Jenkinson's WordPress Multisite

The mission

Jenkinson's runs a boardwalk, an aquarium and a sweet shop, and each needed its own site without three separate stacks to maintain. We built one WordPress Multisite network with a shared plugin stack, design system and admin, while scoping each team to only the content they manage. The Aquarium and Sweet Shop sell tickets and products through WooCommerce.

This case study walks through the network section by section: the Boardwalk hub and its dining pages, the events calendar, Pricing and Hours, the interactive Boardwalk map, the Aquarium and its online encounter bookings, the Sweet Shop and its online store, and the multisite platform underneath all of it. Along the way we explain what each part does for a visitor and how we built it in WordPress.

Key features

• Three sites (Boardwalk, Aquarium, Sweet Shop) on one network
• Mega menu for rides, food, tickets and attractions
• WooCommerce and WooCommerce Bookings for tickets and time slots
• Gravity Forms for field trips, group and custom orders
• Events Calendar Pro for recurring events
• Role scoping with Admin Menu Editor and User Role Editor
• Network-wide security and performance (iThemes Security Pro, Performance Lab, The SEO Framework)

The Boardwalk hub: the front door for everything

Jenkinson's Boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, is one of the best known destinations at the Jersey Shore, with an amusement park, arcades, mini golf, a beach, an aquarium, a candy shop and plenty of places to eat. The main Boardwalk site is the hub for all of it. It carries beach hours and ride schedules, food and drink, group events and parties, and ticketing, and a slim network bar at the very top links straight to the Aquarium and Sweet Shop sites.

The homepage changes with the seasons. In October it leads with Boo at the Boardwalk, followed by a scrolling strip of upcoming events, a row of promotions such as the fall Half Price Rides special, and quick links to the Ride Park Schedule, Pricing and Hours and Birthday Parties. The events and promotions come from the same events calendar the rest of the site uses, so the front page stays current as soon as the team publishes something new.

The main navigation is a mega menu built with Beaver Builder Mega Menu. Explore, Events, Groups and Parties, Plan Your Visit and Shop each open into a layered directory, with Join Our Team and Boardwalk Bounce Card beside them, so a visitor can go straight to rides, food, tickets or a specific attraction without jumping from page to page. The Boardwalk Bounce Card, the boardwalk's cashless payment card, even has its own balance check in the menu. Because the menu is laid out visually in the dashboard, the team can change its layout and links without waiting on a development cycle.

Explore: every attraction in one grid

The Explore page turns the whole boardwalk into a single grid of photo cards: Adventure Lookout, the Amusement Park, the Aquarium, Arcades, the Beach, Food and Drink, Fun and Games, Join Our Team, Mini Golf, Events and Shopping. It covers the same ground as the Explore menu, laid out for visitors who would rather browse pictures than read a list.

Food and drink, inside the main site

Dining is a big part of a day on the boardwalk, so each restaurant and food stand has its own page inside the main site instead of a separate microsite or an off site link. The Food and Drink page lists them with a photo, a short description and where to find them: Boardwalk Bar and Grill (the only rooftop dining on the boardwalk), Oceanside Dining and Pavilion across from the Aquarium, Little Mac's by the Ride Park, the Inlet Bar on the sand by the jetty, Jenks Club and Perks Cafe. All of it is edited from the same dashboard as the rest of the Boardwalk site.

Events: a calendar the whole boardwalk runs on

Something is always happening at Jenkinson's, from princesses and concerts to fireworks and themed events, so the calendar had to be easy for the team to publish and easy for visitors to browse. We built it on Events Calendar Pro, which handles recurring events, venues and front end RSVPs. Staff can schedule a series once and let it repeat, with full control over how and when each event appears, instead of relying on a third party platform or updating blog posts by hand.

The Events page opens with a carousel of what is coming up next, then an Event Browser. Visitors can search, jump to Today, Week, Weekend or Month, or pick a range on the mini calendar, and the event cards update to match, each one showing the date, the event and its location. The same events also fill the upcoming events strip on the homepage.

Event detail: Boo at the Boardwalk

Every event gets a full detail page. Boo at the Boardwalk, the fall festival running October 17, 18, 24 and 25, 2026, from 12:00pm to 4:00pm, is a good example. The page leads with the location, date and time, then explains what to expect: trick or treating, live entertainment, character appearances, Halloween activities and rides at half the normal credit amount. Below that sits an hour by hour schedule for each day, with concerts and magic shows on the boardwalk and activities like Underwater Pumpkin Carving inside the Aquarium, followed by related events such as the Amusement Park hours and the Fall Special: Half Price Rides.

Plan your visit: pricing and hours on one page

Families checking prices on a phone at the beach should not have to dig. The Plan Your Visit menu gathers Pricing and Hours, the Boardwalk map, Directions and Parking, the Aquarium and Ride Park schedules, Specials and Discounts, FAQs, Daily Mobility Rentals and the Summer 2026 Events Brochure in one place.

Pricing and Hours is a single page with one expandable section per attraction: Aquarium Admission Rates, Summer Daily Beach Rates, Arcades, Amusement Park, Adventure Lookout Ropes Course, Castaway Cove Miniature Golf, Lighthouse Point Miniature Golf and the Fun House. Open one and you get the details that matter on the day. In October 2026 that meant Aquarium admission of $19 for adults, $13 for children ages 3 to 11, $15 for seniors and free for children 2 and under, arcade hours with their half price specials, ride credits where 1 credit equals $1.00, and seasonal notes such as the ropes course being closed until 2027. Staff update the numbers in WordPress and every visitor sees the change right away.

