Winter Visit to the 'Walk

You find yourself in an odd, yet pleasant place. You pick up a plethora of different, pleasing sensations: The smells of oceanic brine, track grease, the smoky scent of grilled food, garlic fries, funnel cakes, and the list goes on. The seaside weather has a mood, and can change from clear blue skies to overcast to even raining in as little as a day. The most noticeable aspect of this place to you would be that there are various recreational activities for you to do, everything from an eclectic assortment of amusement park rides to an arcade filled with fun games to play, the old seamlessly blended in with the new…

…and it is all set on a Northern Californian beach right next to the great Pacific Ocean.

This place is none other than Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Opened in 1907, this oceanfront amusement park is currently one of the few remaining examples of its kind, and is still going strong today. The Boardwalk has been ranked multiple times as the #1 seaside amusement park in the world by Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards, and it isn’t hard to see why. With great rides, great food, fun games, and a beautiful setting, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is one of the top attractions on the California coast.

 

Without further ado, let’s dive right in and check out what the Boardwalk has to offer. First, we have the Boardwalk’s most recent addition to its ride collection, Undertow. This new for 2013 Maurer Söhne spinning coaster replaces Hurricane, a steel coaster of similar caliber that operated from 1992 to 2012 and got relocated to Western Playland in New Mexico this past year.

Undertow is one of the newest variations of Maurer Söhne’s “Xtended SC 2000” off-the-shelf model of spinning coasters. It has almost exactly the same layout as other SC 2000s, but the track and supports are slightly modified from previous variations of the same model. Some of the turns have slightly smoother profiling as to avoid painful jolts and increase reridability, and the footprint dimensions are also a little different.

 Undertow was scheduled to open this past summer supposedly right around 4th of July, but got delayed for months due to some teething problems with construction. In layman’s terms, Maurer Söhne delivered the parts in a weird order, say you get delivered the chain and handlebars of a bicycle before the frame and the wheels. Further complications came up when the track didn’t fit together, supposedly a mistake made in the Maurer Söhne factory. This forced the Boardwalk to get a local contractor to literally bend the track into place. Testing then began in early fall, and the ride finally soft opened on October 19th, 2013. A grand opening ceremony will be held for the ride in spring 2014.

This was the list of operating rides during my visit on December 27th, 2013. The Boardwalk selects certain rides to operate on limited operation days, with Undertow operating on all limited ops days not only so the public can ride it, but also so kinks can be worked out before the busy summer.

On to the ride itself, Undertow delivers a different ride experience every time due to the cars’ ability to spin freely as they go. The ride has a mixture of drops, twists, and turns that’ll feel different with every ride! The cars track smoothly, making it very reridable. Lastly, just like almost every other ride at the Boardwalk, operations are very efficient. I recorded dispatch times of as low as 24 seconds on my visit, which is well above average for a coaster running single car trains. I never waited more than 15 minutes on my visit, which had a fair amount of crowds for being a limited op day. Combine the efficient operations with the kinks getting worked out, and this ride will be in prime shape for its first summer.

This is the first, lower section of Undertow’s queue.
Switchbacks will most likely be set up here for the summer.

Undertow’s lift hill design is interesting in that the chain is detached at the bottom.
This can be found on other Maurer spinners and some Wild Mouse coasters.

This is angle of the ride, seen from the lower part of the queue,
makes it look as though the car is rolling on the station’s roof.

Located on the final brake run, this device locks the cars
back into a straight forward/backward position.

We now move on to some of the other Boardwalk attractions, starting with the most famous of them: the Giant Dipper. In brief, the story of this wooden roller coaster is that the Boardwalk had an LA Thomson scenic railway, but it wasn’t thrilling enough. They called up legendary (for the time, and still now) coaster designers Tom Prior and Frederick Church (Prior & Church, or just P&C) to design a thrilling new ride that would be taller, faster, and crazier than the scenic railway. Arthur Looff (son of Charles Looff, who made the Boardwalk’s carousel in 1911) supervised the construction of the woodie, which sprang up in just 47 days and cost a mere $50000, something a park can only dream about today! Giant Dipper opened on May 17th, 1924, and has been thrilling riders ever since. The ride is meticulously maintained and runs smooth all the time. Not only that, but the ride itself still packs a punch with some good airtime and almost unparalleled laterals. Operations are very efficient on the Dipper, with the 6-car trains getting dispatch times of almost always under a minute. This is an absolute must-ride when visiting the Boardwalk!

Giant Dipper is currently one of very few wooden coasters
that still use the old skid brake system.

The coaster has recently received a complete, fresh coat of paint,
and its unmistakable red and white structure is now more vibrant than ever.

These question bubbles were also recently added as part of the repainting project.

Everything from the structure, to the station, to even these
handrails received some TLC this past year.

Giant Dipper hasn’t always been red and white. This photo here shows a green and white paint job, as well as Arrow trains. Giant Dipper opened with P&C’s single bench Century Flyer trains, then switched to Arrow in the 1970s, and then to Morgan in 1983. The Morgan trains are the ones currently running today.

The next set of pictures will cover some more Boardwalk attractions, enjoy!

This brand new Zamperla Happy Swing, Beach Swing, was opened this past summer. Kids love it!

Double Shot, built by S&S. This type of flat ride is fairly common, and the
“Double Shot” model specializes not in size, but in airtime.

And this here is Sea Swings. Chairswing rides are among the most common flat rides in existence.

