Planning a date in Long Beach? This coastal city is wonderfully romantic, home to authentic gondola rides through the Naples canals, beach sunsets, and a charming waterfront. This local guide covers Long Beach’s most romantic things to do, the best date-night neighborhoods and scenic spots, where to eat and drink, and unique and budget-friendly date ideas — plus what local couples actually recommend.

Romantic things to do in Long Beach

Take a gondola ride through the Naples Island canals — an authentic, serenaded romantic experience unique to Long Beach — watch the sunset from Bluff Park, and stroll the beach. Dinner in charming Belmont Shore and a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific round out a lovely date.

Best date-night neighborhoods & scenic spots in Long Beach

Belmont Shore (2nd Street) and Naples Island are the romantic date heart — walkable dining and the famous canals; Bluff Park and the beach offer sunset views; and downtown adds trendy spots. For how the areas compare, see our guide to the best neighborhoods in Long Beach.

Date-night dining & drinks in Long Beach

Long Beach has date-friendly waterfront and Belmont Shore restaurants, cozy cocktail bars, and diverse dining, plus the option to pair dinner with a canal gondola cruise for a memorable evening. See our guides to the best restaurants in Long Beach and best bars in Long Beach for more.

Unique & budget date ideas in Long Beach

For unique dates, book a Naples canal gondola cruise, watch the sunset from Bluff Park, or visit the aquarium. Budget ideas include free beach sunsets, strolling the Naples canals on foot, and Retro Row browsing.

What local couples in Long Beach recommend

The most romantic spots — the sunset view, the cozy wine bar, the hidden gem — are known best by locals who actually date here. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Long Beach community, real Long Beach couples share their favorite date ideas. For more, see our guide to the best things to do in Long Beach. Join your Long Beach neighbors free and get real local date recommendations →

Fitting it into a day in Long Beach

The best date spots trade on atmosphere, and the right neighborhood sets the tone. What sets Long Beach apart is how close everything sits together. Start near Belmont Shore, work in one of the spots from this guide, and you are minutes from Bluff Park if you want to keep going. Locals often round out a great date with a detour to the El Dorado Nature Center or a quieter stop at the Naples canals. Because the distances are short, you can improvise as you go rather than lock the whole day down in advance.

The one date idea Long Beach has that nowhere else does

Start here, because it is genuinely unusual. Gondola Getaway has operated on Naples Island since 1982 and describes itself as the oldest and largest fleet of gondolas in America. You ride through the canals between the houses, in the evening, with a gondolier. It is exactly as much of a cliché as it sounds and it works anyway.

The version worth knowing about: they run a pizza cruise in partnership with Domenico’s, which has been making pizza on Second Street since 1954 and bills itself as Long Beach’s oldest continuously operated restaurant. A 1954 pizzeria and a 1982 gondola fleet, on the canals, at the same time — that combination does not exist anywhere else in Southern California. Book ahead; these fill up, and they fill up months out in December.

Dinner-and-a-walk on Second Street

The most reliable ordinary date night in the city is Belmont Shore: park once, eat on Second Street, walk to the beach or over to the canals afterwards. The walk is the part that makes it work — a dinner that ends with fifteen minutes along a canal footpath is a materially better evening than a dinner that ends in a car park.

Three specific options on that street with long track records. Saint & Second at 4828 E. Second Street, on the corner of St. Joseph, has a rooftop bar above the restaurant — open-air upper-floor seating is rare on this street and it is the reason to book here rather than at ground level. Nick’s on 2nd at 4901 E. Second Street sits at the western end of the shopping blocks. And Domenico’s Belmont Shore at 5339 E. Second Street is the seventy-year-old option if you want the unfussy version.

Restaurant lists go stale fast, so check the Belmont Shore Business Association dining list for what is currently open before you plan around anything else.

Free, and better than most paid options

Walk the Naples canals at dusk. Free, open, footpaths behind the houses, and the best hour anywhere in the city. In December the canal-front homes light up and it becomes the single most popular free evening in Long Beach — beautiful and genuinely crowded.

Sunset from Bluff Park. The bluff above Ocean Boulevard, with the historic houses behind you and the water in front. Costs nothing and beats most rooftop bars.

Retro Row on Fourth Street on a weekend afternoon. Vintage shops, record stores, independent coffee, small bars. Lower-key and much less crowded than Second Street, and browsing together is an easy, low-pressure first date.

The shoreline path. Flat, long, on the water, and free. Good for a walk that can be as short or as long as the conversation warrants.

On the water without a gondola

The offshore breakwater keeps Long Beach water unusually flat, which is why paddling works here. Kayak and paddleboard rentals operate seasonally near the marina and on the Naples side, and flat water plus a short walk from parking makes this a realistic activity for someone who has never done it. It is a better second date than a first one, on the reasonable grounds that it involves getting wet.

The Long Beach Marina area also runs harbour cruises and seasonal whale-watching, which are worth checking if you want time on the water without any effort involved.

Rainy day and evening indoors

The Aquarium of the Pacific on the waterfront holds more than 12,000 animals across around 100 exhibits and is the reliable indoor option — worth checking current hours and pricing before you go, and worth avoiding on a summer weekend afternoon unless crowds are part of your idea of a good time. The Queen Mary is the other big ticketed attraction, permanently moored across the harbour, and it does a steady run of evening and seasonal events.

Second Street also has a cinema, which is an underrated component of the Belmont Shore evening: film, then dinner, then the walk.

