Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk w/LOCALS! Tips, Pointers and Insights for your next trip

all right here we are at the santa cruz beach boardwalk welcome to our backyard we're going to show you how locals visit this place where to eat what to drink and the best rides to ride so stick around to the end because we're going to show you a local secret four if you're lucky getting free parking come along hi i'm avi and i'm fee join us in our explorations of the central coast of california and our adventures beyond [Music] well we're here at the main entrance this is where you can purchase tickets for individual rides or a day pass depending on how many rides you want to ride it's probably worth it to get a day pass tickets are a dollar a piece and some of the bigger attractions cost eight tickets just for one ride per person so how much does a day pass 40 bucks 39.95 for a day pass so for weekdays right weekends are more expensive weekends are more expensive yeah 59.95 i believe if you purchase them ahead of time some around that so yeah it's like the 20 difference so if you want to ride five or more rides you should probably just get the day pass and you can get with what's called a boardwalk card and it's rechargeable and you can pay for some rides and hold on to it and when you come back later on in the season you can still use that all right let's go get some tickets so i ended up buying a packet of 50 tickets and because i bought a packet of 50 they gave me five bonus ones so yep what do you want to ride first let's go giant zipper let's go giant dipper i guess rent so we picked a day in june to come here early june early june it's a thursday and because it's a thursday we actually are kind of experiencing lighter crowds than are typical yeah on the weekends this place can get so packed it's hard to walk through it's also fully open this summer this is the first ever since the pandemic that it is operating at full capacity with all of its rides operating last year they were allowed to operate but with the ongoing employee shortages they couldn't open all the rides and attractions [Music] if you only ride one ride while you're at the boardwalk it would have to be the giant dipper the well-known landmark was built in 1924 over a period of 47 days since it opened it has seen over 66 million riders across its threshold making it not only the oldest roller coaster in california but also one of the most popular in the entire world this is the one ride that we ride every time we come to the boardwalk without fame it's a must do and we highly recommend that you don't miss it remove hats and glasses and keep your hands inside the car remain seated during the ride [Applause] that was amazing that was very fun [Music] all right so obviously besides just coming to the boardwalk to come ride the rides there is this big beautiful beach here this is main beach santa cruz it um has the santa cruz wharf down there and on the other end of it is san lorenzo river and the lagoon on the other side of that is secret beach so come on out here and have a great time but please remember to pack your trash we do appreciate it so we're in line for the undertow and it's one of the relatively newer rides built in the park around 2013 so less than 10 years old so we've been in a relationship this long and i'm just learning that she doesn't like what i don't like dropping rides and i don't like spinning rides i never knew that that's like half the rides so you'll have a drop or a little spin but not something that is like just devoted to spinning or dropping with a roller coaster i'll do the drop because once you drop then you go on the thing and that's fine this is the free fall kind of thing that i don't like so i like pennies gotcha the cool thing about the undertow is that the cars are mounted on a rotating base as you go around the different twists and turns your car will spin and rotate which makes the ride a little different each time it's very dynamic and a lot of fun yeah santa cruz here we go i guess it doesn't matter which way we start wow that was fun so i never knew this until today but i think this is kind of a new addition 30-minute free lockers for while you're on the undertow these lockers are a huge improvement over the unsecured cubby system at the ride's gate [Music] so i'm not a big fan of being suspended upside down me neither this one is what i don't ever ride oh yeah we'll skip this one so one thing about this one it looks really awesome at night when it's all lit up it's getting like this really visually appealing you can see it from all the way around the coastline it's very bright and eye arresting [Applause] so another little local secret is if you come all the way down to the end of the boardwalk corner beach street and cliff and make your way to the boardwalk bowl bar coasters coasters yeah this is the best place to get drinks while you're at the boardwalk for the best price you don't get charged boardwalk prices yeah i mean it's still a bar in santa cruz prices but it's 30 20 30 less than the crappy things you'll get over there this ride is one of probably the most romantic ride at the boardwalk and we love coming here and riding during the sunset hi there thanks [Applause] [Music] now especially on the hotter days when you come here this is a way to get above it all be cool for about 10 minutes or so yeah you get a little of the sea breeze up here smells nice and the view is always beautiful this is the oldest existing amusement park on the seaside in california [Applause] hello