What is there for a young family to do? We want to go to a beach, and right now the airfare is more than we'd like to pay, so Cape May is a 7hr drive from us, and we saw a few things online about it, is it nice? whats there to do? would it be better to stay on the cape or 45min away in Philadelphia?
anyone have any suggestions?? tips?

We like to go to the zoo there every year. It is run by donation so we pay $5 or $10. There is also a nice park for the kids to play at right outside of the zoo area.

we've gone there for the past 2 years and stayed 1 block off the beach (invited to stay w/our friends or we would not be affording that place lol) and right up the road a ways, not to far, is ocean city, nj. both are pretty family friendly beaches, i think ocean city is a dry beach still. ocean city nj we go for day trips (about 2 1/2 hrs from us) w/family.
we enjoy going to both for different reasons. ocean city beach has the boardwalk w/amusement park on one end if your kids would be into that. we always rent a surrey and ride in the am and way early we love to go to the beach before they run the combers or whatever they call them and look for shells and whatever other goodies we find.
cape may i personally find more relaxing, but that could be because we go more towards the end of season. but where we stay is right near the one lighthouse and the kids always love to climb to the top and experience the rush of wind at the top plus it has an awesome view. there is always tons of beach play, the early shell finding, last year someone told us to go down the beach and visit diamond beach and the kids loved looking at all the tiny different colored stones that are there. they each collected some and put them in baby food jars and still have them. also there is the bike riding you can do, a bird sanctuary, the zoo as someone else mentioned, you could take a ferry ride if you liked and i am sure there are tons more things you can find to do as well.
but both are relatively close and depending on how long you are planning on staying you could do different things and experience both ;)
hope that helps some!

are there motels/hotels that dont cost an arm/leg lol?? we'd be going the first full week of august if we choose to vacation there. Probably for 4/5 days or so. We like the boardwalk atmosphere and the cape may part seems nice for relaxing. If there isn't anything under $100 a night around the beach what is the closest town/city not more than 45min away to stay and just drive to the beach?? How warm does the water get in August?? We've been to Va Beach at the end of Aug and while it was warm it was still cool, is NJ waters gonna be cold cold?? lol..

we've gone there for the past 2 years and stayed 1 block off the beach (invited to stay w/our friends or we would not be affording that place lol) and right up the road a ways, not to far, is ocean city, nj. both are pretty family friendly beaches, i think ocean city is a dry beach still. ocean city nj we go for day trips (about 2 1/2 hrs from us) w/family.
we enjoy going to both for different reasons. ocean city beach has the boardwalk w/amusement park on one end if your kids would be into that. we always rent a surrey and ride in the am and way early we love to go to the beach before they run the combers or whatever they call them and look for shells and whatever other goodies we find.
cape may i personally find more relaxing, but that could be because we go more towards the end of season. but where we stay is right near the one lighthouse and the kids always love to climb to the top and experience the rush of wind at the top plus it has an awesome view. there is always tons of beach play, the early shell finding, last year someone told us to go down the beach and visit diamond beach and the kids loved looking at all the tiny different colored stones that are there. they each collected some and put them in baby food jars and still have them. also there is the bike riding you can do, a bird sanctuary, the zoo as someone else mentioned, you could take a ferry ride if you liked and i am sure there are tons more things you can find to do as well.
but both are relatively close and depending on how long you are planning on staying you could do different things and experience both ;)
hope that helps some!