Surprise! The San Pedro Lighted Boat Parade IS BACK And Better than EVER

I barely remember the first Holiday Lighted Boat Parade on Ambergris Caye in December of 2006. I was “testing Belize” at that point – deciding if I could really move down here after falling in love with the island on my first visit in August of that same year.

But I’m sure it helped cement my decision to move to my new country because the Annual Lighted Boat Parades (which lit up the sea each year from 2006-2019) is an AMAZING community event. Beautiful and festive and fun – it brings the entire town to the beach front to celebrate.

This year, December was starting and no parade was planned. I was disappointed but completely understood. It takes A HUGE amount of organization and time, planning and money to pull off this event but…last week, the San Pedro Tour Operators Association decided to revive this beloved event. LAST WEEK! Karen Canul and Elito Arceo and the Tour Operators rallied in a huge way with the help of Minister Andre Perez, the Belize Tourism Board and the San Pedro Town Council to gather over captains and businesses and their boats…to throw this huge party.

And to revive one of the most festive, family-oriented, community-love-filled events of the year.

ALL that being said, I learned, the hard way, very early in the evening that my beloved IPhone takes great action pictures and videos during the day and fantastic still photos at night but action photos at night? Not so great. I’ll show you what I’ve got…but for really great pictures of the boats AND the surprise fireworks after the event, check out the San Pedro Town Council’s photos on their FB page. They are fantastic. Here’s one from their page that I love.

Here are my pics.

It had rained hard just about an hour before the parade was set to line-up but as I drove to town, things seemed to be getting better. The weather…not the awful road.

I first headed into to the town center to get some pics of the town tree. She’s looking beautiful.

And then I looked for a long dock to sit on. Many of the boats will come close to the docks (my favorite part) playing music, dancing, costumes…it’s super fun.

And I decide to head to a very busy Palapa Bar.

The boats headed down to the Alaia Resort first – and then back to Central Park before they started to bob by our spot.

A bunch of the smaller boats stayed quite far from the dock and made a beautiful (but very hard to photograph) display.

My view as the last boat bobbled by…

And I stopped at The Truck Stop on my way home to take a pic of their beautiful display.

The party in town wasn’t over! I missed a SURPRISED fireworks display in the park after the parade ended.

GORGEOUS!

HUUUGE thank you to the organizers and every business and boat owner that rallied to participate. It is SO appreciated by the whole town.

And if you missed it, don’t fret, there is ANOTHER evening parade tonight!!!! The LoveFM Lighted Parade thru the streets of town. Here is last year’s parade – super fun.

It starts a bit after sunset at Boca Del Rio Park (just south of the bridge) and parade straight down Middle Street to the RC School and then loops down Back Street to Saca Chispas (the old football field in the town center) for ANOTHER big holiday party 🙂

It really is the most wonderful time of the year.