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Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Santa Cruz, CA Weather: Mostly sunny, upper 60s, windy Crowds: Moderate Lines: Light After giving ourselves a full week of recovery from an action-packed visit to Disneyland (and giving myself the same amount of time to recover from writing the trip report), it was time again to take advantage of the light post-summer, pre-Halloween amusement park lull. A lull for the public, obviously, but not for us. This visit came a week after Disneyland purely by chance, as it was actually arranged by my employer. The IBM Club provides a myriad of benefits and activities, including annual sports leagues, discount entertainment tickets, and all sorts of events and outings. This event was Family Day at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and it was a throwback to some of my first amusement park experiences. In what I assure you is entirely a coincidence, my father worked at IBM for most of my formative years. They, too, had an annual Family Day, for a while anyway. It involved renting out the local fairgrounds and setting up rides, games, and food vendors - all completely free to local IBM workers and their families. As a grade school child, this was probably on par with Christmas as far as annual anticipation and enjoyment went. Of course, this event, and this sort of corporate sponsorship wouldn’t last. Regardless, the experiences I had during these events are some of the earliest and largest positive associations I have with amusement parks. Of course visits to Disney World before and after, and plenty of local, permanent amusement parks took it to these clearly ridiculous heights, but this got me off to a very good start. Business has changed, and while we now had to pay our way for this event, it was still a terrific deal, and something I didn’t want to miss. Our past view visits to the boardwalk have been more as passers-by and less as guests. One great thing about the place is you don’t have to make much, if any, of a commitment. All-inclusive wristbands are offered (for $30 a pop), but they make it very easy to buy a sheet of individual ride tickets. After a couple visits like this, I have a drawer full of tickets, and most recently we’d only give the Giant Dipper and maybe one or two other highlights a ride. At $3-$5 per ride, it’s no big deal to enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds while spending a couple bucks for a ride or two. It’s really great to be able to come to this place and enjoy yourself without feeling any pressure to get in as much as you can. So great, in fact, that it’s been a good long while since we signed up for the all-you-can-ride style of admission. Technically, even our visit a couple years back for a "1907 Night" that found us hitting almost everything was with discounted (i.e., 75 cent) rides, not the wristband. But for a mere $23 per person, this great event would include 2 hours of exclusive arcade time before the rides even opened, a full day of rides during the boardwalk’s 11am-7pm operating hours, and beachside lunch and drinks on the Sun Deck. How could we say no to that? The arcade time started at 9am, but even with trying to get ahead of traffic, we weren’t looking to get up all that early on a Sunday. We hit the road right at 9am, and avoiding traffic completely, pulled into the parking lot across from the boardwalk around 9:45am. Even the parking came with a discount as part of our package, so that was another $5 saved. I was thinking we’d have the upstairs lounge of the casino to ourselves, but we actually had the entire arcade next door. It was like a flashback to those awesome birthdays where some lucky kid’s parents rented out the entire place for an hour, minus the party hats and cake, of course. I’m not a huge gamer, but it was fun to make the rounds hitting some familiar and some not-so-familiar names. Of course there were the standards, pinball machines, air hockey, plenty of racing games. We hit a couple classics like StreetFigher and Simpsons, and some actual classics like Donkey Kong and Frogger. It was definitely a lot of fun, and even though we got there a bit late, we had our fill - having probably run through $80 or $90 of arcade action. Just before the clock stuck 11am, we strolled out to get some rides in before lunch, which ran from 12pm-1:30pm. With the whole place open to us like it hadn’t been in a long time, we would certainly take advantage, but with predictable afternoon crowds likely to grow, there was still a wee bit of strategy. Case in point, the newly refurbished Haunted Castle would definitely be our first stop. We did get to ride earlier in the summer, so it wasn’t our first time, though we were hoping to avoid another breakdown and have things go more smoothly. They certainly did, and we were the 4th or 5th group on the ride once it opened for the day. It was something of a consolation considering we missed out on Haunted Mansion the weekend before, but the similarities are all but non-existent. The ride vehicles do have a hint of Doom Buggies to them, but they are inexplicably individually-driven units. The ride starts with the cars making a 180 degree turn, facing the loading area, and then heading backwards, downhill into the action. The are a large number of different scenes, a portrait gallery, various rooms of the castle, the kitchen (filled with evil-looking rats, natch), a banquet hall, and a rather sprawling forest or swamp area. I’m somewhat confused about this part, because it seems something like a brackish forest, and (spoiler!) the Swamp Thing makes an appearance. There’s