ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – On a sunny Sunday in spring, three generations and three branches of Pam Moody’s family went to have fun at Gillian’s Wonderland Pier on the Ocean City Boardwalk.
“We’re actually hard-core Sea Isle people,” said Carrie Siewic, of Burlington County, one of Moody’s daughters. “But we drive here for the Boardwalk.”
With warm weather, the local shoreline fills up with people looking for family fun. And businesses have looked to feed that need with everything from roller coasters and Ferris wheels to pinball parlors and video arcades.
But family-friendly attractions can be difficult to attract, and maintain.
When Gillian’s Funland was in Sea Isle City for five summers, the extended Moody family went there. But Funland closed in 2013, and “we miss that thing,” Siewic said, after her mom, sister, daughter and nephew got off the merry-go-round in Ocean City. “We went all the time until it left. Then we came here.”
New Jersey tourism was a $43.4 billion industry last year, including more than $10 billion spent on recreation, according to a state report released earlier this year. Visitor spending was $6.7 billion in Atlantic County and about $6 billion in Cape May County last year, according to the report.
And coastal towns and businesses have tried to boost spending by families, something easier said than done.
For decades, at least since the first casino opened in Atlantic City in 1978, critics have said the city doesn’t have enough family draws.
“They have one pier. One place for kids on this whole Boardwalk,” said Scott Gardini, of South River, Middlesex County, after a Steel Pier visit with his son, Vincent, 4.
As a kid, he went to the Seaside Heights boards in Ocean County. Now, if he wants to treat his kids to a boardwalk, sometimes he drives right by Atlantic City to Wildwood. He was in Atlantic City with his in-laws last week but said the city should broaden its market with “the casinos… dropping like flies.”
And Atlantic City has tried, desperately at times, to answer those critics.
Steel Pier, which drew families for years with a mix of shticks that ran from rising stars to diving horses, closed after Resorts Casino Hotel opened in 1978. But it was reborn in the 1990s as an amusement pier full of rides and games.
Investors have proposed three water parks in recent years, including two in closed casinos, the Atlantic Club and Revel. So far, not one has shown any progress. And last week, City Council approved tax incentives for a planned “Polercoaster,” a vertical roller coaster at the long-vacant home of yet another former casino, the Sands.
Plus Tropicana Atlantic City, which once had and closed an indoor amusement park, Tivoli Pier, opened a new “Family Fun Station” a few summers ago with 50-plus games.
Back at Wonderland Pier, Brett and Shannon Balsley, of Linwood, watched their daughter, Olivia, 3, spin around happily on a kiddie ride.
