The only amusement park left in Ocean City is ready for you

OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Never mind Gillian’s Wonderland Pier and its famous and somewhat-histrionic demise at the height of last summer. Hasn’t everyone heard enough?

Less than five blocks down the Boardwalk, at Playland’s Castaway Cove, there is still an amusement park pulse in Ocean City.

This surprises some people, says Brian Hartley, vice president of Castaway, the family-owned mid-Boardwalk landmark that dates back 65 years (older, in fact, than Wonderland Pier, unless you consider Wonderland’s predecessor Fun Deck).

“Gillian’s is closed, we are still here,“ Harley said a few days before Playland’s April 18 opening, as workers buffed bumper car decks, programmed new arcade games, and awaited inspectors. “It has been a push to get the word out. People confuse us with them.

“They think there are no rides in Ocean City,” he said.

Despite a devastating electrical fire in 2021 that destroyed Castaway’s arcade and toppled its signature pirate ship, this amusement park has been consistently drawing crowds to 11th Street, even while Gillian’s was mostly petering out over on 6th.

This season, a new arcade building will open with a new pirate ship to be installed on the front roof, replacing the one destroyed by fire. Several new rides have been added.

In the future, a new roller coaster will be installed on the arcade building roof with views up and down the Boardwalk and out to sea.

Hartley says they’re moving around rides to open up spaces for people to better move around, as people are concerned that with Wonderland Pier closed, Castaway will be crowded.

“The Tidal Wave is going on the deck,” Hartley said, referring to the oscillating spider-like ride, which will open up more space. Already this year, people were peering in, and early spring breakers were calling to see if Playland was open during the week. Bad weather postponed a planned mid-April opening.

Half-price tickets are available through April 27. (Charmingly, Playland only sells paper tickets that, in theory, never expire.) They do not accept Wonderland tickets or loaded plastic cards.

Castaway Cove was known as the place your kids graduated to from Wonderland (at age, say, 6), while Wonderland continued to live off the nostalgia of its iconic kiddie Wet Boats and Fire Engines, which were so old they were grandfathered in to not have any height requirement.

Some of those rides could resurface at Storybook Land, about 12 miles west of Atlantic City, owner Jessica Panetta says.

Details to come, but the iconic fairy tale amusement park for younger children purchased the fire engine ride and other pieces from Wonderland.

“We did get a few things from there that Wonderland fans will surely notice once they’re restored and out,” she told the Inquirer.

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While Castaway didn’t buy any of Wonderland’s kiddie rides, and most of his kiddie rides have a 36-inch height requirement, Hartley says there is fun to be had for all sizes and ages. There’s the lovely hand-painted carousel from Italy, the iconic Kansas-manufactured Chance train ride, number 396, beach buggy rides, and the slingshot.

He’s got new rides, including a new coaster and a ride called the Storm, and the entire arcade is brand new, with a focus on games that offer a physical interaction, like a motorcycle to ride, or, yes, actual skee ball.

Truth is, if Wonderland had been all that crowded, before the abrupt closing announcement sent people scurrying for one last windy Ferris Wheel ride and ignited a firestorm of outrage, it’d probably still be open.

Now, developer Eustace Mita is forging ahead with his plans for Icona in Wonderland hotel resort, and he told the Inquirer he plans to present his plans to City Council in May.

Awaiting an engineering report, he says he also may attempt to reopen the 6th Street Pizza shop and arcade that front the Boardwalk, which he acknowledges might not be the best move, business wise.

Painters were going over the white-washed facade last week “to make it presentable,” Mita said.

“The problem is every dollar we spend is like throwing it into the ocean,” Mita said by text message. “This would be strictly from our love, of Ocean City and the Boardwalk, to at least not have everything be dark and lacking energy.”

And maybe throw a little shade at the new arcade at Castaway? Who knows? The two parks have had a complicated relationship even before Mayor Gillian’s mother, Jean, divorced Wonderland’s founder Roy Gillian and married Dave Simpson of the Castaway Cove Simpsons.

The two places have long jockeyed for attention from visitors.

It was only in the late 1990s that Castaway was given zoning permission to bring in bigger rides requiring more horsepower, Hartley said. After that, Castaway began drawing more and more business from families with older children as a series of financial setbacks doomed Wonderland.

Still, nobody wanted to see Gillian’s fail. In an era of Disneyland and other corporate amusement parks with enormous footprints, the family amusement parks on the Jersey Shore Boardwalks — the Morey’s parks in Wildwood, the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, Fantasy Island in Beach Haven, the Casino Pier rides in Seaside Heights — seem worth preserving, and treasuring.

“It’s a shame,” Hartley said. “There should be enough business for two parks. We would have liked to see them stay around. You know, given the history, the memories that people had, they filled a niche. But we can only control what we can control.”