Roaring Camp, Big Trees and Pacific Railroad Station

If you enjoy the outdoors and/or Old West-looking places, you will enjoy Roaring Camp. Oh, I forgot the trains. There are train rides through a wooded area and parallel to a stream. It's family friendly. On occasion they have Thomas the Train and Percy rides and photo opportunities, activities and games for kids and adults. The tickets forthe Thomas the Train ride were $25 per person in late Oct 2019. Parking was $5 - $10. They do have Handicap parking and Wheelchair accessible ramps. Be forewarned that it's quite a walk from the parking lot to the train station and main area. There's a covered bridge you must walk through, which I thought was cool. It's mostly dirt in the main area, but there's a grassy field on one side of the main area and a large pond on the other. I didn't give it a 5 star because there is only one place to get food and the lines are always long and it takes so long to get your order. The last time I was there, the power was out and they couldn't make coffee. They were working in the dark. There's also not enough places to sit once you get your food. If the weather is nice and calm, there are picnic tables by the grassy field near the food area. There were terrible gusts of wind the last time I went blowing lots of dirt and leaves all across the picnic tables by the field making them unusable to sit or eat on.

The Santa Cruz starlight evening dinner train is a unique experience to ride and dine under the stars. The train departs from the SC Boardwalk in the early evening and heads up to Roaring Camp for a barbeque dinner, music, dancing and all around good time. Then back down the mountain "over the river and through the woods to Santa Cruz Boardwalk we go" admiring the majesty of Mother Nature and waving to bystanders who had their drive home stalled by a tourist train. An adventure I'd definitely partake in the future. I've probably seen the Roaring Camp Railroad Hwy 1 ads a gazillion times, but was always discouraged to go as others described the train/camp as kid-centric. Though there were only a couple of children on this evening excursion, I’ll admit it definitely brought out the kid in me!

This is a serious kids fun activity... kids do love it to the core... its an open train so we are able to see all the views from the train... the one draw back is that it would last for more than hour, i guess it was 1 and half an hour... so it was little bit boring for the adults... but yeah its a gud to try activity with kids..

We took the forest route, a round trip to the top of Bear Mountain. Overall interesting but a bit boring as the scenery around doesn't change much. The ticket says to arrive 45 minutes earlier, which is unnecessary. 20 minutes earlier is enough.