Fantasy Island Amusement Park — Attraction in Beach Haven

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...

The new Fantasy Island SUCKS!!! I have been coming here since I was a child and have always had great experiences. Customer service was always their priority, I remember playing on a claw machine for hours as a kid only for a manager to come over and offer me the prize I was aiming for after numerous tries. The staff was always overly friendly and kid oriented. Now first of all, this new "card swiping" is irritating for a few reasons. 1. I had old tokens I had given to my nephew, the signs all around the park still say "3 tokens" etc. Yet the attendant said the tokens are no good as per the new company policy. We then had to wait on a long line to have the coins put on a card, which the sign above the booth still states "ride tokens are good all season every season" and still has options where you would think you could purchase and use coins. I asked the ride attendent if he could go on while we wait on line for the new card just to get him on the ride as the first ride we passed upon entering was closed down and he was upset. The attendent said no, again, a new company policy. Also, there's no way to know how many points you have left on the card. Get up to the ride, after waiting in those long Fantasy Island lines, just to find out you can't go on the ride because you've run out of points. What used to be a fun family outing has turned into a gimmicky corporate like atmosphere and it's honestly just sad. I'm no longer excited to come here and bring the kids here. Customers are no longer their priority. All they care about is money. Giving it 3 stars anyway because the kids don't understand yet this corporate bullsh** so they will have a good time still. But if you grew up coming here, and haven't been back since they switched owners, don't even bother. You'll be greatly...

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...