Dates built around the calendar

Some of the best evenings here are date-specific. The Naples Island Boat Parade runs for its 78th edition in 2026, with decorated boats moving through the canals in the evening. The Cambodia Town Parade and Culture Festival on Saturday 4 April 2026 runs from 10am to 9pm along Anaheim Street. Long Beach Food Scene Week in late July and early August is the best-value week of the year to try somewhere new. Our Long Beach events guide has the full calendar with confirmed dates.

Picking, honestly

If you want to impress someone: the gondola, in the evening, booked ahead. If you want a relaxed evening that reliably works: Second Street dinner and a walk to the canals. If you have no budget: the canals at dusk, or Bluff Park at sunset, both of which are better than most things you could pay for. If it is raining: the aquarium.

What no guide can tell you is which places are actually good right now — what opened last month, where the two-hour wait is on a Saturday, which rooftop is worth it this season. That comes from people who are out in this city every week.

More Long Beach guides

Long Beach rewards people who dig a little deeper. These related guides map the same neighborhoods from different starting points: Best restaurants in Long Beach, Bars & nightlife in Long Beach, Things to do in Long Beach — enough to plan a whole day or two.

Get a local’s take

Guides are a starting point; the current, on-the-ground details come from people who live in Long Beach. Hours shift, favorites change, and residents always know what is genuinely worth it now. Ask Long Beach neighbors directly or join your town community free to hear from real locals.

The Signature Long Beach Date

Long Beach has one date idea that no other city in Southern California can offer, and it is worth leading with. The Gondola Getaway, operating since 1982, is the oldest and largest fleet of gondolas in America and was the first company to run Venetian-style gondola cruises in the United States. Its gondoliers train in Venice, and the standard outing is a one-hour private cruise through the Naples Island canals.

The practical details matter here: departures run 11:00am to 4:00pm from 5437 East Ocean Boulevard, and reservations are required with no walk-ups. People turn up hoping to hop on and cannot. Book ahead, take the latest slot available, and you get the canals as the light drops and the waterfront houses come on.

Free Dates That Do Not Feel Cheap

The Rivo Alto Canal walk around Naples Island is roughly one flat mile of public walkway looping the main island, crossing five Italianate bridges, with no gate and no ticket. It is the best free evening walk in the city, and the last hour before sunset is when to do it. Stop at The Colonnade Park and its fountain, La Bella Fontana di Napoli, halfway round.

Bluff Park gives 13 acres of ocean-view walking along Ocean Boulevard, elevated above the beach with telescopes. Shoreline Aquatic Park covers 37.6 acres of waterfront with its lighthouse and the best skyline-and-Queen-Mary view in Long Beach. Both are free, both work as a walk before or after dinner.

On the Water

Kayaks on the Water at 5411 East Ocean Boulevard rents kayaks and paddleboards daily 9:00am to 5:00pm, directly opposite Naples Island, with quick beginner lessons available. Paddling the canals yourself is a genuinely different experience from the gondola and costs a fraction as much. Alamitos Bay is sheltered by a sand spit and the breakwater, so it is forgiving even for a first-timer.

Whale watching runs from the harbour year round, and depending on season you may see blue whales, grey whales or dolphins. It is a longer commitment than an evening date but it makes an excellent daytime one.

Dinner, by Mood

Special occasion: Nick’s on 2nd at 4901 E 2nd Street, where reviewers reliably name the steaks and a butter cake dessert described as one of the best in the city. Book on a weekend.

Long-standing and characterful: Domenico’s Belmont Shore at 5339 E 2nd Street, open since 1954 and the oldest restaurant in Long Beach, at about 4.6 stars over 2,000-plus reviews, with a dining room under pergolas and string lights.

Something different: Ammatoli at 285 E 3rd Street for Levantine Mediterranean, or a Cambodian meal along Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero, which is food you genuinely cannot get in most American cities.

Low-key: Simmzy’s on 2nd Street for craft beer and woodfired pizza, or the beer gardens of Bixby Knolls, the district locals call “Brewery Knolls” for having the highest concentration of breweries in the city.

Drinks after: The Stave at Broadway and The Promenade for whisky, The Blind Donkey downtown for cocktails, or the island bar at Nick’s. See bars in Long Beach.

Dates by Season

Summer: an early kayak before the bay gets busy, then a late dinner once the meters stop at 7:00pm and parking eases. Autumn: the best months in the city, with the crowds gone and the weather holding; this is canal-walk-and-dinner season. December: the standout. The Naples Island canal lights run through the month, with homes going as far as audio and animatronics, and the Christmas Boat Parade lighting the canals mid-to-late month, free to watch from Bay Shore Avenue or the 2nd Street and Appian Way bridges. The Belmont Shore Christmas Parade on the first Saturday of December adds a second free evening.

Rainy day: The Art Theatre on Retro Row, the oldest operating single-screen cinema in Long Beach, opened 1924, then browse the vintage shops on 4th Street between Cherry and Junipero. See things to do in Long Beach and free things to do in Long Beach.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most romantic things to do in Long Beach?

Take a gondola ride through the Naples Island canals, watch the sunset from Bluff Park, stroll Belmont Shore, and visit the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Where should couples go on a date in Long Beach?

Belmont Shore and Naples Island for walkable dining and the romantic canals, and Bluff Park for beach sunsets.

What do local couples recommend in Long Beach?

Long Beach couples share their favorite date ideas — from Naples gondola cruises to beach sunsets — in our community.