything. After lunch and more shopping we headed back up to Wildwood. Our plan was to walk down to the south end, then take the tram up to the north end, something we do every trip. Not much had changed at the south end, except the upscale boutique that had been there for a long time was gone (Marcella's I think). Then we attempted to get our tram. We waited 45 minutes for one to come along, then within a few minutes, 3 more showed up. Everyone who was waiting filled the first tram. But it didn't leave, it just sat there for another 15 minutes. Very frustrating. We noticed it was like that on Saturday as well. I finally saw Gig on Sunday, and it seemed like things smoothed out after that. We played in several of the arcades, and then went to the beach to watch the fireworks on Friday night. I was glad they did them the next day and didn't skip them.
Besides taking out my favorite Coach Purse wheel, they also redid the smaller candy wheel on Mariner's. It has more spaces also. We didn't win anything this year on any wheel or the Crazy Ball. But my husband did get a few things at Quarter Pitch. I don't know why, but I forgot to take a picture of the new Shriver's Taffy. They were giving out taffy samples, and although it was good, it stuck so badly to the wrapper it was a mess to eat. I don't know if this was due to the heat and humidity, but it seemed to last all week. Every time I saw someone eating one, it was messy. The store looked very much like James, but I still miss James. Oh well, off to bed. Another busy day on Saturday.
On the last day that we were there, I noticed he had two portable air conditioner units that had just been delivered. They were still on pallets and wrapped up. I hope he found the time to install them.
Yeah...Randy not having A/C is a problem.