Point Pleasant Beach (borough in Ocean County, NJ).
We normally do a week down in Long Beach Island around the 4th of July but this year we had too much going on so we decided to take a day trip to Point Pleasant Beach.
Point Pleasant beach has both public and private beaches (we went to the public beach at Arnold Avenue) and is located about an hour and thirty minutes from NYC.
The beach was very nice, clean and busy but nothing too crazy. Although there were quite a few people on the beach, we still had personal space to lounge, relax and play around. We spent half the day on the beach and a couple hours on the boardwalk (Jenkinson’s Boardwalk celebrating over 90 years) before departing for home. The boardwalk has rides (which Li loved), games, arcades, restaurants, Tiki Bar, snacks, ice cream, cotton candy, coffee (great variety of Lattes for the coffee needing Mamas like me), salt water taffy and an Aquarium (which I’m sad to report we didn’t get time to do, next time).
There is a small fee ($18 per adult) to enter the beach (kids are free). You can rent chairs and umbrellas and bonus, they have people to carry and set them up for you.
Lifeguards are on duty from 9-5pm.