The Boynton Beach Holiday Boat Parade is set for Friday, December 11, 2026. The listing on the City of Boynton Beach's Eventeny event page puts it at Boynton Harbor Marina, 735 Casa Loma Boulevard, from 6 to 9 p.m. In recent years the flotilla has formed at 6:30 p.m. at the Ocean Avenue Bridge in Lantana, near Old Key Lime House, and run south to the C-15 Canal in Delray Beach, just past Linton Boulevard.
That route turns a three-hour event into a rolling schedule across Lantana, Hypoluxo, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach. The listing names the City of Boynton Beach as host, with Hypoluxo, Lantana and Delray Beach as partners. Where you stand decides when the boats reach you. If you're driving, it also decides which raised bridge you may end up waiting at.
The Schedule Is Written in Bridge Openings
The only published timetable comes from the bridges. The boats pass under several of them, and each bridge stays up while the flotilla goes through. The Boynton Beach CRA publishes estimated times for each one. It calls them estimates "based on data collected in previous years" and says exact closure times are hard to predict. The 2024 and 2025 estimates were identical.
Here is the 2025 schedule from north to south, which is the most recent version published:
| Point on the route | Approximate time, Dec. 2025 | Town |
|---|---|---|
| Watch party opens at Boynton Harbor Marina | 6:00 p.m. | Boynton Beach |
| Flotilla forms at Ocean Avenue Bridge | 6:30 p.m. | Lantana |
| Ocean Avenue Bridge | 7:15 p.m. | Boynton Beach |
| Woolbright Road Bridge | 7:30 p.m. | Boynton Beach |
| George Bush Boulevard Bridge | 7:45 p.m. | Delray Beach |
| Atlantic Avenue Bridge | 8:00 p.m. | Delray Beach |
| Linton Boulevard Bridge | 8:15 p.m. | Delray Beach |
| Parade ends at C-15 Canal | After Linton | Delray Beach |
Two Ocean Avenue bridges are on this route. The Lantana bridge is where the boats line up at 6:30. The Boynton bridge goes up around 7:15. From Boynton's Ocean Avenue to Linton Boulevard the estimates span a full hour, so a family at a Delray park sees the lead boat about 45 minutes after it passed the Boynton crowd at 7:15. The CRA doesn't publish a separate time for the marina. Its spot on the water near Ocean Avenue suggests the boats arrive there around the 7:15 window, not at the 6 p.m. start shown in the listing.
The Sun Sentinel's 2025 guide gave a different picture of the start, saying the flotilla would "push off from the Boynton Harbor Marina" at 6 p.m. In the same entry it also said the procession would gather at Lantana's Ocean Avenue Bridge at 6:30. The CRA's own materials consistently use 6 p.m. for the marina festivities and 6:30 p.m. for the boats forming up in Lantana.
North End: Lantana and North Federal Highway
The first viewing spots are in Lantana. Old Key Lime House at 300 E. Ocean Avenue sits next to the formation point, and the CRA lists it as a waterfront restaurant for watching the parade. Its website still shows its Lantana address and hours. From there you see the boats assemble before they're in parade order.
Back in Boynton, two city parks on North Federal Highway are on the official viewing list: Harvey E. Oyer Jr. Park at 2010 N. Federal Highway and Intracoastal Park at 2240 N. Federal Highway. They offer open waterfront with no restaurant reservation and no crowd for Santa. Both parks are north of downtown, so the boats should pass them before reaching the Ocean Avenue Bridge.
The Marina, Where the Evening Runs the Longest
Boynton Harbor Marina is the official Boynton Beach watch location, and the only stop where the event lasts all evening. In 2025 the CRA scheduled festivities there from 6 to 9 p.m. They included live music from the band Making Faces and DJ Leo, children's crafts, face painting, photo ops, and a visit from Santa, his elves and the Grinch. Food and drinks came from Two Georges Waterfront Grille, Common Grounds and Scheurer's Chocolate, and a Toys for Tots donation station was set up.
