[Pairadocs]

We have a "ritual" 4th every year. We go to the Atlantic side and book a hotel in the area between Cocoa Village, Cocoa Beach, and Port Canaveral. The space coast calls it their Red, Hot, and Boom celebration, and is usually 3 nights of fireworks among those three locations. The fireworks at Port Canaveral can be perfectly viewed from Jetty beach or the camp grounds all along the jetty in Jetty Park, or, on the comfortable expanse of park like grounds surrounding the 7 story observations next to the port. The highlight for us is always the display ON the actual 4th at Cocoa Village. The fireworks is presented with the live Brevard Symphony in the sunken garden with the fireworks happening over the Banana River. We always stay 4 nights to attend all 3 or 4 displays, usually beginning with one on the 3rd, Cocoa Village and symphony of the 4th, and usually a 3rd display on the 5th or 2nd, depending on the year and how the dates fall. We have done this beach, symphony (all free) and spectacular fireworks over the water for years and it never gets old or boring. A plus is the beach front dining by Port Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, and Cocoa Village (which has some great restaurants in the quaint little place. If you prefer just going for the fireworks one day, that's also an option.

If you don't venture far from the immediate area (the villages has never in all the years we've been here now, sponsored a display over Lake Sumter, Lake Miona, or other), Leesburg has a very impressive display over the water at Venetian Gardens Park. It's a very spacious and beautiful park with many amenities and many areas to put up some chairs under huge shade trees and have a picnic, read a book, take a walk by the lake, or even take a nap before the night's festivities. Viewing is generally very good from any location in the large park, but.... for those who wait to go only as it's near fireworks time, it's very difficult, parking is full by that time in every area and lot, so your choice would be to park down town and walk down the hill toward Venetian Gardens as close as you can get, and then just sit your chairs up on one of the blocked off streets or near the hospital.

Ocala has a nice display and Eaton's Beach in Weirsdale is a great place to go with a group of friends, food, lake front beach, fireworks, etc. Friends/neighbors can chip in together and reserve special deck seating/tables, etc. Check their FB page for details. Mt. Dora is another option, Altamonte has a national reputation as one of the largest in the country, but is supposedly downsizing just a bit this year to budget for more name entertainers, and of course Orlando has a gigantic display over the lake Eola fountain. The Villages used to publish a list of all the area fireworks displays and the dates (which usually run from July 1 to 4th, so it's possible to take in several), but stopped for the last 3 years (Covid), perhaps they will begin publishing the list again with dates and times. If not, if you type in a search "fireworks displays in central Florida", you will come up with a huge number of choices.