Things to Do in Ventnor City

The resident guides at Uncle Sam's New York Tours masterfully navigate the city to give sightseers a smattering of historic sights, hip bars, and chic shopping locales. Leisurely strolls allow tourists to savor the sights of each stop, as opposed to whizzing by on a tour bus or being launched past from a trebuchet. Engaging guides steer guests down Wall Street and dive headfirst into the Greenwich Village digs that have been frequented by creative geniuses for decades. After dark, pub crawls traverse the entrances of some of New York's most hallowed watering holes, and nightclub tours lend tastes of the New York nightlife, along with glimpses of reticent celebrities in rare chicken-dance performances. Uncle Sam's sightseeing sages also conduct private luxury tours, ferrying guests about town in private SUVs and stretch limos.

The current Madison Square Garden's court is the fourth venue to bear the name and sits five stories above the bustling streets of New York. Billed as "The World's Most Famous Arena," the Garden has played host to triumphant basketball and hockey games, breathless boxing matches, and appearances by such luminaries as Elvis, Billy Joel, and the Pope. Recently finished with the second year of a three-phase renovation, the center has streamlined crowd flow, upgraded dining options, and removed the ejection systems from the lower-bowl seats.

Arms folded across her chest, the young girl rides a spouting cascade of water through the pitch-black tube, squealing with each twist and turn afforded by the snaking confines. Just as it seems as though the darkness will never lift, sunlight pours onto her face as she is spit out into a crystal-blue pool below. This high-adrenaline ride is the reward for being brave enough to tackle the Midnight Run, one of Splash Zone’s numerous waterslides.

Nestled in the heart of Wildwood, the aquatic adventureland evokes whoops and squeals from visitors of all ages with more than 16 splash-laden rides and activities. The gentle ebb of Rivy’s River carries inner-tubing guests along at a relaxed pace, and the interactive water playground in Giggle Bay ensures that the young adventurers remain hydrated thanks to a constantly tipping bucket filled with 1,000 gallons of water. Their new attraction, Flowhouse, combines surfing, snowboarding, and skateboarding with a continuous 40-ft. wave for a new sport available for all ages. As aquanauts explore the waters, Splash Zone’s crew of certified lifeguards and sunglass-clad Saint Bernards remain on hand to ensure safety, and an onsite first-aid station offers remedies for a variety of ailments. Along with watery pastimes, Splash Zone offers sunbathing areas to facilitate leisurely tanning, and the Zone Grill where chefs forge fire-licked eats for hungry guests.

The air over New Jersey Motorsports Park pulses with the roar of engines, a siren's call to professional and amateur racers and the crowds that cheer them on. From spring through late fall, the track’s major events entice fans young and old and range from open-wheel racing to karting. With little to no experience, amateur drivers can arrive and drive with the track's F1 karting program, which sends similarly skilled drivers careening around the bends of a 1.1-mile track that features six different configurations and 11 prime spots to throw a well-aimed koopa shell at the competition.

The track's educational program molds amateurs into masters by giving them access to world-class instructors with years of experience driving with their feet. Between lessons or races, drivers can fuel up at an onsite snack bar, or take the postrace edge off at the pub.

While waiting for a group of tour participants aboard his kayak on Cape Island Creek, Bob Lubberman made a new acquaintance when a 4-foot great blue heron landed on the nose of his boat. It's not an entirely new experience for the owner of Miss Chris Kayak Rentals and Tours, as opportunities to commune with nature came often as he crabbed and fished as a child from his grandmother's dock. Now he's able to connect visitors to this ecosystem as they independently paddle rented sit-on-top kayaks or as they participate in guided kayak or boat tours.

Paddlers on kayak tours often catch close-ups of ospreys, terns, and other birds, and see diamondback terrapin turtles sunning themselves on the shore or trying to hold their own ice-cream cones. Day and sunset tours let guests explore the wildlife-rich salt marshes, and night tours led during high tide let them paddle over grassy terrain to otherwise inaccessible areas. Guests explore similar territory on tours aboard the Osprey as they watch migrating shore birds or look out on the harbor's historic buildings. Kayak tour guides include an associate naturalist and a Cape May Bird Observatory field associate, and land-based staffers maintain a touch tank on the Miss Chris mooring dock, which they temporarily fill with conches, eels, and other sea life pulled up using open-sided conservation traps.

Under a 137-foot-high, barrel-vault ceiling, Boardwalk Hall's floor has played host to historic Garden State moments for more than eight decades. The longest clear-span space in the world when it opened in 1929, the venue has seen the nation's first indoor football game, the first indoor helicopter flight, and performances by such luminaries as the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong. A $90 million renovation completed in 2001 ushered the space into the new millennium, updating the lighting, improving the acoustics, and roping off a section of seats for time-traveling audience members.