The view from the end of the Santa Monica Pier, looking shoreward.
"Oh. It's an octopus!"
The view from the end of the Santa Monica Pier, looking shoreward.
Wednesday, I jumped in the car with my Mom, and we cruised down highway 101, through Malibu canyon, and down the Pacific Coast Highway. That took us down to the Santa Monica Pier, where we parked almost right on the beach, then walked up the stairs to the pier. The Santa Monica Pier is a large timber structure jutting out into the Pacific ocean, upon which are built a number of structures. I don't entirely understand this pier thing; where I come from, piers are used to provide access to deep water, as for tying up boats and stuff like that. The Santa Monica pier does not have any obvious practical value as a pier except for the deep water fishing off the far end. But it wouldn't need to be so large just to support the fishing operation, and this thing is HUGE. How huge? An entire amusement park, Pacific Park, occupies about two thirds of one half of the pier.
We climbed the stairs from the beach, and first turned inland. There are several shops on the pier, a couple of bars and restaurants and a bicycle rental agency. Very near the inland parking area is a large building which houses an antique carousel. There, I spotted a plaque that describes the history of the Santa Monica Pier. It was originally constructed between 1908 and 1916...a municipal fishing and strolling pier, and a pleasure pier for amusements. Again, no word on why the amusements had to be on a pier, but just the same...anyway, that's also where I learned that the pier had been damaged in a storm in 1983, which to me seems as good a reason as any for not using it as the support structure for an amusement park. Attached to the historical marker was a building identified by the marker as the Hippodrome, though I didn't see any hippopottami [Footnote 1]. Inside the building is a Philadelphia Toboggan carousel, which I declined to ride when I learned of the 200 pound weight limit on the horses.
The PTC carousel in the Hippodrome...
...with its 200 pound weight limit
After looking around the building, pressing a penny in a penny press, and taking a couple of photos, I strolled outside and down the right-hand side of the pier. The pier is home to a few shops, and more than a few buskers...not just performers but also artists plying their trades on the pier. At the ocean side of the pier, there is a facility optimized for catching and cleaning fish and other sea creatures, with signs indicating which mussels are OK to eat and which are to be avoided. The center section of the pier, then, on the right-hand side as you walk away from the shore, is Pacific Park.
Pacific Park
Floor pick-up bumper cars
An odd looking pendulum boat
The West Coaster
The park is accessed from its center point, where an elaborate sculpture (it took me a while to figure out that it was supposed to be an octopus) forms the entry archway. Beneath the sign is a small food court, then there is essentially an elongated rectangular midway. To the ocean side are the adult rides, including a Scrambler, Spring Ride, pendulum boat ride, Giant Wheel and a set of bumper cars right in the middle. The bumper car building is set up with a floor-pick-up system, and two rides: a set of adult cars on one side, and a set of kiddie cars on the other. On the other side of the bumper car building is a kiddieland with a few rides in it, mostly Zamperla catalog stuff. Over top of all of this is the West Coaster. The rides are mostly unremarkable, apart from the pendulum boat which, for reasons which are not entirely clear, has a canopy over the top and back of the gondola which reminds me of a Rax restaurant [Footnote 2]. Er, the canopy is not entirely clear, either.
I stopped at the ticket booth and bought us a couple of tickets. The West Coaster had been described to me as "half of a coaster" and that's a pretty good description. The train exits the station and goes up a lift hill, then turns around over Kiddieland. The drop after the turnaround is not particularly long or steep, as it has to stay above the pier attractions. The real action happens at the other end of the ride, when it drops through a large downward helix, then a quick dip behind the Ferris wheel all the way to the pier decking, then a leap into the station. The ride is one of the early creations of Morgan Manufacturing, in fact I think it was their second coaster, after Valleyfair!'s Wild Thing. It's true, West Coaster is pretty much half of a coaster, and accordingly, each ride they send it around twice. It's also "half of a coaster" just because the last car is disassembled and piled up next to the ride exit. I'm not sure what that's all about.
Note the cameras for the CD Ride system
So the West Coaster is not a particularly amazing ride. But it does have a unique feature, something I have not seen on any other coaster. In front of each seat is a tiny little video camera, pointed at the riders. The camera is connected to an electronics chassis mounted in the front of each car. This works particularly well since this is a Morgan coaster, with those huge Fiberglas tubs with lots of space in the nose, even in the non-lead cars. The electronics is all in a stainless steel cabinet, so I don't know what all is in there. But the technology comes from CD Ride, and an examination of the on-ride photovideo booth reveals that they are using wireless networking technology to send the video signal from the train to the booth so that they can play back the video of your coaster ride as you exit, and burn you a commemorative DVD in a matter of minutes. In hindsight, I probably should have bought one. I can't tell from the setup whether they are capturing the video in real time as the train runs, taking advantage of its small footprint, or if they are storing the video files on the train and then sending them from the train after each cycle at much-faster-than-real-time. The picture quality is impressive, though...and while the souvenir value of a DVD of yourself on a coaster is kind of dubious, you have to admit that the system has some very interesting possibilities.
We had other less-interesting activities planned for later in the day, followed by dinner on another pier in Santa Barbara, so our visit to the Santa Monica pier wasn't particularly long. But it was a neat thing to see, and the video geek in me really appreciated the chance to ride the West Coaster even if it is only half of a ride. Tomorrow, Dad would join us for a visit to Universal Studios.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Next: Universal Studios Hollywood
Footnote 1: A bunch of horses, though, as the name implies... [Return to text]
Footnote 2: Don't believe me? Mouse-over the photo... [Return to text]
--DCAjr
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