The marina is built for this event. The Boynton Beach CRA bought the historic commercial fishing marina in March 2006 and rebuilt it in three phases, finishing in January 2017. The CRA's project page names the Dockmaster building, with its public seating facing the water, as "the host location for the Annual Holiday Boat Parade." It also calls the marina the only publicly owned marina in south Palm Beach County.
Both waterfront restaurants at the marina are still open. Banana Boat at 739 E. Ocean Avenue lists lunch and dinner daily. Two Georges at 728 Casa Loma Boulevard posts daily hours. In April 2026 the CRA's Boynton Beach Insider reported that Two Georges had finished dock and seawall improvements. The June 2026 Marina Month roundup listed Banana Boat, Two Georges and Marina Café among the marina's businesses, along with charter, dive and boat-rental operators.
The toy drive has a waterfront version too. According to the Sun Sentinel's 2025 guide, people watching from docks could wave a flashlight, and boats with amber-colored beacons would stop for Toys for Tots donations. Donation boxes were also set out at Banana Boat, Prime Catch and Two Georges. That was how it worked in 2025.
The 2025 parking plan for the marina:
- Free: public lots at 115 N. Federal Highway and nearby areas on NE 1st Avenue and NE 4th Street
- Free: City Hall lots at 129 E. Ocean Avenue and at the southeast corner of Boynton Beach Boulevard and Seacrest Boulevard
- Free, limited: street parking along East Ocean Avenue
- Paid, limited: the Boynton Harbor Marina parking garage
South of Woolbright, and Into Delray
Below the marina, the next Boynton stop is Prime Catch at 700 E. Woolbright Road. It sits by the Woolbright Road Bridge, which was estimated to go up around 7:30 p.m. in 2025. The restaurant's site lists it as open daily. Jaycee Park at 2600 S. Federal Highway is the southernmost Boynton park on the CRA's list.
In Delray Beach the 2025 list included Deck 84 at 840 E. Atlantic Avenue, Veterans Park at 802 NE 1st Street, and Knowles Park at 1001 S. Federal Highway. The Atlantic Avenue Bridge estimate was 8:00 p.m., so these viewers had the latest show on the route. That leaves time for an early dinner on Atlantic before the boats arrive. The City of Delray Beach calendar carried the parade for December 12, 2025, starting at 6:30 p.m. on the Intracoastal.
Why the Bridge Times Matter Even If You Stay Home
The same estimates that work as a viewing schedule are also a traffic schedule. In 2025 each bridge from Ocean Avenue in Boynton down to Linton Boulevard was held up while the boats passed. The CRA told drivers to "plan ahead." The earlier CRA guide says the bridges stay upright for the safety of drivers and pedestrians.
The closures move south through the evening, about 15 minutes apart. A dinner reservation on the barrier island at 7:30 sits right in the Woolbright Road window. A drive across Atlantic Avenue around 8 p.m. falls during the Delray crossing. If you're heading home after watching at the marina, the boats will already be south of you, so the Ocean Avenue Bridge has likely come back down. These are estimates, and the actual timing depends on the boats.
What's Set for 2026, and What Isn't Yet
The Eventeny listing describes the parade as "hosted annually on the second Friday of December." That makes December 11 the expected 2026 date, and it matches the listing. Beyond the date, hours and marina address, the 2026 listing doesn't give a route, bridge estimates, a parking plan, an entertainment lineup or toy-drive details. Everything above about those comes from the 2025 event.
The parade has a long history. On December 8, 2023, the CRA held the 51st annual edition with 35 decorated vessels, according to the Florida Redevelopment Association. A panel of seven judges scored the boats on lights, colors, theme and best overall. The Sun Sentinel called the 2025 parade the 53rd and described it as "one of the oldest SoFlo shows on the waterway."
If you're thinking of entering a boat, the 2025 application deadline was noon on December 11, the day before the parade. The 2026 listing doesn't include entry terms. Once the CRA publishes its 2026 guide, the bridge estimates will be the first thing to compare against this table.
If you watch from your own dock on the Intracoastal, the bridge-up times above also tell you roughly when the boats will pass your house. To learn more about life along this stretch of waterfront between Lantana and Linton Boulevard, contact Bernal & Hudson. We'd be glad to share what we know about the docks and the streets near them.
