Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is a hundred-plus year old amusement park on Northern California’s coastline. It’s home to the classic woodie Giant Dipper, that’s been given National Historic Landmark status. In 2013, it will also be home to a new Maurer Sohne spinning roller coaster called Undertow.
Undertow be replacing an old E.F. Miller coaster called Hurricane after 20 years at the park. So, while Undertow’s not a big coaster by any means, it’ll likely be a solid replacement for an aging ride like Hurricane. I’ve never ridden Hurricane, that’s just my guess. What’s your take?
Learn more at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s site. And, check out this video about Undertow:
How does Undertow look to you? Do you think it’ll be a good replacement for Hurricane? Leave a comment below.




January 13, 2013 at 10:06
Hasn't this news been around for a while?
January 20, 2013 at 06:12
I didn't say it was breaking news
January 13, 2013 at 12:44
Living 30 minutes away from Santa Cruz, this looks interesting. Not too surprising though, hurricane was old and ill-maintained, left in the kiddie section of the park. It was far from the beach but right over the parking lot, so there was little view if any, being ~50 ft. tall. Let's hope this one improves over its successor.
January 13, 2013 at 13:30
I can't really say much, being that I live almost 2 days away from Santa Cruz. Although I'm a fan of huge, thrilling roller coasters, I have to say that tiny spinning roller coasters similar to this one are quite entertaining when travelling with smaller kids or when other lines are too long.
January 13, 2013 at 20:38
I wish they could have both.Hurricane was fun and had a killer mid-course twisting drop.I personally do not consider mouse rides a coaster and they are very iffy.Some are great fun and spin quite a bit while others just putt around and dont do much.
January 14, 2013 at 20:29
Hurricane was a pretty fun ride to have the whole family with you. Undertow will probably be better though
February 2, 2013 at 00:21
We'll be driving my son up to Santa Cruz this summer to check out UCSC. He wants to be a computer programmer, specializing in video games, and they have one of the top programs in the country. We are going to check out SCBB while we're there to ride Undertow. I'll also get to ride The Giant Dipper again. That was my very first coaster, but I haven't been on it since that first ride, over 35 years ago.
February 2, 2013 at 19:04
Hurricane was a good coaster – within its limitations. The most dangerous aspect of it was the operator. Please note: this happened many years ago. My wife has a bad leg and gets off of rides a little more slowly then some. The ride operator was not paying attention and moved the coaster before she was completely off. Fortunately he stopped it when we yelled. No harm done.
February 14, 2013 at 12:23
I haven’t ridden Hurricane, and I’m not a big fan of spinning coasters, so I probably wouldn’t like SCBB park.