Florida Has A Pirate Festival... And It's As Amazing As It Sounds
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Victoria W
Author
The Gasparilla Pirate Festival, or just Gasparilla as it’s known casually, has been celebrated in Tampa since 1904. It’s taking place January 29th and 30th, so start packing and get ready for one wild weekend.
For anyone who's never heard of the festival or its namesake, Gasparilla was a legendary pirate who plundered hundreds of ships in the late 1700s to the early 1800s. His favorite stomping grounds were along Florida's west coast and down to Cuba.
This celebration of booze and boats is basically our answer to Mardi Gras, and only in Florida would a mayor willingly hand over the key to the city to a bunch of pirates almost every year for more than 100 years.
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It begins when Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, a special band of pirates made up of hundreds of community leaders, invades the city on a fully functioning pirate ship commissioned specifically for this purpose in 1954.
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The pirates then take over the city and a begin a wild victory parade down Bayshore Boulevard. Hundreds of thousands of people attend the festival every year.
As its comparisons to Mardi Gras imply, it's an adult festival, and not really suitable for the whole family. The milder version of the parade is held the weekend prior, which unfortunately this year has already passed. It's not too late to call a babysitter and catch the grown-up Gasparilla, though!
So, if you seek great adventure (or at least tons of fun), the Gasparilla Pirate Festival is January 29th and 30th, and you can find more information here. So get over there soon, or you’ll have to wait until next year!
Have you been to the Gasparilla Pirate Festival? Are you going this year? What other awesome events do you think we should feature? Please share your comments with us below!
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