Santa Cruz Boardwalk, CGA and SFDK, June 2026 (updated)

[DoomPlague]

EDIT: I've decided to put these in one thread. I'm mostly putting this down just to have my thoughts down somewhere.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk 6/1

This is somehow my first trip to California in my life and instead of checking out the more popular socal parks, I'm in the SF bay area.

I only had a small idea of what to expect from Santa Cruz, and ended up enjoying the experience.

First things first: cost

We messed up by not buying discounted ride wristbands ahead of time. So buying them the day of the visit would have been about 75/each or 150 total. Instead, since many of the flat rides are just smaller versions of what I've been on before or will on this trip, I opted to start with with one of their prepaid cards which give "bonus points" that can be used on rides. IE $100 can get you $115 worth of rides. The bonus points can't be used on food or other items but fortunately they are automatically used before any paid points where applicable. This system worked out well for us. The wristbands aren't good for the walk through Fright Walk attraction and food. So for the price of two wristbands, we did all the rides we wanted, including 2 rides on GIant Dipper, the Fright Walk and covered one meal. Still more expensive than the other two parks on this trip but...it is a boardwalk park.

The rides:

Giant Dipper is wonderful. It's reasonably smooth for an old woodie and has a couple good pops of airtime. The pre-lift section is also a nice treat as is the more rare, rounded station. Our first ride, we just walked to the front row because the other guests just instinctively filled in the back of the train. So we got front and another ride near the back. Both were great.

The park also has 3 decent dark rides. One is the Cave Train Adventure. It has your usual bright colors with blacklight-effects. The characters are crude looking but there are a ton of them and many animate. There's also a decent sense of humor to the ride and its surprisingly long.

We also hit Ghost Blasters, which is, in fact, a boo blasters ride complete with Boocifer. No omnimover system but the guns work really well.

They also have a Haunted Castle dark ride, which is arguably higher quality than the others but at the same time more generic. It was decent but nothin that interesting.

We tried a couple flat rides, including an indoor Huss breakdance complete with lights and music.

We skipped the EF Miler kid coaster but did ride Undertow, a Maurer spinner. I continue to have bad luck with spinning coasters as this one had almost zero spin. 

We also rode their Arrow log flume, Loggers Revenge. Didn't get very wet and the layout is your typical one where it stays in the air the whole time until the drop.

WIth our remaining points, I rode Tornado by myself. I'm not sure I had seen one of these rides from Wisdom Rides. The cars swing as the ride spins but you can spin them like tea cups.

 

Crowds were pretty moderate. Enough people that you had to work to avoid bumping in to people but the lines weren't terrible. If the crowds were smaller, I would have wished we had wristbands but it actually worked out pretty well.

We ate at a fish&chips place on the arcade side of the boardwalk. It was decent quality food.

My overall impressions are pretty positive. They actually have a ton more rides there that we didn't ride, including a skyride that covers most of the boardwalk distance. It's impressive how they managed to cram in some things. One end of the park is basically two layers, where they put indoor rides underneath a higher part of the midway. And while its somewhat expensive overall, the park is well kept and maintained and I never felt like anyone was trying to rip me off. So don't overlook this boardwalk if you're ever in the bay area.
 

Edited 15 hours ago by DoomPlague
Consolidating

[DoomPlague]

California's Great America 6/2/2026

The next day after Santa Cruz, I checked out California's Great America. It's the last of the former, main Paramount Parks that I haven't been to and one reason I chose the SF area for my trip.

When we pulled in, about 15 minutes before open, the parking lot was shockingly empty. It was the closest to a park gate that I've probably ever parked in my life (maybe the second row from the front corner). On the way in we did spot a large school group walking from further down the lot but once inside the park was pretty empty as we lined up at the rope just before the carousel and Gold Striker. The immediate impression of the park was that it was even smaller than expected.

At rope drop, kids starting running to Gold Striker, but I stuck with my planned strategy of hitting the low capacity rides first.

Psycho Mouse would be the first time in a long time where I was the first rider of the day. Decent little wild mouse with one or two airtime pops. It's also ran a little better than what I was led to believe, as they did at least dispatch a couple cars before we arrived at the station.

Next was Railblazer. My first RMC raptor. And it was almost a walk on. I had heard this had gotten rough but it was worse than I expected. Maybe not painfully rough but enough to hurt the experience. It also didn't feel as snappy as it looks in video. The vest restraints also aren't that comfortable...not that vest restraints ever are. Ended up getting another ride immediately but in the very back. More airtime but still a bit disappointing. Got 3 rides before end of day.

Probably should have waited for the small crowd at Gold Striker to disperse but I didn't want to take any chances and we ended up waiting somewhere over 20 minutes for it. I had hear this ride has also gotten rough, as woodies tend to do, but it wasn't that bad. This ride is the highlight of the park, imo. It's more complete than Mystic and still quite relentless. I can see why the two rides are often compared. Later in the day it became more of a station wait, so we got a couple more rides in, including the back which was even better.

The rest of the rides:
-Grizzly was just rather forgettable. Not as rough as I was expecting but again: forgettable.

-Patriot was about what I expected. Somewhat short and simple, and a tad rough.

-Flight Deck was decent. Still smooth after all these years and more surprisingly it still has a bunch of the old Top Gun scenery that our Flight Deck/Bat lost long ago.

-Demon is about what I expected for an Arrow looper. Still makes me miss Vortex.