The Boardwalk map

The Boardwalk map page turns the printed park map into an interactive one, built with the Mapplic map plugin. A searchable list beside the map covers rides, shops, restaurants and services, from the Adventure Lookout Ropes Course to the Aquarium Gift Shop and each ATM. Visitors can zoom and pan the illustrated map or open it full screen, read the numbered map key down the side, or use the View Map as PDF link for a printable copy.

The Aquarium: its own site on the same network

Jenkinson's Aquarium is a privately owned aquarium on the boardwalk that has been teaching visitors about marine life and conservation since June 1991, and in 2026 it is celebrating 35 years. It runs as its own site on the network, with its own 35 Years of Wonder branding and its own navigation: Visit, Penguin Cam, Groups and Education, and Adoption, Encounters and Programs. The network bar at the top still links back to the Boardwalk and the Sweet Shop.

The site serves several audiences at once. Families check hours and admission, read about the animals and watch the live Penguin Cam from home. Upcoming programs such as Painting with Penguins, Sensory Saturday, Penguins and Pajamas and Junior Keepers sit right on the homepage. Teachers and group leaders get a Groups and Education section with group rates, teacher tips for checking in and parking, pre and post visit activities and outreach programs, and they send detailed field trip booking requests through Gravity Forms. Visitors can even adopt an animal online, such as Beach Donkey the penguin.

Booking an animal encounter online

Ticketing and program registration run on WooCommerce, extended with WooCommerce Bookings for timed experiences. Encounter: Seals shows how it works. It is a 30 minute session with a keeper to meet Noelani and Turbo, priced at $150 per person for ages 7 and up, with a maximum of two people per encounter. Guests enter the number of adults and children, choose a date on the booking calendar, where available dates show in green, pick the 12:50pm or 3:50pm slot and click Book now. The whole purchase, from product page to cart to confirmation, stays inside the Aquarium's own design.

The Sweet Shop: a candy store with a storefront

Jenkinson's Sweet Shop has been around since the early 1900s and is open year round, with salt water taffy, homemade fudge, chocolates and gift baskets for all occasions. Its site is the third on the network, with a look of its own and a focused menu: Online Store, Seasonal Sweets and Treats, and Weddings and Custom Favors.

The Weddings and Custom Favors section covers wedding favors, bridal and baby showers and birthdays, along with custom work like chocolate dipped wine and liquor bottles. Custom requests come in through Gravity Forms, so one of a kind orders arrive with the details the shop needs.

The online store

The Online Store is a WooCommerce storefront. Items with choices, such as Salt Water Taffy, the Assortment of Fudges and the Sweet Shop Sampler Chocolate Box, are variable products with a price range and a Select options button, while a simple item like Souvenir Salt Water Taffy ($14.99) goes straight to the cart. WooCommerce extensions handle shipping calculations and local pickup, and because the store lives on the same network as the other sites, seasonal items and limited collections are updated from the same WordPress backend.

One note for accuracy: the Shop link in the Boardwalk menu goes to a separately hosted merchandise store that sits outside the WordPress network. The Sweet Shop store shown here is the one that runs on the network.

One WordPress multisite network, three brands

The Boardwalk, the Aquarium and the Sweet Shop each run as their own site on one WordPress multisite network. They share one installation, one plugin stack and one design system, so a theme update, a security patch or a performance fix rolls out across all three at once. Each site keeps a similar layout and structure, which keeps the brand consistent for visitors moving between them.

Each team still works in its own space. Admin Menu Editor and User Role Editor make sure people only see what they need, so Aquarium staff can manage showtimes and educational programs without ever touching Sweet Shop inventory, and the Sweet Shop team can manage products, shipping and custom orders without sorting through content about rides or events. Everyone still works from one shared admin.

We also designed the network to grow. When Jenkinson's needs a new site for a new attraction, a seasonal campaign or a new sub brand, NS Cloner spins one up from the same proven foundation, with the same plugins, design system and workflows already in place. MainWP and All-in-One WP Migration help manage changes across the sites, which matters most in summer, when promotions launch and schedules shift quickly.

Built to stay secure and fast

Every site on the Jenkinson's network shares the same plugin stack, caching rules and accessibility improvements. iThemes Security Pro, Performance Lab and The SEO Framework protect and tune the whole platform at once, which keeps page speed, SEO structure and the mobile experience consistent for visitors who are often checking hours and prices on a phone at the beach.

Need the same for your site? We offer security audits, hardening, updates tested before they go live, scheduled offsite backups with restore tests, uptime, malware and change monitoring, and managed WordPress hosting. See WordPress security and hosting

The results

Jenkinson's now runs three distinct brands, a boardwalk, an aquarium and a candy shop, from one WordPress platform. Visitors get fast, familiar sites with the hours, prices, events, maps and online booking they need, often from a phone on the boardwalk. Each team manages its own content, and the whole network gets updates, fixes and new sites without duplicate work.

Project leadership by Brian Messenlehner.

Related reading

• Custom WordPress development services
• How we plan a WordPress migration
• More WordPress and mobile app projects