also an encounter with a guillotine, so, you know...heads up. If you couldn’t tell by my derision, the ride is absolutely ridiculous. The scenes are entirely over the top, the effects are usually pretty lame, if not downright embarrassing. It’s not scary at all, and in fact it’s actually kind of funny. There’s no easily discerned narrative, though I’m not sure how much it would even help the cartoonishly absurd settings. All that said, this is a must-ride. It may be too new to have any classic charm, and it may take it self a little too seriously, but knowing what to expect going in, it’s hard to not want to see it for yourself. And really, there’s a lot going on, so you can’t expect to catch all the outlandishness without riding a good number of times. The old-school charm of this place really hits you as you head to ride the Giant Dipper. Coaster parks may snicker at such an undersized thrill ride taking the position as the most noteworthy attraction at the park, but anyone with an appreciation for history and Americana wouldn’t ask for anything more. The ride, its placement, appearance and sounds, and the experience it offers are all so perfect. Everything about it screams old-timey, but it comes with a thrill that has stood up over the decades. Sure, things have changed, the unfortunate trains surely offer plenty of reliability for what they lack in authenticity (and comfort, to a fair amount). The signs above the queue highlight what a landmark this attraction was, and remains today for that matter. The curved station and hand brakes hearken back to a bygone era, and somehow modern insurance hasn’t yet necessitated station gates. Out of the station and directly into a pitch-black tunnel, the train dives underneath the boardwalk and approaches the lift with good speed, and remarkable smoothness. The view climbing the lift is just stunning - if you can’t appreciate the panorama of the boardwalk all around you, and the beach and Pacific Ocean just over your right shoulder, you don’t deserve to be riding. The drop offers a great rush and the course is a mix of classic twister moves, lots of laterals, some decent airtime, all with a terrific level of bite - manic for sure, but never outright rough. You’d be hard pressed to argue that any other ride out there more completely delivers what it’s meant to. Some coasters may have more thrills, or bigger stats, but this coaster IS this park, and lives up to that in such a timeless way. Crammed just next to the Giant Dipper’s exit is Fireball, a Chance Revolution - something akin to an inverted Frisbee. Imagine a Pirate Ship where your legs dangle free, the ship spins, and rocks back and forth, almost putting you upside-down. You’ll see this flat ride around, but this installation has a nice, long cycle, really gets some great height, and kicks it into another gear for the finale. I suspect it looks even more insane than it rides, but it’s still a ton of fun. Working our way down the boardwalk, we would leave no classic un-ridden. Things started promising on the Tilt-a-Whirl, but the final 90% of the ride was just a pathetic jostling back and forth with absolutely no whirling. I guess I probably shouldn’t blame it on the ride itself, but that was a letdown for sure. Heading down the stairs into the lower portion of the boardwalk, we found another classic that always delivers. The Cave Train Adventure is a hokey dark ride that, again, would embarrass anyone expecting Disney quality, but has so much charm that it has to been seen. Black lights and cheesy cave-people and dinosaur scenes abound, and it’s a slow crawl back in time. The animatronic characters are beyond rudimentary, but the whole thing is done so modestly, it’s hard to deny its appeal. Across the way are a couple more flat rides. We gave Space Race a shot - the supposed bumper cars of the future are more like land bumper boats, complete with tank style controls and loud gas motors. It might have been more fun if it wasn’t just the 5 or 6 of us on the ride, but even with a full crowd, there’s not much going here. I was stunned the ride operator was working without ear plugs, especially considering it’s all but indoors. Ghost Blasters is a Sally Dark ride akin to Buzz Lightyear that lets you shoot the place up and see who comes out on top. Everything about this ride is considerably simpler than its Disney cousins, the 2-person vehicles, the 2-dimensional scenes, even the scoring system. Sally does do an OK job with the scenes, and minus an annoying shooting sound heard every time the trigger is pulled, it’s not all that bad. The gun actually provides a laser point guide of where you’re aiming, so it may be a little less frustrating than Buzz. It’s hard to say it’s a little more than a short diversion, but at least the novelty hasn’t run out, yet. Back upstairs, we gave Tornado a ride - unique self-spinning cars (a la teacups) each suspended from a rotating center. With Megan aboard I didn’t want to go crazy, but I definitely found that the spinning here was much easier to maintain with less physical effort, so there’s that. Directly across the midway was Cyclone, an aged Round-Up style, stand up, spin and tilt carnival mainstay. Here I had no control over the spinning, and actually found it a little much for me, but for anyone looking for an intense flat ride, step right up. Not wanting to push our luck all that much before lunch, we headed back across the park to the Sun Deck for lunch. The fare was pretty standard, hot dogs, BBQ chicken, various salads, and a couple soda fountains. We enjoyed the unhealthy meal, caught up with some coworkers, and gave our inner ears