July 4th Fireworks Celebration Marina del Rey

The event was unorganized and crowded. Mass confusion. Safety hazard due to complete chaos. Unsafe for children.

We went again this year and it was just as fun as last year. Again we arrived at about 430 and were able to easily find parking within a 5 minute walk to the park. Upon arriving there were a lot of people but it was quite easy to find a nice shaded spot to set up out chairs and hang out. This place is full of families and lot of grilling going on. It seemed like everyone was having a lot of fun. If you plan to try and snag a picnic table and grill plan to get there in the morning. There is a line of about 12 porta potties that were quite clean the times I stopped in. There was no wait most of the day but starting about at about 8pm expect a 50+ person line.
The fireworks were great again. About a 20 minute show with some music playing from PA system in the park. Remember don’t expect a show on par with the rose bowl this is a smaller show.
Overall great time and a great place for family and friends.

Weak and poor excuse for a fireworks show. You’ll see a better show watching a trash can burn.

I just got home from the most miserable, pathetic, and pitiful fireworks displays I have ever attended in my entire life. I consider my level of patriotism to be slightly above that of the average American, and so I really look forward to Independence Day. Capping off the day watching a fireworks display and sobbing my eyes out to cheesy patriotic music is what I do every single year. This year was extremely disappointing. We arrived at the park early in the afternoon and were able to get a parking spot before walking over to The Counter for a late lunch, since we didn’t have our traditional barbecue. I wish we’d brought our bikes to kill time on the trail there, but then again, it was really crowded. That’s where the good part ends. We stopped at the MDR information office to ask for the best area to sit and view the fireworks. The ladies were all very sweet and directed us to the park. We strolled over to scope it out ahead of time. It was hard to tell which direction the fireworks would be coming from because people were all over the place and there are lots of trees that could potentially obstruct the view. We saw a park attendant who told us the best viewing area was along a fence so that’s where we posted up. Imagine our surprise when the fireworks started on the opposite side of the park and we (along with a mob of other people) had to trot a good ways to actually view the display. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the display hadn’t been so pitiful. Seriously, I’ve seen more fireworks at a neighborhood block party. And where was my music? The website set that you could listen along to synchronized music on some local radio station and that the music would be playing over loud speakers throughout the park. Yeah, we never heard that. There was no Born in the USA, no Proud to Be an American, no America the Beautiful, no Coming to America. Nada. Nyet. Zilch. Kein.
We were obviously not the only people disappointed. There were dozens of other folks leaving the park, voicing the same complaint. I don’t understand why so many people came out, perhaps because it was the first year in many years that they’ve had the celebration. I saw better fireworks looking to the east and west while driving down the 405, that was QUITE a sight to behold. To add insult to injury, I get home and the Macy’s celebration in Manhattan was on the television. While I don’t expect the city of Marina del Rey to compare, I did expect it to at least hold a candle to the celebration at the Rose Bowl, which is phenomenal. I wanted to cry alright, but not because of pride in my country. We’ve already decided, next year we’ll be back in Pasadena.