The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is an oceanfront amusement park in

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a po ...

. Founded in 1907, it is

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

's oldest surviving amusement park and one of the few seaside parks on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

Description

The boardwalk extends along the coast of the

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by ...

, from just east of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf to the mouth of the

San Lorenzo River The San Lorenzo River is a long river whose headwaters originate in Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains and flow south by southeast through the San Lorenzo Valley before passing through Santa Cruz and emptying into Monterey Ba ...

. At the western edge of the park lies a large building originally known as The Plunge, now Neptune's Kingdom, a pirate-themed recreation center which contains a

video arcade An amusement arcade (often referred to as a video arcade, amusements or simply arcade) is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such a ...

and an indoor miniature golf course. Next to this is the Casino Fun Center which includes a

laser tag Laser tag is a recreational shooting sport where participants use infrared-emitting light guns to tag designated targets. Infrared-sensitive signaling devices are commonly worn by each player to register hits and are sometimes integrated w ...

arena and next to that is the Cocoanut Grove banquet room and conference center. A

Laffing Sal Laffing Sal is one of several animatronic characters that were built primarily to attract carnival and amusement park patrons to funhouses and dark rides throughout the United States. Its movements were accompanied by a raucous laugh that somet ...

automated character, from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

's Playland, is viewable near the miniature golf course. Santa Cruz Main Beach and Bordwalk

East of the casino, the

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of brid ...

portion of the park stretches along a wide, sandy Main

Beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

visitors can access easily from the park. The eastern end of the boardwalk is dominated by the

Giant Dipper The Giant Dipper is a historic wooden roller coaster located at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, an amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. The Giant Dipper, which replaced the Thompson's Scenic Railway, took 47 days to build and opened on May 1 ...

, a

wooden roller coaster A wooden roller coaster is a type of roller coaster classified by its wooden track, which consists of running rails made of flat steel strips mounted on laminated wood. The support structure is also typically made of wood, but may also ...

that is one of the most visible landmarks in Santa Cruz. The Dipper and the

Looff Carousel Looff Carousels are carousels built by Charles I. D. Looff (1852 - 1918) a master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides in America. Looff, whose factory was based in Riverside, Rhode Island, is credited with making abou ...

, which still contains its original 342-pipe organ built in 1894, are both on the US

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. They were, together, declared to be a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1987 and the park is

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meeting at least one of ...

number 983. There are old-fashioned carnival games and snack booths throughout the park. It is located at 400 Beach Street in Santa Cruz, south of the Ocean Street exit of California State Route 1, which is the southern terminus of

California State Route 17 State Route 17 (SR 17, locally known as Highway 17) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from State Route 1 in Santa Cruz to I-280 and I-880 in San Jose. SR 17, a freeway and expressway, carries substantial ...

History

Fred W. Swanton formed the Santa Cruz Beach, Cottage, and Tent City Corporation in 1903 and the following year, the City of Santa Cruz granted permission for commercial buildings to be built. On 14 June 1904, the Neptune Casino opened with an arcade, grill and dining room, and a theater. The beach was a destination for railroads and trolleys from 1875. From 1927 to 1959, Southern Pacific Railroad ran ''Suntan Special'' excursion trains to the beach from San Francisco, Oakland, California, Oakland, and San Jose, California, San Jose every summer Sunday and holiday. A short passenger service to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park was restored in 1985. The Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway stops in front of the park. , the park is headed by Charles Canfield, the son of Laurence Canfield, the president of the park from the 1950s until the early 1980s. It has won the Best Seaside Amusement Park Award from ''Amusement Today'' every year since 2007 except for 2015. Although there is no admission and the beach is public, parking is charged a fee when the rides are open. Season or day passes can be purchased or tickets for $1; each ride costs between 3 and 7 tickets. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the park shut down in mid-March 2020. The park reopened on November 7, 2020. The park then subsequently shut down on November 10, 2020, due to Santa Cruz County re-entering the Substantial tier of the California Blueprint for a Safer Economy. The park then re-opened select rides to California residents on April 1, 2021.

Boardwalk's Cocoanut Grove

The Boardwalk's Cocoanut Grove conference center includes banquet rooms and a performing arts venue. Food, drink, and theater were profitable aspects of the resort since the Casa del Rey Hotel#Casino, original Casino of Swanton in 1904. Although gambling was never legal, it was generally known that guests could take boats from the "pleasure pier" to a ship in the harbor to play games of chance in the early days. During Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition from 1920 to 1933, serving alcoholic drinks was also outlawed and the casino changed its name to Cocoanut Grove. The name includes an old spelling of Coconut, ''Cocos nucifera'', which was used in the popular Marx Brothers movie ''The Cocoanuts'' of 1929. The name was also used by a number of popular nightclubs of the era, including one in Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles), The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. In the 1930s and 1940s, Cocoanut Grove was a popular spot for major big band acts, including Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and Tommy Dorsey. Today, Cocoanut Grove rarely hosts musical acts. It is a venue for weddings, banquets, school formal occasions and reunions, and corporate events. The Grand Ballroom and Sun Room complexes include over of space and commercial kitchens.

Rides

Current roller coasters

Thrill rides

Family rides

Kiddie rides

Former rides

*Hurricane (replaced by Undertow) *Videostorm (replaced by Tsunami) *Whirlwind *Chaos *Paratrooper *Wave Jammer (opened 1986, replaced by Rock & Roll) *Bermuda Triangle (Scrambler) *Spider *Spin Out (Tea Cups) *Artic Flyer (opened 1973, replaced by Videostorm) *Wild Mouse (closed 1975, replaced by Logger's Revenge) *Crazy Surf (KMG X-Factory), Sold to UK showman Joseph Manning in October 2018, converted from park to travelling model by Eagle Fabrications.

References

External links

*
Cocoanut Grove Official site
* {{Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, San Francisco Bay Area amusement parks Seaside resorts in California 1907 establishments in California Amusement parks in California Santa Cruz, California History of Santa Cruz County, California Buildings and structures in Santa Cruz County, California Tourist attractions in Santa Cruz County, California Landmarks in California