Scarborough State Beach — Attraction in Narragansett

Awful from the moment I got there. Google GPS took me and apparently the person in front of me through the wrong gate past some ambiguous signage. One employee started screaming and yelling and flailing his arms at us. I pulled up and apologized and tried to explain but he insisted the GPS did not take me through that gate. Then another employee came up and made rude insinuations that I was illiterate. I asked where I SHOULD go and they redirected me 1,000 feet down the road to an entrance with no visible signage from that approach. $14 to park. And it only got worse when we got on the beach. Waves were nothing to speak of. Seaweed EVERYWHERE. It covered huge portions of the beach, it was inescapable in the water. Just a constant nuisance. Every other second you're pulling seaweed out of your hair. There are some spots where there's less but they're extremely crowded for obvious reasons. The low tide sand is full of cobbles, some of them still sharp so it's rough to walk on. In the hour or so I was there I saw someone having to be rescued from a riptide (which is a daily occurrence according to the website). A clap of thunder was immediate cause for evacuation of the water so we ended up just leaving. My wife tried to shower off but the shower took QUARTERS, as if they hadn't already charged an exorbitant fee for entry, and we couldn't find a change machine. 100% waste of time and money. People who like this beach probably haven't been to...

I gave it a 3 star - physically beautiful, poorly run. I was staying in East Greenwich for 3 night and decided to use my 1 'free day' to do a nice Atlantic beach. Arrived at Scarborough (a 40 minute ride away) at about 11. Beautiful first day of August and very hot. At about noon there was some brou-ha and everyone was "ordered" out of the water. I wasn't in at the time, so I didn't pay much attention. At some point everyone must have been allowed back in, because when I went in at about 1, the water was teaming, it was very hot out and everyone was having a great time. All of a sudden whistles blowing again and an announcement that there would be no more swimming! I approached on of the life guards or "beach managers" (there's a problem right there) and asked if it was a shark. He responded that no, it was not a shark, but that one of then had spotted 4 large jelly fish. I asked him if he was in fact telling me that they (the guy behind the curtain???) where in fact closing the beach at 1, and ruining the day for literally thousands of people, many of whom went through significant trouble and expense to be there, because someone saw jellyfish in the water in August? Yup! Take my advice, go to another state for beach or vacation,...

The beach is nice, however there are many rules here announced on the PA. It's like a North Korean beach dictator pronouncing draconian propaganda at extremely obnoxious volumes on their blasting PA system. Good luck trying to rest and relax at this beach with these frequent assaults on your ears with unnecessary long-winded announcements. No common sense, kites, ball play, Frisbee, or fun. Also even if you're a great swimmer, don't go swimming out more than 50ft, you'll get lifeguards blowing their little whistles like crazy at you "because you're too far out." We had the boy scout park rangers come over and tell us to take down our small volleyball net even though our group of young teenagers were far north and away from the water with nobody around. They were crushed and were looking forward to playing some fun volleyball games for weeks. It was like 87 degrees and we were informed quite loudly in every rambling PA blast that it was going to be hot and to drink plenty of liquids. Are we 5 years old??? Some mild fog rolled in (mind you the waves are like 1ft) and they said, "Swimming is restricted to waist deep water only." Is this America??? One positive is the...