Speedway here is a miniature version of the classic “whip” ride.
The cars whip around the corner and produce some nice laterals.

Haunted Castle is one of only three dark rides in Northern California, and the Boardwalk has all three of them.

This dark ride received an extensive makeover from well-known dark ride manufacturer Sally Corp in 2010. New spinning cars were installed, and an entirely new layout was built, all in the basement level of the Boardwalk.
Unfortunately, many effects were either broken or were badly timed on my recent visit,
indicating a need for a major rehab before the off-season ends.

This is Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s other famous attraction, the 1911 Charles Looff carousel.

This carousel is one of the last remaining to feature a ring dispenser.
The entire ring system is very expensive to maintain, but the Boardwalk (being VERY proud of its maintenance)
has taken good care of it and it continues to dispense rings to this day.

 Once you grab a ring from the dispenser, try to throw it into the clown’s mouth. A little warning: It’s not easy!

This is Laffing Sal, an animatronic figure made by PTC (Philadelphia Toboggan Company).
This one originally existed at Playland by the Beach in San Francisco.

 Beyond this sign is the eastern half of the Boardwalk, home to Logger’s Revenge (Arrow log flume) and some really awesome flat rides like Rock-o-Plane (Lee Eyerly), Wipeout (HUSS Breakdance 4), and Crazy Surf (KMG X-Factory). All of these rides are closed during limited op for winter maintenance rehabs.

And that wraps up the first Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk update here on Thrills by the Bay, thanks for reading! Be sure to follow Thrills by the Bay a like on Facebook for more updates!

Superman Woes continue, general hiccups...

 

Thrills by the Bay (Formerly CGA Insider) just came back from Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and regret to report that after a month of the newly installed seat belts on Superman Ultimate Flight, the woes continue. It's not looking good when it comes to being efficient. We saw what happened to be one of the longest dispatch times we've recorded and was happening several times. One of the times we logged included a record-breaking 2:15 from unload to dispatch. We have heard dispatch times upwards to 3:30 with an average of 2:30. This is really unacceptable considering most other rides average under 2 minutes. Why is it taking so long?

Dispatch times like these are much longer than
the rest of the rides in the park! With only 12
passengers, times should be much quicker.

Prior to boarding, ride operators were providing detailed instructions for guests before even opening the air gates. As you know, riders are instructed to get seated and put the seatbelts on and leave it at that. A ride operator will come by shortly and pull your lapbar down for you. This is to insure that the belt is buckled. What made this set of instructions take much longer to get through was the idea of guest interaction. Normally We're all for park associates interacting with the guests but when it comes to getting a long queue of riders onto the ride, we feel that there needs to be some kind of stop. Much of the interaction involved having us raise our hands if we heard and understood the ride operator. If not enough people responded, the question would be asked again, followed by having us repeat what was said. This alone took a minute to get through. Finally, when the air gates opened, the rest of the process took just over a minute. We worry what it will be like during the park's peak season, especially if things like this continue.

Later in the evening, the "instructions" weren't being given over the PA like earlier in the day, but instead had a grouper at station building/turnstile giving instructions (which is much more efficient).  Unfortunately, in a line that we had waited 30 minutes for previous weekend doubled this past weekend. Line was approximately the same length. Again, we worry about the park's peak season, and worry even more with Superman's sister coaster Full Throttle down at Six Flags Magic Mountain (where loose items are allowed in the station, also hindering dispatch times).

Other hiccups during the day included the lack of trams at the end of the day, and rude security when guests all had to walk to the parking lot. Several guests were walking along the tram route as it was far too clustered walking in the sidewalk-width pathway. Many figured that since the trams aren't running that they should be fine walking in the wider, dormant path freeing up congestion.

SFDK Park Update - Superman and Tsunami Soaker

First off who would have thought of riding roller coasters in December? These were our thoughts when visiting Six Flags Discovery Kingdom's Holiday in the Park this weekend. It's been about 3 weeks since our last visit, when Superman Ultimate Flight first received its additional seatbelts. Let's take a look at how things are going.

Add caption

A queue like this took just over 30 minutes to get through.

It was noted that dispatch times were hindered. We had hoped that this was only to be a "learning curve" for the Superman crew, only to be left disappointed. While waiting in line, we clocked times between launches and saw as quick as 1:24, to as long as 1:47. The average dispatch time is now 1:37. While this may not seem bad, Superman Ultimate Flight only seats 12 riders - not being the highest capacity attraction in the world. Doing some math here with the average dispatch time, we've figured out that with the current dispatch times, Superman has a capacity of 288 people/hour. Previously, it's theoretical capacity was around 480 people/hour. Losing about 200 riders/hour seems to be like a pretty big drop, meaning longer wait times and less chances to go back and re-ride it.

And we are finally off to ride!

On the better side of things, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom revealed the location of where the new Tsunami Soaker will be going. Some early preparations are already underway. Mean time, we are still a bit puzzled as to how it's going to fit in this location without clustering up the area.

Something seems to be missing from here. Anyone remember the flat ride
Wave Jumper? It was much like Disney's Dumbo ride.

The ride has been completely removed.

Last but not least, let's take a look at a handful of photos from around the park during Holiday in the Park!

While Sky Screamer looks like this year round, it compliments the
Christmas lights rather well during the evening!

Blitzen's Snow Hill - Man made snow hill to go sledding down.