Answers

The veteran move on a summer Saturday: park FREE at the West OC Park & Ride (12848 Ocean Gateway) and take the $3 ride-all-day shuttle to downtown — it runs every ~20 minutes, 6am–11pm in season. Downtown, the Inlet lot and street parking use ParkMobile and fill by mid-morning in July.

• West OC Park & Ride

oceancitymd.gov, verified July 2026

The Beach Bus runs the length of Coastal Highway like a metro line, with stops every few blocks, on a ride-all-day fare. It connects to the West OC Park & Ride shuttle and (in summer) Delaware's DART Beach Bus at the state line.

Note: the famous Boardwalk Tram is gone — permanently retired in October 2025 after 61 years. The Beach Bus is the way around now.

oceancitymd.gov, verified July 2026

No — the Boardwalk Tram was permanently discontinued in October 2025 after running since 1964. Walk the boards, bike before the 2pm cutoff, or use the Beach Bus on Coastal Highway.

thedailyrecord.com, verified July 2026

Plenty indoors: Old Pro's indoor mini golf (undersea at 68th St, safari at 136th), Game World's indoor course and arcade (146th), Ripley's, the Life-Saving Station Museum, Ocean Lanes bowling (72nd), escape rooms, movies at Fox Gold Coast or Flagship, and the outlets in West OC. Berlin's antique shops are the classy option.

• Old Pro Golf (68th St)
• Game World
• Ripley's Believe It or Not!
• Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum
• Ocean Lanes Bowling Center

oldprogolf.com, verified July 2026

The AYCE institutions: Higgins (31st & 128th), Hooper's at the foot of the Rt 50 bridge, and the Crab Bag (130th, famous fried chicken too). BLU (23rd bayside) does crabs with sunset views. Sit down, get a mallet and brown paper, order by the dozen or go AYCE, and settle in — it's a two-hour sport.

• Higgins Crab House (128th St)
• Hooper's Crab House
• The Crab Bag
• BLU Crabhouse & Raw Bar

higginscrabhouse.com, verified July 2026

House policy since 1929: vinegar and salt only — the family has always held that ketchup masks the potato. There is no ketchup on the premises. Don't ask; embrace the vinegar.

• Thrasher's French Fries

thrashersfries.com, verified July 2026

See Fest Central for the live answer — the guide automatically features the current or next fest. The annual cycle: Springfest (April), Cruisin' (May), Air Show (June), White Marlin Open & Marlin Fest (early August), BikeFest and Oceans Calling (September), Country Calling, Endless Summer Cruisin' and Sunfest (October), Winterfest of Lights (Nov–Dec).

ococean.com, verified July 2026

Maryland charges 6% sales tax (including clothing). But tax-free Delaware starts at 146th St — Fenwick and the Rt 54 corridor are minutes away. Bonus: Maryland's tax-free week (clothing/shoes under $100/item) lands in mid-August, right in peak season.

marylandcomptroller.gov, verified July 2026

The sun sets over the BAY, so go bayside: Sunset Park (S Division St — it's named for this), Northside Park's lagoon piers (125th), Fager's Island (they play the 1812 Overture as it sets, nightly), or any bayside restaurant deck. Sunrise is the ocean's show — any beach, any morning.

• Sunset Park
• Northside Park
• Fager's Island

oceancitymd.gov, verified July 2026

Orange vodka and triple sec in equal measure, the juice of an orange squeezed to order on a press, and a splash of lemon-lime soda over ice. The squeezing is what the name refers to. The drink is credited to Harborside Bar & Grill in West Ocean City, on a slow afternoon in the autumn of 1995; the accounts name the owners Chris Wall and Lloyd Whitehead, their friend Jerry Wood, and the bartender Kelly Flynn.

Credit rather than proof — every later telling repeats the same afternoon, and bars up and down the coast tell their own versions. House Bill 1001 made the crush Maryland's state cocktail effective 1 June 2025. Grapefruit is the usual second flavour.

• Harborside Bar & Grill

punchdrink.com, verified September 2026 (unverified)

Picked crab meat is sold by grade, and the grade is most of the price. Jumbo lump is the two whole muscles that work the swimming legs, kept intact and white. Lump is smaller lumps and broken jumbo. Backfin is flaked body meat blended with broken lump. Special is the small white pieces from the body cavity. Claw is darker and stronger, from the claws. A menu printing the grade is telling you which of those you are buying.

The names are trade usage, not a legal standard, and sources on the same shore do not agree: Maryland's Best files backfin next to jumbo lump, while packers sell backfin as the cheaper flaked grade. The price on the line settles it more reliably than the word does.

crabplace.com, verified September 2026

A crab seasoning built on celery salt and paprika with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in it, mixed in Baltimore by Gustav Brunn. Brunn was a spice merchant who was held at Buchenwald after Kristallnacht and reached Baltimore with his family in 1938, carrying his hand-crank grinder. He set up the Baltimore Spice Company on the second floor of 26 Market Place, across from the wholesale fish market, and sold the blend to the men steaming crabs.

