Fantasy Island Amusement Park — Attraction in Beach Haven

So the real fantasy of Fantasy Island is thinking you are actually getting what you win when it comes to the arcade. In short, they deliberately rob patrons of winnings in not one, but at least two ways. Let me explain. There is a very popular Wizard of Oz coin game where you buy coins to shoot into a pile of coins so that you can get chips and playing cards as a reward. At times, the coins themselves will slide out past the filter and they too have value. According to the signage on their machines, a single coin or chip is worth 50 points and a single card is worth 400 points. They offer buckets to collect the chips and coins and whenever you want, you can redeem them at the customer service desk. This is where the scam comes in.

While each machine clearly indicates that a chip or coin is worth 50 points, they only redeem them through a counting machine which “counts” the coins by weight. Well, unbeknownst to probably 99% of patrons, this counting machine is programmed to take roughly 4-5 chips per every 100. So instead of getting 5000 points for every 100 chips, you get 4750-4800. Now as a single customer, it’s easy to get 200-400 chips in a single night so you’re talking about taking a couple hundred to a thousand points or more away per customer per night. Not immaterial.

After sensing the machines were taking points away, I hand counted two buckets of chips - one with 100 chips and the other with 98 chips. I went to the desk and told the girl I thought that the machine takes points away so I'd like her to count the 100 chip bucket. Well, instead of complying with a simple customer request, I was immediately met with resistance which quickly turned into hostility. After I persisted to count them by hand, she asked for a manager. When the manager came, I explained the situation and that I wanted the chips counted by hand. He ultimately agreed and hand counted all 198 chips for 9900 points. I then asked him to have them counted by the machine and lo and behold, it came up with 9500 points. I essentially would have been cheated of 400 points.

In another instance, I went up to the desk with 100 chips for 5000 points and the machine counted 4800 points. In a third instance, I went up to the desk with only 30 chips and 1 coin for 1550 points. This time I accepted the use of the machine because I thought to myself there was no way it would take anything for only 30 chips and wouldn't you know, it "counted" 29 chips. I then told the girl that was wrong and asked her to count them. She immediately resisted at my request - even to only count 30 chips. I again persisted and again a manager was called over. This time a different manager came. I again explained the situation and flat out told him I knew the machine is programmed to count less coins. He could offer no explanation or apology. The only thing he could say is that the machine(s) are inspected and approved by the state. So here comes the second way they cheat customers.

After the manager counted the 30 chips and 1 coin, he was supposed to add 1550 points to my card. After all was said and done, I clearly asked him if he added 1550 points to my card and he said yes, he added the 1150 points to my card. I corrected him and again asked if he added 1550 points to my card and this time with a straight face he said yes, he added 1550 points. By now, having no trust in anything they say, I took my card back and went straight to a machine to check the points and wouldn't you know, he only added 1150 points - again attempting to take 400 points from me. What deliberate fraud! I went back to him and asked him if they are trained to lie and again he could offer no excuse or apology.

It is very disappointing for a place like this to cheat customers where they take in a ton of money relative to the $ amount of prizes...

I've been going to Fantasy Island since I was young and have gone every year for the past 24 years. While I too am not happy with the changes such as removing Reptile World and completely overhauling the arcade I understand that change is necessary and not a bad thing. That being said I am going with three stars because the park is definitely more money hungry than it previously was. My biggest problem, however, is the ticket to prize ratio in the arcade.

Approximately 10 years ago I found a video game on the floor of the arcade that someone had won. It was an Xbox 360 game that was valued around $50 or approximately 48,000 or something tickets. I returned the video game to the front desk and the manager was nice enough to give me a voucher for the tickets equivalent to the video game price for I guess doing a good deed. Being 13 years old at the time, this was awesome and I was determined to save tickets ever since then. Fast forward to today, approximately 10 years and a couple of prizes later I had around 100,000 tickets. Im always saving for the big ticket items but I was disappointed to see that ticket prices have gone up. I used to be able to get a majority of the sports memorabilia, some electronics, etc with 100,000 tickets. Now everything has raised 3x in tickets. This would be NBD if the games had higher payouts but they really don't. Really disappointed that after saving tickets I'm back to square one because ticket value was raised.

EDIT: I have updated this review from 3 to 2 stars. I never contacted Fantasy Island at their reply but maybe I will take them up on it. The reason I am lowing my review is because I have since been back at the arcade and didn't realize just how bad the ticket payout to prize price ratio is. I will keep this review 2 stars instead of 1 due to the large selection of games available and the great prizes that can be obtained. That being said payouts need to be higher.

The only way to really obtain a high ticket value is through one of the many coin pushers they have. While the coin pushers are fun the rare cards are almost a little to rare that you can never really obtain the 50k tickets. You are going to wind up spending $50-$100 before you even see a rare card or you can pay a dollar to try and obtain the rare cards from a different game.

There is one game that is similar to Zombie Snatcher that you can win 1000 tickets in one play pretty consistently and only costs 50 cents per play. The only issue is that you are not guaranteed to win.

I will summarize by saying this. My wife and I went to the arcade and spent $100. Over the past few years we have multiple complete sets of the Willy Wonka cards minus the Golden Ticket. After spending $100 we didn't see a single Golden Ticket. We did however get lucky and got a Flying Dutchman card from one of the stand alone machines. Part of the $100 then went towards the SpongeBob coin pusher to get the set. We completed the set and got the 50k tickets but had we not gotten the Flying Dutchman out of luck we would have gone another year without completing any set. Without the luck of completing the SpongeBob set and getting 50k tickets we only would have gotten 10k tickets out of $100. That is crazy when you consider a JBL Charge 5 is around 240k tickets at Fantasy Island but costs $180 on the JBL website right now. Even if you play the game where you can get 1000 tickets for 50 cents you would have to be perfect on it 200 times with $100...

Fantasy Island is the best. Very clean, younger kid oriented rides with a few for older kids rides. The layout is nice because it’s small area but it’s not jam packed with stuff so you don’t have to worry about missing anything. The arcade is a good size. Free parking. The funnel cake is great! They have ice cream and a snack bar. There’s never a gang of older teens causing a raucous (that’s pretty much the case for all of LBI) so it’s nice for little ones. Usually no wait for rides, tickets are average price. The staff is always pleasant and friendly and good with the kids. But last time we were there I met the exception, a young girl who rudely snapped at my mom because she didn’t swipe her card right and my mom couldn’t hear the girl talking to her because it’s noisy so she repeated herself louder and with more attitude….. I’ve been going there since I was 3 and I’m now bringing my 4 year old and I guess after some renovations this year (they added a pizza place in the front, because ya know walking a half a block in any direction is too hard lol) and they took the alligator (crocodile?) from the front entrance and put him in the back entrance and replaced him with some new jabronie, a seal….?! The alligator has been welcoming families since as long as I know (33 years) to fantasy island and he gets put in the back!?! Ridiculous. And i have to add in there was a line to take a picture with him and I didn’t see a single person taking a picture with that dumb seal. That seal needs to be put in the back and earn his place. The alligator has seniority and is a legend who deserves his place in the main entrance! But even still, it’s a nice...