I have a toddler. He was obviously thrilled with the idea of riding the streetcar after we saw it rolling around town. So, I proceeded to look up the information online and found a pdf map and schedule.
We went to a stop that was marked as a specific intersection. At the time of arrival, we see the streetcar roll up and turn left away from us at an intersection at least 100 ft away. (It would have been impossible to run after it with a 2 year old and an infant). After a couple of minutes of incredulously discussing with my husband if was looping around somewhere and coming back, we realized that the streetcar straight up skipped our stop.
Due to the persistent requests of my toddler, and not wanting to disappoint after telling him we were riding the streetcar, we frantically looked at the map, skedaddled back to our car, and drove off to intercept it at another of the marked spots on the map.
We flagged him down at that intersection and were able to finally board.
The ride is about an hour. The seating is cute mini-benches on each side of the aisle. You need to have exact change as you just tuck your dollars into a fare box in the front.
Overall, it was nice to roll around town and take in the sights. My toddler loved the ride. But what I really discovered was that the streetcar didn't really stop at any of the marked stops on the map. It just rolled on by all of them (except maybe the turnaround on the boardwalk) and stops at stop 1 at the top of the hour to get back on schedule. So if you want to board, go to one of those two locations or be prepared to be missed and / or need to run after the streetcar and flag it down.
They could easily improve this experience by having actual streetcar signage at the published stops so that the streetcar could obviously see when people wanted to take a ride. read more