Park Rules:

• NO ALCOHOL -- There are nearby bars if you have to have it, but  don't bring any to the park or on the beach

• No loud music. Personal devices are permissible but it cannot be amplified to a level that can be heard beyond our immediate area

• Our permit is for 35 people. The committee expects (and hopes) that we will have more than that in attendance, but we must be careful not to have more than 35 around the picnic tables and barbecue pits at any one time (our reserved area) or your chairperson is going to get a huge fine assessed. But we are in a public park which is unreserved and for use of anyone, so there is no prohibition against spreading out into other areas of the park. There is also a large athletic field just south of the park across A Street, which essentially forms a part of the park.

Admission

There is no admission fee. All classmates are welcome and encouraged to come whether or not you attend the Saturday night main event. The committee did have to pay Newport Beach $72 per hour rent on the space plus an administrative fee for a total of $288. Voluntary contributions towards our expenses would not be turned down. However, our contract with the city prohibits us from openly collecting contributions or they will consider it a commercial gathering and charge us even more fees -- so if you feel like helping out please discreetly contact a committee member at the picnic (or the night before -- or, if you're registered at PayPal you can submit a contribution directed to the chair at the chair's e-mail address:  equity@iname.com ).

Parking

• The major parking lot for our picnic area is the Balboa Pier lot just north of the park which occupies the area to the ocean side of Balboa Blvd from Adams St to Main St. The Balboa Pier lot entrance is located at Palm and Balboa Blvd. Cars are 50 cents every 20 minutes to a maximum of $15.00 per day. Some meters are equipped to take payment by credit card. There is no additional fee to the consumer for credit card transactions at meters or pay stations accepting credit cards. If you don't wish to pay by credit card bring lots of quarters.

• There are also two small lots, the A St lot which borders Peninsula Park on the ocean side and on the east side along A St and the B St lot which is along B St at the far end of the athletic field to the east of the park. The meters at these two lots also have the option to pay by phone (via the ParkMobile app available for smart phones). At meters with the pay by phone option, there is a 35 cent consumer charge per transaction which ParkMobile charges. If you decide to install the mobile app please be sure to visit the Newport Beach help page on ParkMobile so that you won't make mistakes that both get you charged for the parking and still cause you to run the risk of a citation. (I gave you the link for the NB help page because it's VERY hard to find on the ParkMobile site [hint: you have to click on the red "Help" icon on the right edge of any ParkMobile page and then type in a search for the name of the city you're interested in.] On that sheet the Zone code for A St is 9758 and for B St it's 9735. But you should still read the NB help page for all the pertinent details.) At its current stage of development, ParkMobile appears to be heavily developed on the East Coast and not too much in SoCal yet. But it looks very promising for the future. For me, even though I have the ParkMobile app, I'll probably opt for a straight credit card transaction on the meter itself.

• There is also metered street parking out on Balboa Blvd, although you'll be competing with the Pavilion and Fun Zone crowds for those.

Ferry

• Each ferry holds three cars and 75 passengers and runs every five minutes in each direction (two ferries run and pass each other midway).

• Fares:

Adults are $1
Children 5+ to11 - .50
Children under 5 - Free

Vehicles (Passengers are Extra)
Car and Driver $2 plus $1 for each adult passenger
Motorcycle and Driver $1.50
Bicycle and Rider $1.50
Bicycle and Child .75

• An observation: This probably won't happen on September 16 because the committee specifically chose that weekend since it offered the potential of summer weather but after the summer season is over, the crowds are gone, and school is back in session -- however, your chairperson was on the Peninsula on Labor Day Sunday and it was a logistical nightmare. There was no hope of parking in the Balboa Pier lot, so we decided not to go to the beach but just take the ferry and leave via PCH. Even at 3 cars per ferry we waited in line the short two blocks from Balboa Blvd to the ferry for over 30 minutes. When we drove off on Bal Island the cars waiting to board the ferry to the Peninsula were lined up for 8-10 blocks along Agate and Park Avenues. That had to have amounted to more than a 2-hour wait. It should not be that bad on September 16, but if you don't want to risk it and you have a car, the chair would recommend just entering the Newport Peninsula the usual way at the PCH and Newport Blvd (CA-55) interchange and driving down the peninsula to Palm, A, or B Streets to park. If you're planning to walk from the hotel to the ferry and picnic (1.6 miles) the ferry crossing should present no problems at all for pedestrians no matter how bad it might look for vehicles.

Some helpful images related to the Picnic site:

Park and Parking Map

Google Map Street View of Park Entrance at Main Street

• The route map from the hotel to the picnic site is in the map link at the beginning of this section about the picnic.