LIGHTHOUSE POINT, FLA. (WSVN) - Boaters are getting their holiday floats in shape for the 2025 Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade.
The “Best Show on H2O” will set sail to Las Olas Intracoastal Promenade Park, Saturday evening.
7News on Wednesday spoke with a pair of boaters who have been getting reading for the boat parade since Thanksgiving.
Captain Bruce Guttler has been sailing through the boat parade for four years and counting.
On Wednesday morning, Bruce and participant Linda Griffin were putting up giant inflatable nutcrackers and other inflatable Christmas pals on their boat, the “Nutcracker Aboard Aireze.”
Bruce and Linda were wearing red costumes and white hats with gold trim, like nutcrackers themselves. They brought the whole look together with sleek boating sunglasses.
“It’s magical. The people and the grass and the condos and the houses and the restaurants are cheering us on. It’s just awesome,” Captain Bruce said. “And then we’ll go by an area between houses that are trees, and we’ll have the light on there, and there’s, ‘wow,’ there are hundreds of people just sitting there, all generations.”
“[They’re] clapping for us, and even when we pull off the dock, we have a whole crowd there, and they’re all applauding,” Griffin said. “And it is exciting to see the other boats coming through as well and see their labor of love that they’ve put into it, and we all become like a family for this night.”
The one-of-a-kind holiday parade stretches 12 miles throughout Broward County.
Gates open at 4 p.m., but the parade itself will start at 6 p.m. along the New River in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The parade will sail up and down the Intracoastal Waterway before ending back in downtown.
There are still tickets available for the best seats along the water to see this holiday spectacular.
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