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Popular coasters
Santa Cruz, California
The two tallest, drawn to scale
Pick the rider's height to see what they can ride. Tap a coaster for its own page.
Showing all 3
No coaster here matches both picks. Try a taller height or another intensity.
Intensity is our own three-step scale from published figures: extreme is 150 feet or taller, 74 mph or faster or 6 or more inversions; thrill is 100 feet or taller, any inversion, or a height to ride over 42 inches; family is a height to ride of 42 inches or less. A coaster those figures do not place has no label. Height to ride is from the park or, where it publishes none, Wikipedia.
Ridden one? Find it here and see where the rest sit.
Thrill
No new coaster is listed as being built at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The 5 that used to run here, newest closure first.
| Coaster | Ran | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane1992 to 2012 | 1992 to 2012 | Steel |
| Orient Express1998 to 1999 | 1998 to 1999 | Steel |
| Jet Star1972 to 1991 | 1972 to 1991 | Steel |
| Wild Mouse1958 to 1976 | 1958 to 1976 | Wooden |
| L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway1908 to 1923 | 1908 to 1923 | Wooden |
3 are operating. 5 more have closed for good.
Giant Dipper is both: 70 feet tall and 55 mph.
From 48 inches to 50 inches. At 48 inches a rider can ride 1 of the 2 with a published height. Our sources give no height to ride for Sea Serpent.
None of the 3 turns you upside down.
Nothing announced. No new coaster is listed as being built at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Straight-line distance from Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, among US parks with five or more coasters.
Santa Clara, California. 7 coasters. Tallest: Gold Striker, 108 ft.
80 miles northSix Flags Discovery KingdomVallejo, California. 8 coasters. Tallest: Flash: Vertical Velocity, 150 ft.
260 miles southeastSix Flags Magic MountainValencia, California. 14 coasters. Tallest: Goliath, 235 ft.
Which coasters are open and closed, plus type, year, height, speed, times upside down and intensity: the Airtime Fever coaster dataset (Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, read Thu 10/1/2026). Our sources give no height to ride for Sea Serpent. Figures are rounded to the nearest foot and mph.
Closest parks: straight-line distance between park locations from Coasterpedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata (each park's coordinates, or the middle of its coasters' coordinates, read Fri 10/2/2026), rounded to 10 miles, among parks with five or more coasters.
Photographs via Wikimedia Commons: FASTILY (CC BY-SA 4.0), The wub (CC BY-SA 4.0). A ride with no usable photo of it shows its name instead.
