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Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Santa Cruz, CA Weather: Upper 60s, sunny Crowds: Heavy Lines: Light to Moderate If there’s a guiding set of principles I have to help ensure a pleasant amusement park visit, it’s avoid the avoid the summer, avoid holiday weekends, and get there early. What follows, as I can only imagine, is a rare exception where all these rules have been violated, and a fun time is still managed to be had. Actually, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk somehow manages to almost always handle crowds well. A packed boardwalk doesn’t necessarily been excessive wait times, and I suspect the variety that the place has to offer has a hand in that. What it lacks in extreme thrill rides is made up for by a nice assortment of rides, many rare or one-of-a-kind, and a host of other activities that keep the swarm of summer tourists well occupied for the better part of a day’s visit. It’s almost funny how this little seaside park is, by far, our most visited. Granted, a handful of trips include barely more than a visit to the Giant Dipper and some mini golf - as was the case with a recent ACE event visit just three weeks prior, though the hour of ERT on the Dipper did net us 13 consecutive rides. But this would be one of those rare visits where we would spring for the all-inclusive wristbands, thanks mostly to the accompaniment of the in-laws, who were making their first visit to the park in what was vaguely reported as "ages". Quick stops to meet up to carpool and for breakfast had us heading out of San Jose and over the hill to Santa Cruz a bit before 11am. We all had been up a little on the late side the night before and no one was in the mood to push it, despite what it may have meant for the beach traffic. Luckily there were just a couple slow spots and we made it into one of the lots across the street from the park with surprisingly little trouble. The park is essentially on an east-west line, with the vast majority of flat rides on the east end, the Giant Dipper smack in the middle, and the arcades and mini-golf areas on the west side. Since that’s where we wanted to end up towards the end of the visit, we started down the other way, and would work our way along. Under the Dipper and into the park, we bought our wristbands at a nearby ticket booth. At $30 per person, it’s not exactly a steal, but considering that individual ride prices (remember, there’s no admission to the park itself) are $4 or $5 each for pretty much anything any adult would want to ride, it’s an easy call to go all-inclusive. With some vague strategy in mind to help avoid waits, we started at the beloved Cave Train Adventure, and saw only about a train’s worth of people queued up ahead of us. We lucked out getting the last two rows on the train and enjoyed the uber-cheesy but classic dark ride - the only one in the park without a "haunted" theme. Set expectations lower than Disney for sure, but anyone keeping an open mind will likely enjoy it. The first spooky attraction was up next, after the group balked at the gas-powered bumper cars. Ghost Blaster is your typical Sally interactive dark ride. The interaction comes in the form of shooting targets amid all the ghoulish mayhem. Again, not the most amazing level of detail - 2D cutouts abound - but you definitely get your fill of typical gags as well as target practice. For the record, Megan came out on top in the score department, though we didn’t ride together. What SCBB really prides itself on is flat rides, specifically a great collection of those that will send your stomach and inner ear for a loop, sometimes quite literally. We climbed back up to the boardwalk level and got on Tornado, a teacup-esque ride experience where man-power spins individual vehicles while the entire ride itself is spinning. There was some major multiplier effect as we stumbled off and headed directly across to the classic Round Up. The motion here is a pre-determined, but whatever dial that controls the intensity is clearly set to high. You’ve been warned. Another carnival mainstay is the Tsunami, a Himalaya instance that provides the desired lateral forces perfect to break the ice on a first date, though the reverse action was noticeably lacking from our ride. Next was the Rock-o-Plane, a ride as ancient as it sounds. Think Ferris Wheel where you can control whether or not your car pivots freely. Basically, if you don’t want gravity to keep you in the natural upright position, you’ve got a lever at your control to spin and flip as desired. It’s easy to get the hang of the control in one ride, and can be perfected over many repeat visits. In a jump back to something less nauseating, Logger’s Revenge offers a nice, if short, high altitude log ride above the park before its signature plunge. The line moved quite briskly, a bit of a pleasant surprise. Usually, short lines at the park exist despite having less than the speediest teenage attendants, though usually none are found to be as surly as your average Six Flags employee. All four of us fit snugly into a single log, and after we were up the lift, the ride was more of a toboggan run than a floating journey as we scraped along the bottom. With four adults, it’s not much of a surprise to get a big splash, and we weren’t disappointed, but fortunately neither were we excessively drenched either. In fact, the cloudless sky meant we’d dry up in a matter of minutes, though my biggest mistake of the day was not wearing shorts. Lunch was up next, it being a bit after 1pm. Healthy options are hard to find, and none of us seemed to be willing to hunt them down. Instead we went for the more appropriate fare of nachos and chili dogs and fries. Without of a moment of hesitation, we joined the queue for the Tilt-a-Whirl and had about two cycles to digest. Here we saw something disturbing - two women taking a baby on the ride with them. I realize there’s no official height limit, but you’d think these people would use some better judgment. By the way, I’m talking baby, six months maybe, and most certainly shy of a year old. How the kid stayed upright and in the ride vehicle was a mystery, though the women seemed to have to rearrange his position almost every time around. Fortunately the cycle ended without incident, and we got our ride, all reasonably aged of course. I think we may have been over-weighted in the past, with just Megan and me in a car, we had the kind of ride you would hope for - almost non-stop spinning. The Sea Swings were up next as we made our way down the midway, and we found just another cycle wait. Great views of both the midway and the beach on this one. We queued up for Fireball, a spinning pendulum-style ride, and were facing what was easily the longest wait of the day so far. After one cycle, there