hey there ready yep [Applause] i must say this is one of the lightest traffic days i've seen in years yeah it's really empty even less so than when we came with the kids last summer and they were only operating at like partial capacity then yeah so hit it get it while it's good go topic up the boardwalk yeah to beat the crowds the best times of the year to visit the boardwalk are early in the season and later in the year avoiding weekends and any holiday week so we're here in mid-july and boy what a difference a month and a half makes next we're gonna go ride loggers revenge this ride is here because it actually is kind of a tribute to the reason santa cruz exists in the first place it used to be a logging town and they would bring the logs down the railroad here and load them onto ships off of the wharf in the late 1800s loggers would float their logs from the mill in boulder creek down the san lorenzo river to felton where they would be loaded onto steam trains for the final leg of the journey to santa cruz nowadays the logging industry is gone and the train only hauls tourists and day trippers [Music] still this ride pays homage to the area's history from its station built to resemble an old sawmill [Music] to its green snake-like elevated track that represents the san lorenzo river opened in 1977 it remains a family favorite to this day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] woohoo [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] yes yes job well done so we need to recharge our card so we're at this recharge station and we're gonna show you how this works select your type of payment and then indicate how much you would like to add then insert payment and follow the prompts [Music] i got my new card all right so we're hungry and now we're going to show you our recommendation before getting a bite to eat while you're at the world yeah cost effective and tasty better than anything you'll find here for our food recommendation you're going to have to leave the boardwalk and come out to the street all along beach street there are food vendors like tacos and hot dogs and a lot and fruit they are the best food for the best prices and the tastiest food that you'll find here at florida and they're locals too so you're actually supporting the local community when you spend money with them and if you've watched our videos you know we love mexico so we love street vendors yep two everything foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the boardwalk is of course a family-friendly place little ones obviously can't go on many of the bigger rides due to height restrictions but there's an entire area dedicated to those four feet and under where you'll find no shortage of rides games and food that the whole family can enjoy together [Music] here we go i'll get a corona 25 for two beers and a white cloth on a white cloth we got some upper end stuff too that's why we recommend going to coasters after tip which is only necessary thirty dollars for these two guys at coasters we paid 14 bucks for two much better drinks quality drinks and even with a fat tip there we're still only 20 bucks cheers anyway cheers let's go and sit over here [Music] so when you come to the boardwalk there's a couple different places you can park you can park at the courthouse on ocean street which is right when you get off the highway in santa cruz and then you can catch a bus that takes you to a drop-off point near the boardwalk and then you got to catch that bus back to your car second way of getting here of course is to drive all the way in and battle the traffic and you can use two of the different parking zones 20 bucks a day on weekdays and i think 25 on weekends so it's not cheap i would recommend the shuttle less traffic on the streets and it's cheaper than parking here in order to get the most of your month out of your money if you buy the all-day pass you really want to be here from the time it opens until the time it closes you can easily occupy yourself here from open to close and if you come here and you stay till close often times in the evenings during the summer there's events like there's bands and there's movies on the beach as well if you've watched this far into the video go ahead and do us a favor and like and subscribe really helps our channel out and hit the notification bell so you're notified when we upload and release another video pick off my shoes this time before we get on there you go thank you thank you santa cruz beach boardwalk is the main tourist straw here in santa cruz it's the reason santa cruz is on the map it drives a lot of the economy that and ucsc this is beautiful during the day it's gorgeous it's warm it's sunny but you really gotta come into this place at night too yeah it pops off at night it gets really vibrant and really exciting to be around it's lit up like a classic american carnival and it's so much fun and you can see it from miles away so our next ride is probably the final one possibly our final ride of the evening will be the loof carousel this ride is very iconic it was designed by a famous ride designer it's beautiful it's all vintage um 1911 i believe is the year it was installed yeah it's over 100 years old and the organ that plays the music for it is even older it dates back to the late 1800s as you ride it there's a little ring that you want to grab if you're on the outside i've never gotten one of those rings and you want to throw it in the clown's mouth but everyone who is a teenager here has one of those stashed somewhere at home have you