a rest. Easing back into things, our first stop was the Pirate Ship. You can clearly tell we were taking advantage of our unlimited ride access, right? Next down the boardwalk was Double Shot, a fun, if relatively small S&S freefall tower. With a Space Shot style launch up, and a Turbo Drop style launch down, it gives a nice ride in addition to the terrific views. Heading upstairs, we gave the oft-skipped Hurricane roller coaster another chance. I’ve got this ranked so low on my coaster list it’s ridiculous. This is an S.D.C. creation, and if you’ve never heard of them, it’s probably a good thing. I realize there isn’t a ton of space to work with here, but for a ride so small to give such a miserable ride, it’s embarrassing. At its best moments, it’s unpleasant, and you’ll spend much of the ride bracing for the next maneuver to even call it boring. Some of the sudden dives and jarring helixes will really throw you around. I don’t know that I’ve ever said this before, but I don’t know that I’ll ever ride this coaster again. Just the thought of this ride being removed and being replaced by something half as torturous is more fun than riding. To help us recover, a serene ride on the Carousel was in order. This ride is chock-full of history, dating back to the early 1900s, and featuring two authentic Wurlitzer organs. Even more ridiculously ancient is the ring dispenser accessible to outside riders who want to grab a ring and aim for the clown’s mouth. It really feels like stepping back in time as the park says to heck with lawsuits and you say to heck with sprained fingers. It’s not really that dangerous, but it remains a phenomenally rare experience, and such a great way to add some excitement to the otherwise mundane motion offered by the ride. I’d never ridden with it functioning fully, so getting to grab a ring with each revolution was exciting, even if I never made the lucky shot. It was totally worth waiting an extra cycle for an outside horse, and this is easily another can’t-miss during your trip back in time. We gave Giant Dipper another ride as we passed by, though with larger crowd, one train operation, and a mysterious double ride while we were in line, the wait had ballooned. A great feature of this place is that lines usually remain quite reasonable despite heavy crowds on the admission-free boardwalk, but this place isn’t going to win any awards for the most efficient operations. Admittedly, their act is usually a little more together on this, their marquee attraction, but not so this time. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. Looking to get in more of the eclectic flat ride collection, we rode Rock and Roll, another high-speed rotating affair with rocking cars. It’s got all of the speed of a Himalaya, but none of the lateral G’s. We’d hit that similar version soon, but first was Seaswings. It’s your standard rotating swings ride, though after it lifts up and the seats spread out, a good portion of the rotation is actually taken over the beach, as it’s placed right on the edge of the boardwalk. Another trip into the past can be found when riding Rock-o-Plane. Imagine a Zipper, though with simpler rotation action, except you control whether spins and how much it flips. The engineering is pretty straightforward. There’s a bar that you can push to stop your car from spinning freely as the Ferris wheel-style ride rotates. If you don’t touch it at all, it will be a pretty boring Ferris wheel-style ride. If you push it the entire time, your car won’t spin at all, and you’ll flip with each rotation of the wheel. Anything in between will result in some disorienting action. The upside-down at the top maneuver is pretty easy, but I went right for being inverted at the bottom, which requires locking the car at the top and enduring the slow but forceful decent and inversion. Customize your ride as you see fit, but if you’re going to give it a go, you might as well try to mix it up. A ride on the actual Ferris Wheel would give me a chance to let the blood return to the rest of my body. This is about as small of a Ferris Wheel you’ll find, and the loading is about as slow as you’ll come, but the view is certainly nice, even if it was facing a closed Log Flume for our particular visit. Tsunami was up next, getting all those lateral Gs we missed out on with Rock and Roller. Having hit almost all of the adult rides, and pretty much everything we were interested in, we headed back down the boardwalk. We took the Sky Ride for our journey back, enduring an overeager teenage couple absolutely mauling each other in line just behind us. This isn’t your average sky buckets; it’s considerably more akin to a ski-lift, with legs dangling and cars not usually stopping for loading and unloading. I could have done without a few brief pauses during our ride, but the view is nice and it saved a little legwork on our way out. Back down the stairs, we gave another ride on Double Shot and were ready to call it a visit. But we couldn’t leave without a visit to a candy shop, and we enjoyed another treat from a bygone era, saltwater taffy. We briefly walked onto the sand as we sampled a few flavors, and headed for the car. We were on our way just after 3pm, and even with potentially having the run of the place for a few more hours, it was enough to know we’d be back before too long. I try not to take a place as extraordinary as the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for granted, and our multiple annual visits never leave us disappointed - even if our average visit finds us picking and choosing a couple of our favorites. 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