He named it for the Old Bay Line, the steamers that ran Baltimore to Norfolk. Accounts date the blend to 1939 or to 1940 and do not agree; the shop is documented, the year is not. McCormick bought the recipe in 1990. It goes on crabs first, then on corn, fries, chips and the rim of a glass.

explore.baltimoreheritage.org, verified September 2026

A loaf of pork trimmings and broth thickened with cornmeal and flour, set firm, then sliced and fried until the outside crisps and the middle stays soft. German settlers near Philadelphia brought the dish, which they called panhas, and Delmarva kept it after most places let it go. Ralph and Paul Adams opened a plant in Bridgeville, Delaware in 1926 and joined their names into RAPA; the plant is still in Bridgeville and still runs the recipe they wrote.

It arrives beside eggs at a breakfast counter here without explanation. Whether ketchup belongs on it is a live argument, and asking will get you an answer.

rapascrapple.com, verified September 2026

Maryland's state dessert since 1 October 2008: eight to ten thin layers of yellow cake with chocolate icing between every layer and over the whole thing. It comes from Smith Island, twelve miles west of Crisfield in Somerset County — the state's last inhabited island, reachable only by boat, settled in the 1600s and held since by watermen's families, who kept the multi-layer cake along with everything else.

Chapters 164 and 165 of the Acts of 2008, now General Provisions Article sec. 7-313. Other fillings and other cakes have followed the designation; the layered yellow-and-chocolate one is the version the statute describes.

msa.maryland.gov, verified September 2026

A blue crab that has just shed its shell. Crabs grow by molting, and the shell to come shows first as a black line along the rim of the swimming paddles; when that line turns pink or red the crab is a peeler, and it is held until it sheds. The new shell underneath is soft, and that is the crab taken to the kitchen — cleaned, cooked and eaten whole rather than picked.

The window is short. Hardening starts within two hours of the shed, a papershell forms within twelve, and two or three days finish the job. Shedding runs from spring through the fall, which is why the sandwich sits on menus here from roughly May to September.

dnr.maryland.gov, verified September 2026

Two different soups that both have crab in them. Maryland crab soup is tomato-based and full of vegetables — crushed tomatoes, corn, lima beans, celery, potato — with three or four tablespoons of Old Bay or J.O. seasoning in the pot. Cream of crab is milk or half-and-half, butter, onion and a flour thickener: pale, thick, often finished with sherry. A kitchen that makes both will pour equal parts into one bowl, and that is a half-and-half.

Almost every kitchen on this coast makes one or the other, so the question is never whether but which. Maryland's own tourism office answers it both.

visitmaryland.org, verified September 2026

National Bohemian, first brewed in Baltimore in 1885 and shortened by everyone in Maryland to Natty Boh, or just Boh. The one-eyed, moustached head on the can is Mr. Boh, drawn for the brewery in the 1930s once Prohibition was over. He is worn on shirts, painted on walls and inked on arms across the state, which is a wider distribution than the beer itself.

Why he has one eye is not settled — a wink, most likely, though Baltimore has told the story otherwise for so long that the telling now counts as an explanation. The brewing left Baltimore decades ago and the beer is made under contract elsewhere; it is ordered here anyway.

nattybohbeer.com, verified September 2026

Each June, freshly graduated high-school seniors flood OC for Senior Week — locals call them 'June Bugs.' For families: the first weeks of June skew young and loud downtown; uptown and bayside stay calmer. For grads: the town publishes a 'Play It Safe' program with free events.

en.wikipedia.org, verified July 2026

OC has no cemeteries — barrier-island ground erodes, so the town's dead have always been buried in Berlin or beyond. The lone exception: Capt. William Carhart's 1799 tombstone on Captain's Hill in West OC, a shipwrecked sailor whose grave has stood 225+ years. Whether anyone is actually buried beneath it remains a mystery.

• Captain William Carhart's Grave

the guide’s own research notes — no published source, verified July 2026 (unverified)

There is a sign at each end of the Boardwalk that says Touch the Spot. That is the whole rule: touch one, cover the boards, touch the other. Nobody is checking — but the people walking and running the full length all do it, and you will see someone break stride at the rail to reach out and tap it.

Inlet to 27th Street is just under three miles, so spot to spot and back is a shade under six. Go before ten if you want it as a workout — that is the stretch of the day when the boards belong to joggers and bikes rather than strollers.

confirmed by the guide’s owner, verified August 2026

Maryland's tax-free week happens each August (exact dates vary by year, typically mid-August for a week). Clothing and shoes under $100 per item are exempt from the 6% sales tax — perfect timing for back-to-school shopping during peak OC summer season.

Check the Maryland Comptroller's website for exact 2026 dates. Only apparel and footwear under the $100 threshold qualify; accessories, swimwear tags, and sports equipment are usually excluded. Delaware has no sales tax year-round, so the Rt. 54 / Fenwick hop is always another option.

marylandcomptroller.gov, verified July 2026