ever been to the boardwalk if you have let us know in the comments below and tell us what your favorite ride was yeah this is new you can take a selfie you get a text surf to the number they display this is one of the places on the on the premises that's actually a national historic landmark true and the giant difference this and the giant dipper the two places yeah right here was his name champion and he swift his thunder actually you know the last time i was on a horse my hide specifically my hide got chapped i think this ride is going to be a little bit more gentle let's go [Music] and that's the clown's mouth i got me one i've never gotten one before that was my first one all right here we go again you're not supposed to remove the rings from the building you got to get yourself an outside horse though they don't let you grab it if you don't have an outside horse it does yeah oh so close so close folks it's funny how such a small thing like grabbing a ring and throwing it at a hole in the wall can really make a ride that much more fun it was very pleasurable it's interactive gives you something to do a little challenge yeah it's cool it's fun i believe that was the final ride of the night it's 7 p.m it's thursday night so they're gonna close a lot of things are shutting their windows but the arcade neptune's kingdom the mini golf and the bowling alley all stay open later so we'll definitely take a tour of neptune's kingdom and even get a little candy as veronica says we're going to get candy for the vlog so i hope you guys can taste this candy we're about to get because it's for you well we're going to go to murray and it's a santa cruz icon it was started by an italian immigrant some i don't even know exactly what a while back a couple generations ago and they make the best candy in the county and they make really long chocolate covered bacon and salt water taffy so when you come here you should go to marinas yeah you can indulge your sweet tooth and you don't even have to leave the boardwalk i don't think it can be overstated how cool it is that you can see the beach the whole time you're here yeah the ocean's beautiful it's be and that and you can just smell the air and it just you feel closer to the nature that's around even when you're just hanging out on the boardwalk yeah here we and some are covered freaking strawberry please [Music] yeah i'm gonna get four strips of the berry blue please so this is neptune's kingdom it was originally built to house saltwater swimming pools but now it is where all the mini golf and pool tables and arcades are located so i used to come here and dork out a lot and spend a little too much money one thing that boardwalk card does for you as well is not only does it pay for the attractions but you can use it to pay for video games here so and bowling games at the bowling alley you can pay for bowling games with your card that's awesome and mini golf okay so yeah that gets you a lot of stuff besides just the rides i got no more lid that was kind of anti-chromatic if you ask me yep this place also has some of the biggest games i've ever seen in person all right so that was the santa cruz beach boardwalk like the locals do it we had a lot of fun filming that i hope you guys enjoyed following along with us if you liked this video please subscribe to our channel like and comment and share it it really helps us thanks for watching this far we really appreciate it and stay tuned because we are going to show you now how the locals park for free so thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video thanks bye ciao so if you come to the boardwalk on a weekday and you get here early enough it's worth trying east cliff here for free parking this whole area behind us is free as is all the street parking it does fill up on the weekends and later in the day but it's worth trying because it's like 20 bucks to park at the portal so you follow east cliff away from the ocean and then you turn to the left and you'll eventually come to this little footpath so that's what connects you with the foot bridge and you're going to cross the footbridge and on the other side is the boardwalk so an interesting thing about this bridge the lost boys was filmed here at the boardwalk and a lot of people think that this train trestle is the one that they were filmed dangling off of and dropping from in that movie but it is not that train trestle is actually down south somewhere in southern california it's actually called the lost boys uh trestle or something yeah it's actually named after the lost boys yeah you can see that looks nothing like the underside of the bridge in the movie really yeah i've never actually compared the two i just knew that factoid about it yeah see i moved here after having seen that movie first i just always known the server's not deep enough for that to happen yeah there's m2 breaker legs [Music] tell me about your butt baby have they given you a rather docile steed is your steed rather docile by the way that's not hawaii it's the monterey bay peninsula don't understand i don't understand people think it's hawaii what's hawaii that landmass out there oh what what it's insane it is crazy it's like oh hawaii is so far away you don't even know yeah right no it's either side of the bay you're dumbed up why if you live here long enough you will hear somebody suggest that it is hawaii i have more than one

Channel: Avi and V

Views: 22,356

Keywords: santa cruz

Id: l9o3kkTbm9w

Length: 26min 50sec (1610 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022