The shuttle service will be operated by the Sea Isle City Jitney Association using 13-passenger vehicles. (Courtesy Bookmyjitney.com)
By Donald Wittkowski
During the summer vacation season, the campgrounds at the Ocean View Resort are filled on some weekends with more than 3,000 people – the population of a small town.
The Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization is eager to tap those campers in neighboring Dennis Township as a source of business for the bars, restaurants and retail shops in the resort town.
After discussing ideas for several months, the Chamber has figured out how to do it. The Chamber, Ocean View Resort and the Sea Isle City Jitney Association are collaborating on new shuttle service that will start July 1 and run through Aug. 14, officials said.
Shuttles will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to midnight. The 13-passenger shuttles will run about every half hour, picking up riders at the front entrance of Ocean View Resort and dropping them off at the Sea Isle City Welcome Center or a few blocks away in the downtown district on John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
The fare will be $2 one way, or $4 round trip.
“You can’t beat it,” Dave Berry, president of the Jitney Association, said of the fare.
Mike Monichetti, a Chamber member and owner of Mike’s Seafood and Dock Restaurant on Park Road, said the shuttle stops will offer easy access to Sea Isle’s restaurants, bars and shops in the historic Fish Alley neighborhood and in the heart of the downtown business district.
Family-friendly attractions such as kayaking, paddleboarding and charter fishing boats are also available in Fish Alley, a waterfront enclave concentrated along Park Road, Monichetti noted.
One of the shuttle stops will give campers easy access to the restaurants and other attractions in the historic Fish Alley neighborhood.
The shuttle stops will also allow passengers to connect to jitneys that serve other parts of the island, including Townsends Inlet in the south end and all the way to the neighboring town of Strathmere to the north.
“It has multiple advantages,” Monichetti said of the shuttle service. “First of all, it serves people who wouldn’t necessarily come to Sea Isle because of the parking and other obstacles. They won’t have to worry now about finding parking or paying for parking.”
“If they want to have a few drinks with dinner, they won’t have to worry about driving back,” he added.
Shuttle service would not just boost Sea Isle. Scott Turner, who owns Ocean View Resort along with his father, Doug, described it as a “symbiotic relationship” between Sea Isle and the campground.
Ocean View Resort will benefit by being able to offer its campers more amenities, including easy access to the beaches, restaurants and bars in Sea Isle without the worries of having to find parking on crowded streets, Scott Turner said in comments similar to Monichetti’s.
“People want to go over to Sea Isle without having to deal with the traffic and to have a drink or two and not have to worry about driving back,” Turner said.
The shuttle service will be operated by the Sea Isle City Jitney Association using 13-passenger vehicles. (Courtesy Bookmyjitney.com)
Ocean View Resort is the largest campground in New Jersey, according to Turner. On a busy summer weekend, it has around 3,500 campers. It also has 700 full-time families staying there.
Altogether, Cape May County has more than 40 campgrounds, Turner said, quoting county statistics. Dennis Township alone has about 5,800 camp sites, with many of them dotting the Route 9 and Route 83 corridors just several miles outside Sea Isle.
A few years ago, Ocean View tried running its own shuttle service to Sea Isle, but it was simply too expensive for the campground to operate and didn’t provide enough trips to be attractive to campers, Turner said. The shuttle was dropped.
This summer, Ocean View is the only campground teaming up with the Chamber of Commerce for the shuttle service. The Chamber had hoped to sign up other campgrounds for the shuttles. Monichetti predicted that other campgrounds will climb aboard in the future once they recognize the advantages.
“We are in it for the long haul,” he said of the Chamber’s commitment to the shuttle service. “We think in the next two or three years it will catch on, like everything does in this town.”
“If I was staying in a campground, I would love to have the option of taking a shuttle to Sea Isle. I’m sure people at other campgrounds will want that option,” Monichetti continued.
Berry, the Jitney Association president, also believes there is plenty of room for growth with the shuttle service.
“You start everything slow and then maybe other campgrounds will do it,” he said. “Every year, I get calls and emails from ca
Sea Isle's downtown business district will be another stop for the campground shuttles.
By running the shuttles on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the Chamber of Commerce will be able to bring campers to town during a normally slow time for Sea Isle’s businesses.
There had been discussions about running the shuttle on a Thursday-through-Sunday schedule, but the other campgrounds weren’t willing to kick in the $5,000 each that would have been needed to subsidize weekend service, Turner explained.
“It really came down to the expense,” he said.
In order to run shuttles on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the Chamber and Ocean View Resort will each pay a $3,000 subsidy, Monichetti and Turner said.
At one point, the Chamber had etched out tentative plans to run shuttles seven days a week from late June to Labor Day. Now, it will embark on a more modest operation.
“I’m excited to see how it works out for the summer,” said Chamber President Christopher Glancey, who praised Monichetti, Turner and Berry for crafting the shuttle deal.
The shuttle service is part of the Chamber’s broader strategy to attract even more visitors from South Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania that have traditionally been feeder markets for Sea Isle.
