Do you need good reasons to spend at least part of the next four weeks of summer on Long Beach Island?  Let us help convince you:

Hot Chocolate:
The Chocolate Bar (www.chocolatebarnyc.com) in Beach Haven.  Chocolate and more chocolate. In cool drinks,  scrumptious samplers, and stacks of colorful, creatively packed bars. You will leave believing chocolate is good for you. We do.

Meals To Go:
Avoid the island’s crowded restaurants and bring your dinner home to dine on the deck.

Foodies (8010 Long Beach Boulevard, Harvey Cedars)  is a smallish shop packed with big flavors.  Floor-to-ceiling with inventive home-made dinners, great salads, pastries, candy.

The Pearl Street Market (229 Pearl Street, Beach Haven) offering up a bounty of cooked and raw seafood,  goodies from Dean and DeLuca and a freezer full of Trenton’s Artic Ice Cream.

Fill Your Suitcase:
Forget flip flops and souvenir tee shirts.  Go to Tula (806 North Bay Avenue, Beach Haven)  for super chic at the beach. Owner/buyer Mariana Chianese has brought in a great collection of Cynthia Steffe ( www.cynthiasteffe.com/) dresses and suits.

Don’t leave without a  Run For Cover  (209 North Bay Ave., Beach Haven).   This shop is not new – but up-to-the-minute in taste and style. Check out the gold and silver link necklaces.

Daddy’s Girl:
Everyone is talking about Daddy O (www.daddyohotel.com/)  the island’s red hot boutique hotel that manages to be couple-friendly, but keep families happy.  If you can’t stay there,  plan at least one meal at the restaurant and make sure you sit in the big red booths and order the Buffalo Wing-less appetizers.

Sunrise, Sunset:
On LBI, you’ll have glowing sunsets over the bay and board-walk-less beaches. The carnival is confined to one area. There seems to be an  ice cream stand on nearly every block. You can shop for fantasy real estate, but you might even find something affordable.

Want more reasons?  Get off at exit 63 and head east.  You may spend the next four weeks on the beach

Long Beach Island may be the Hamptons of New Jersey. But if you are looking for a hotel room, with few exceptions, you’ll be sweeping sand off the sheets in a low-rise family-friendly motel.

Soon, there will be a new alternative. And we predict you’ll like it.

Leave the kids with your mom and book a room at the Williams Cottage Inn (www.williamscottageinn.com) in Beach Haven this summer.

Pick one of the eight brand new, luxury rooms and baths just a few doors down from the ocean in a historic house that was rescued and renovated by a local family. None of them is the same; they range from romantic to Asian-influenced, from spa-showers to soaking tubs. Some have both.

The Innkeepers – a lovely couple, are living on-premises and right out of central casting. The home-baked butter Danish will fuel your island explorations.

Jim Blahut, whose family chipped in and bought the 1886 Victorian says it was in a state of disrepair, from its peaked roof to a porch which had been enclosed by windows, hiding the fascade.

With some family members acting as interior designers, others as construction workers, the Blahuts have re-created the details of past glory and added unpredictable features. We got a This Old House-like tour a few weeks ago.

“Twenty years from now I don’t want anyone to walk into this bathroom and say this is what they would have done in 2007, “ Blahut says.

It’s pricey, the rooms range from $325 to $425 in season. But then again, there are very few B&Bs on LBI. You’ll have to head north to Spring Lake, or south to Cape May, to find a full selection.

The Inn opens for business at the end of this month. If you go, let us know how you liked it.

We saw the work in progress. We think you’ll enjoy this new Old House.

Locals know that when the traffic lights along Long Beach Boulevard stop blinking, and are switched to the cycle of green-yellow-red, summer season is about to start.

Beach Haven Mayor Tom Stewart says the traffic lights are switched over one week before Memorial Day. That gives the island’s year-round residents seven days to get used to it, so they won’t be running traffic lights with the streets swollen with part-timers.

Last Friday morning the lights worked fine, as the first official wave of Shore goers began flowing in at daybreak. Stewart’s restaurant, the much-loved Uncle Will’s Pancake House, (609-492-2514) was ready for the marathon.

Uncle Will’s is an LBI tradition. It’s the place where knee high ceramic pigs are placed on chairs, next to the youngest diners. As the little ones ogle the pigs, a kind of quiet stare-down takes place. For some lucky parents, the pig-quilizer effect might even last through the meal!

Stewart, who has vacationed on LBI since his childhood, says since 9-11 the crowds are larger. He’s seen more owners and fewer renters, too. That’s driven the price of rentals up, and encouraged new upscale restaurants and hotels.

Take Daddy O, (www.daddyohotel.com) , a few miles north of the Pancake House but light years away, in beach chic.

The retro-trendy hotel and restaurant has a rooftop deck, spa-showers and luxury rooms. Not your family-style economy suites. Both hotel and gourmet restaurant are drawing rave reviews.

In fact, B&Bs catering to affluent couples are popping up on the island’s family-friendly streets.

Next week we’ll take you inside one of the newest, and most luxurious you’ll find on LBI—or for that matter, anywhere in New Jersey.

The lights are truly changing on Long Beach Island.

Atlantic City is always reinventing itself. This summer, the casinos are adding new touches to their fantasy playgrounds.

Try a “dive-in” movie at Harrah’s (www.harrahs.com). They just opened the city’s largest indoor pool, part of a brand new, quarter-acre domed entertainment oasis.

Besides the 23,000 square-foot pool surrounded by a million dollar garden, there’s a new Red Door Spa (www.reddoorspas.com) with 23 rooms, including a couple’s suite (steam showers, Jacuzzi, and fireplace) just in time to put on your Father’s Day gift list.

Over at Caesars, (www.caesars.com) they’ve amped up the volume at the Circus Maxiumus Theatre with a new million dollar sound system and a new layout for the 1,500 plush seats. American Idol star Carrie Underwood was the inaugural act last weekend.

Our readers already know about the Pier at Caesars (www.pieratcaesars.com), because we’ve been raving about it for months! NJ Monthly’s empress of good taste Rosalie Saferstein likes breakfast at Sonsie (www.sonsieac.com). We liked the shopping on the huge enclosed pier, and lunch at Buddakhan (www.buddakanac.com).

Not to be out-trumped, the Donald’s Taj Majal (www.trumptaj.com) has eateries serving frozen cocktails, burgers and candy lining the streets of the new Spice Road Promenade. At Trump Marina, (www.trumpmarina.com) we hear the new Finestra Restaurant has an awesome antipasto bar.

And this month, the AC version of the New York Providence Lounge (www.providencenyc.com) opens in the red hot Quarter at the Tropicana (www.tropicana.net). Bottle service, DJs and VIP rooms.

Plenty more to come, as hotels and casinos add, improve, and grow—all in an effort to keep you longer, and get you to spend more. This you can bet the house on.