was a breakdown, so we were sort of spared. Consolation was the highlight of the park, the Giant Dipper. This ride could not offer any more of an old-timey experience - the smell of the grease, the seaside views, the curved station and hand brakes. Fortunately both trains were running, so a wait just outside the building wasn’t much more than 5 minutes. We settled in the second from last car and enjoyed our first coaster ride of the day and even the notable first ever Giant Dipper ride for one person in our party. Luck would have it that Fireball was coming back online right as we exited, and the queue was almost completely empty. After just one cycle, we got our ride. I like to say it looks more insane than it actually is, though it’s still a bit of a crazy ride experience. It’s mostly airtime and smooth spinning, and not at all intimidating if you don’t think about how you’re careening through the air. Heading to the Haunted Castle, we found it experiencing technical difficulties. The prognosis was some 30 to 60 minutes more of down time, so we’d be back before too long. Continuing westward, we found the Carousel with a line extending out of the tiny queue. With about 40 horses, there is plenty of capacity to churn through the crowds, but most folks, including us, are only interested in the outside seats, which provide a chance to reach for the fabled brass ring. The rings aren’t brass anymore (I’m not really sure if they ever were) but they’re still in operation, giving riders an opportunity to grab one and attempt to toss it into the nearby clown’s mouth with every revolution. There’s no reward beyond some lights and noise, but most of your satisfaction will come from knowing this exceedingly rare enhancement has been offered to generations of riders before you. The history of this place is no better epitomized than on their 100 year old Looff Carousel. I eyed the Hurricane leerily, a painful and all-around unpleasant compact coaster up on the second level of the boardwalk. The group smartly heeded my warnings, as a couple of us took a spin on the bumper cars instead. The one way only route removed a good portion of the wonderful violence this ride can offer, but we still had a chance to really pummel some unsuspecting kids. Back over to the Haunted Castle, we hit it at the peak, and the extra temporary queuing was a sign that we’d be in for a long, long wait. Combining high popularity with low capacity is dangerous on any day, and finally the holiday weekend crowd seemed to have all queued up ahead of us. In reality, the line grew behind us very quickly as even more temporary chains were set up to handle the expanding crowd. Even a wait inside the building is a solid 20-plus minutes, and it took us that long to just get to that point. The Omni-mover system (found at Disney’s Haunted Mansions) this is not. Individual cars carry (up to) four people at a time, and are surprisingly tedious to load and unload, somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two per minute. Couple that with a disturbing trend of only two people taking up an entire car, and you can understand how the line absolutely crawled. I understand that people might want (or not want) a front row, but for the sake of even the most basic level of efficiency, they simply have to group twosomes together. Loading three out of a possible foursome is bad enough, but what they were doing was literally cutting the capacity in half. During the 40 minutes or so, I knew the ride wouldn’t live up to the wait. It’s fun and quirky beyond even the realm the Cave Train reaches, but having been on this new incarnation more than a couple times now, I’m not keen on waiting much more than 10 minutes in the future. Having over-waited for something, we wanted to be able to cash in on the next ride right away. The last ride down the pier is the Pirate Ship, your standard amusement park fare, and we only had to wait a couple cycles before our ride. While waiting we eyed the Double Shot, but that queue looked like a slightly more tedious wait than we had patience for. Instead we settled for whipping back and forth with screaming kids for about 90 seconds. After the rides end, you will come upon Neptune’s Kingdom, a name that hearkens back to the site’s original function as a natatorium, the boardwalk’s very own indoor salt water swimming pool. Apparently they realized the redundancy of this in the early 1960s, and it was converted into the first incarnation of a miniature golf course. Now the area also offers a couple of arcades, as well as pool tables and full bar area upstairs. Our target was some putt putt, and this is a fun, highly themed course. It’s got a great pirate treatment, full of steam-puffing canons, animatronic seagulls, and plenty of simulated buccaneer mayhem. And at $5 or less per round, it’s a nice deal and one of the must-do activities anytime we’re in the area. My number of rounds has probably hit double digits, and I used this home course advantage to put up my best score yet, a nice one over par 41, including nailing the hole-in-one on the last whole, resulting in the customary free game. The bar has been set high for the next visit. Another tradition is visiting the boardwalk’s candy store, Marini’s, a little further down the boardwalk. Here, everything gummy, taffy, and chocolate-covered is for sale. I recommend the chocolate-covered bacon. Genius. It was hard not to spoil my appetite for dinner. Having experienced the great variety of activities for ourselves, we were headed back to the other end of the boardwalk before calling it a day. Of course we wouldn’t be passing the Dipper without a second ride, this time getting jostled ever so slightly more up towards the front. Out underneath the Dipper we were off to dinner, headed to The Crepe Place, just east of downtown - one of Santa Cruz’s many, many weird and wonderful eateries. Definitely check this place out if you can. After a nice long meal, we made the trip back home smoothly and got in right around 9pm. It had been a long day, but a lot of fun. So there you have it; we dared to brave a holiday weekend in the summer, and lived to tell the tale. Actually, we hardly suffered any ill effects of this somewhat impulsive outing. The crowds were definitely dense on the midway, but excepting the Haunted Castle, we had no issues with waits or, amazingly, even with traffic. I wouldn’t say I’ve opened my mind to the idea of making more amusement park visits in the peak season. Instead I’m merely reminded of what a special place the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is. It may be a small and quirky place, but it’s right at home in Santa Cruz, and I’ll certainly take a visit here over either of the local chain theme parks in the area. Back to Trip Reports
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