Ocean Shores City

I would rate Ocean Shores as 3 1/2 stars.

We were here during the weekday periods, so it wasn't busy at all. There are limited places to ship or eat, but we were able to rent a place with a kitchen, so there is plenty of seafood to buy and cook yourself.

At the beach, you are actually able to drive onto it, so it can be both a pro and a con. If you have a car, you can drive a few minutes north of the main area and get your own private beach.

Overall, it is a good place to get away (about three hours from Seattle), especially when the weather is hot.

Awesome place to go for the beach. Really beautiful.

Large gathering here on 4th of July with fireworks all night.

Driving is permitted on the beach at your own risk. If you don't want to park on the beach, there is parking available at the entrance by the public restrooms. There is also parking open at the convention center nearby.

The ocean is beautiful. Wish I would've came down when I was a little busy to see what it was actually like down here. I will definitely be returning with my spouse, scenery is gorgeous. You can actually drive your car up near the beach which is very neat. I've never known a Ocean you can do that on.

Don't get me wrong, this beach is absolutely beautiful! You can also drive your car up here.

However, cars tend to speed by and we have had some close calls over the years, eek!

Every single time I go here I end up seeing a dead seagull just right there on the beach. Probably because people keep feeding them.

Id rather you feed duckies at the pond and not the seagulls! They follow you everywhere and won't leave until you give them food. So do NOT feed the seagulls. Just don't.

The beach is beautiful, the sand feels nice on your toes, water is cold but honestly, I get used to it quick. But there are currents so be careful.

Our kids special request this destination for birthday trips. It's a whole thing with Sharky's and sushi at Uni. And we have now added Peppermint Parlor and the beach. It's a cute little town with little town activities.

The thing most often praised about this beach is you can drive on it. But if you're trying to have a pleasant walk, cars speeding by isn't great. The beach is featureless. When the hard-packed sand ends high on the beach, dead dry grass makes it look like the rest of the place is the prairie. The most interesting things we saw were a dead bird squashed and very smelly, its feathers scattered in a wide circle. And a crashed kite some kid abandoned.

We went on a slow day so at least it wasn't crowded. Sometimes, at the height of summer, it's just one big parking lot. People drive right down to the water's edge, so really, parking lot car beside car beside car, everywhere, filling the place up. On this most recent visit though, probably only about ten cars, as it was overcast and didn't bring out the beer-guzzling rubes and their smelly pick-up trucks with the bottoms rusted out from visiting Ocean Shores.

There are no rocks, hardly even pebbles, though I did spot three polished stones one of which I put in my pocket. Don't generally expect to look for seashells or driftwood because such a well-used beach won't have any left if it ever had any at all (it's not a beach conducive to any sort of wildlife beyond whatever scuds might eat dead birds). However, I unexpectedly found one piece of driftwood in that broad sterile environment, and it was actually quite beautiful. A pet lizard will now be using it for basking.

It's nice to see horses trotting down a beach, much nicer than cars racing for sure. For such a famous beach it's just not much. Dungeness or Westport are so much more beautiful to walk along, but Ocean Shores lets you bring your dog, the only reason we ever go there, and may continue to do so only because dogs are banned from too many beaches.

Overall, this is a great beach in my opinon. This is a beach that you can drive onto with your vehicle, which we loved. There seem to be two main roads leading to the beach. One is at Damon Road and the other is on a road that is right passes by the Best Western hotel. The one closer to Damon road seemed to have more cars and people in my opinion. My husband loved that we could drive on the beach and since we had a truck we could drive a ways to be more secluded and away from others. I love that this beach stretches on for miles and miles. It was really nice to sit in the back of the truck with the tailgate down and/or set out lawn chairs and just watch the waves. Many people pack things for the day and enjoy the day at the beach. Items that we saw people bring were barbeques, hammocks, kites, sand toys for kids, tents to block the wind, etc. You can go clamming here as well. You can also ride mopeds or electric bikes and ride horses on the beach. The only reason I would give this 4 stars instead of 5 is that it can get packed with cars when you enter the beach, especially at the entrance along Damon Road. If you have four wheel drive or a truck you will be able to drive out farther and get away from the crowd on busy warm days in the summer. We loved that we were able to have more space by driving out farther. One thing that bothered me was that a horse company takes people up and down the beach continuously all day. That part did not bother me per say, although they are clearly work horses meant to bring money in. No one seems to pick up the horse poop in a timely fashion and it sits there. People have to drive or walk around it. As the tide came in, horse poop was swept out to sea by the waves. I personally find it negligent that this company is making a killing off of people and is not picking up after themselves and polluting the water. I wish that someone would hold them more responsible to help keep the beach and ocean clean for all those wanting to enjoy the beach.

Typical beach town. Boardwalky. Perfect place to go to get away from the city for a while. The beach is so calming and relaxing and there are miles and miles of it to walk on.

You can go on a horse back ride or if you've got good tires and a hearty vehicle go driving on the beach.

*NOTE* Please don't drive on the beach if you have a souped up mobile or a Too fast Too furious car with the lower-riding and such because chances are you'll get stuck. I spent 30 minutes with 7 other people pushing and shoving trying to get a 2 dr Honda Civic as well as a 2 Dr Ford Focus out of the sand. The Focus tried to help the Civic by pushing it and both got stuck. Then a man with a F350 helped get the Focus out and I with my Escape helped get the Civic out. Soooooo lame & embarrassing.

There are plenty of restaurants and little shops to get gifts or beachwear or rent leisure items while at the beach. And plenty of bungalows and hotels to welcome you to the escapism of Ocean Shores

Supposed to be reopened but many resturants either closed or so short handed you cant phone in an order or even order to go at the resturant. Had to get subway and owner said he was short of everything we could not even get a bag to put food in

Beautiful little town! This was my first visit to Ocean Shores and we of course decide to go on one of the busiest weekends, Labor Day. To our surprise the beach wasn't over crowded. It was a perfect temperature not to cold and not to warm but very windy we were kinda bummed because the smoke from local fires swept in shortly after arriving but it didnt chase us off. There is plenty of camping spots and a couple really nice hotels if you want to stay in the area as well as several cute restaurants and shops. This is for sure one of my new favorite places. My rating would have been 5 stars but the bathrooms here were very nasty, It was the only down side.

Today was my first trip to Ocean Shores and we loved it. I refuse to give less stars based on the weather lol come on, we're in the PNW in February. It was foggy, overcast, 52 degrees and beautiful! The seagulls were out in full force and I found my first fully intact Sand Dollar today, woohoo! There were only about 10 people on a mile stretch of beach which is the way I like it. You can drive right up to and onto the beach here! Ocean Shores as a city is charming in its coastal quaintness, friendly locals, clean streets, and older Americana decor. It has a relaxed feel and a variety of shops and restaurants to enjoy. My favorite coastal town is Newport OR but I'm making room for Ocean Shores, WA : )