-Also rode, Berserker, the Schwarzkopf bayern curve. Decent little flat ride but I get why they've died off.

-Their Old Timey cars, called Barney Oldfield's Redwood Rally, were pretty good. It basically goes underneath and through part of Grizzly and has some scenery,

-Their skyride seems to have a different name at each station.

-Their observation tower isn't that tall. Most of the plexiglass panels are too cloudy to see through and even the ones you can use have poor visibility. We also did Tiki Twirl (disk'o with the round, outward facing vehicle) and Centrifuge, a Schwarzkopf calypso

-I rode Rip Roaring Rapids. Almost no one in the boat got any significant water. At the end of the ride, pumps and lift shut down, forcing me to bake in the sun a bit. Turns out some kid climbed a fence and tried to get in, or at least close, to the water.

-Their Delirium is one of those inward facing frisbees (Chance). The restraints have an uncomfortable shape

For food,  we checked out Maggie Brown's Smokehouse and Fried Chicken. After seeing that the fried chicken is all dark meat (from what I could tell) I took a chance on the tenders. I always complain about the tenders at KI and CP but these were legit great tenders. Comparable to Cane's (possibly better). Later in the day I ended up just getting some pizza from New Orleans Pizza but it was actually pretty good.

Overall this was an enjoyable day. The park isn't huge but it still reminded me of the other former Paramount/KECO parks. Operations were decent. Most of the staff seemed pretty quiet and laid back. I felt bad for them having to deal with a crowd of mostly middle school aged kids that day. I did get sun burn despite using sun block. There are multiple rides at the park where even the station is completely uncovered. The crowd level was really really low. I don't know what the school calendar out there is like but it might be the smallest crowds I've seen at a park without inclement weather. It's a shame what's happening to this park but I'm glad I got to experience it.

[DoomPlague]

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom 6/4/2026

The last park on this trip. I knew that this park had a long walk from the parking lot but it was even longer than I thought. Was nice seeing solar panels over the lot, though. Immediate impression was how odd the parks layout is. You basically have major thrill rides close together on either side of the entrance but in a way where there's no easy way to cross between them.

My intent was to get a locker real quick and then hit the lower capacity rides first before Joker. Joker wasn't open, so we hit Superman Ultimate Flight, the premier sky rocket. Pretty fun ride for what it is. After that we hit Batman The Ride, which here is a 4D free spin. It never completed a full flip.

After this Joker still wasn't open. Ended up doing Wonder Woman, a discovery. It didn't feel as forceful on the swings on other frisbees, including the Huss ones.
Also did Flash Vertical Velocity, the infamously bent-sideways Intamin impulse. IMO, I think the sideways section hurts the experience.

At this point it wasn't looking good for Joker. We moved one and did the Boomerang (meh), and Sidewinder Safari, a zamperla spinner which once again barely spun. Then Kong, the SLC which was...bad...but not as bad as I expected. Lastly came Medusa, which is definitely one of the better rides at the park. Fairly smooth with big elements. Its also seemingly the only high capacity coaster there. Was going to ride their star flyer but it shut down soon after we got in the seats. There weren't really other flats that interested us, so we checked out some of the animal exhibits. There's not a ton of animals there but there's enough to kill some time. We ended the day watching the dolphin show, despite having mixed feelings about such a thing, but it was entertaining at least.

Joker never opened. It's a bummer when the parks premier attraction isn't available but at least its considered one of the lesser RMCs. The next day, we had time to drive out to the park at the last minute to try and get a ride but, to make a long story short, between traffic, the parks policies, the long walk even from the drop off spot and my own cluelessness, I just missed out on getting a ride.

We ate at JB's Sports Bar and Grille which is supposed to be one of the better places there. They have wings but I opted fora burger which was okay. The park is definitely lacking in the food department but maybe they'll get better options if they survive the next sell-off. Later I settled for a chilli cheese dog, which was smother in nacho cheese sauce.

Joker never opened. It's a bummer when the parks premier attraction isn't available but at least its considered one of the lesser RMCs. The next day, we had time to drive out to the park at the last minute to try and get a ride but, to make a long story short, between traffic, the parks policies, the long walk even from the drop off spot and my own cluelessness, I just missed out on getting a ride.

Overall impression:

I can see why people are often negative about this park. The operations weren't terrible but they weren't great. The layout causes people to congregate to two areas, while ignoring the rest of the park and its filled with smaller, lower capacity coasters. I don't want to see either park close but I would definitely choose CGA over this one. Maybe they'll get some of CGA's rides, like Railblazer...but right now we don't know if it will even be in the chain much longer.

This did serve as a tests for my pass and there were no problems parking, entering, getting drinks or using the dining plan. No "drink plan plus" though. Funnily, when I asked to scan my card for the discount on a souvenir, the guy was confused because he had never seen an actual pass card before. Another thing I noticed: there were no fees or taxes when I bought the BAF tickets for either CGA and SFDK via the app. Points to California in this case.

Trip summary:

I'm glad I did this trip but I wouldn't have chose this area if CGA wasn't closing, as there are better parks that I want to visit. CGA and the Boardwalk are definite highlights. I also recommend the Musee Mecanique on Fisherman's Wharf in SF. It's filled with old-to-very-old electromechanical machines including 3d viewers, games, dioramas, animatronics, Wurlitzers, and so on. Not surprisingly, the weather was great the entire trip.