Saturday is going to pull Lee County in two directions, and I want to be straightforward about which direction we are going.
Our trucks will be at Florida Gulf Coast University. We are presenting sponsor for Princesses vs. Superheroes on September 12, and our interactive sports inflatables will be set up on the FGCU campus from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. That is where you will find me and Chris that morning.
Meanwhile, twenty-some miles west, ROAR Offshore is running the Fort Myers Beach Offshore Powerboat Race — the first time that race has been held on that island since 2021, which is to say the first time since Hurricane Ian. It is a genuinely significant weekend for the beach and I would not blame anybody for going.
So here is both of them, with the practical details for each, and then an honest answer about whether you can do both in one day.
Where we will be: FGCU, Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Princesses vs. Superheroes is run by the FGCU Student Occupational Therapy Association together with GIDDI, and it funds Adaptive Sports Day. Kids come in costume, there are activities across the morning, and we bring the inflatables. Chris laid out the full logistics a couple of weeks ago, so I will keep this to the parts people get wrong:
- Saturday, September 12, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the FGCU Water School on the main Fort Myers campus. Note that this is not the Library Lawn, which is where an earlier version of this event lived. Campus events move. Check the organizers' link page the morning of.
- Tickets are $10 per person presale, $15 at the door, through the organizers' Venmo. Put the attendee name in the payment title or they cannot match it up.
- There is a parent liability waiver and photo release. Separate form, not optional, and the fastest way to spend twenty minutes in a line is to arrive without it.
- Parking is free in FGCU Parking Garage 1 and Parking Lot 8, with a free visitor event permit through FGCU Parking Services. Pull the permit the night before. Cell signal on level three of a parking garage is not a plan.
Come find us at the inflatables. If you have a fall festival, a church event, or a school field day coming up and you want to look at equipment in person rather than on a website, this is a considerably better way to do it than a phone call.
ROAR Offshore, September 11 through 13
The race is three days, and the days are not interchangeable.
Friday, September 11. Team arrivals, inspections, official practice, and qualifying. The Race Village opens at 9 a.m. with boats on display, vendor exhibits, and access to drivers and crews. As of the Chamber's current posting the Race Village location was still listed as to be announced, so check roaroffshore.com before you drive down. Teams test on the course through the day. Thinner crowd, real racing to watch.
Saturday, September 12. Qualifying heats, racing, the public Pit Party, sponsor hospitality, reserved waterfront viewing. This is the heavy day, and it is the day we are on campus.
Sunday, September 13. Championship Day — morning warm-ups, the main offshore races, awards, and an America 250 closing celebration.
The event opens on September 11 and is folded into the America 250 calendar. I spent twenty years in the Air Force and I am not going to pretend that date reads like an ordinary Friday to me. The organizers put the America 250 celebration on Sunday afternoon rather than Friday, and I think that was the right call.
You can watch from the sand for free. Beachfront seating, waterfront restaurants, designated spectator boating areas, and VIP venues all exist, but for offshore racing the free version is fine. These boats are large and loud and you do not need a ticketed chair to appreciate that.
Two roads onto the island, and one of them is new
Fort Myers Beach has exactly two vehicle entrances, and this is the first big race weekend where both are in normal working order.
From the north, San Carlos Boulevard over the Matanzas Pass Bridge into Times Square. That is the route almost everyone from Cape Coral, McGregor, and Iona takes, and it is the one that stacks up.
From the south, Estero Boulevard across the new Big Carlos Pass Bridge from Lover's Key. Lee County cut the ribbon on that bridge June 30, 2026, finishing a $90.8 million project that replaced the old drawbridge with a 60-foot fixed span. Traffic actually shifted onto the new structure back in November 2025. The fixed span matters more than it sounds: there is no bridge opening. The old drawbridge could stop traffic cold for a passing boat, and on a weekend with several hundred boats working around that pass, that would have been an ugly variable.
The 75-cent option most people from the Cape have never used
You do not have to park on the island at all.
LeeTran runs a Beach Park & Ride at 11101 Summerlin Square Drive, on the mainland side of the bridge. Leave the car, take the Route 490 trolley down to Crescent Beach. Route 410 runs the length of the island, Bowditch Point Park to Lover's Key State Park, so once you are on you can move without the car.
Current fares, from the Chamber's posting:
- 75 cents per ride
- $2 all-day pass
- $4 three-day pass, which is exactly the length of this event
- 35 cents for riders 65 and older, riders with disabilities, and full-time students
- Free for children 6 and under
Two warnings. Drivers cannot make change — bring exact fare, or use the LeeFare app or a TropiCard. And the one that catches people every year: the free tram, Route 420, is not running. Service is stopped until November 2026. If your mental picture of Fort Myers Beach includes hopping the free tram up Estero Boulevard, that picture is out of date this weekend. The trolley is what exists, and it costs 75 cents. Trolleys also carry bikes on exterior racks.
Four dollars for a three-day pass against an island parking spot on Championship Sunday is not a close call. I am a CFO in my other working life, and that is the best return available on this entire weekend.
If you are trailering out Friday, look at the tide first
Watching from a boat in the spectator areas is the best seat there is, and Friday has a wrinkle.
September 11 sits at the tail of the September king tide window. Chris wrote up what the Sept. 8-11 window does to Cape Coral canal-front yards last week. For race weekend the relevant part is that ramps, low seawalls, and the low spots on approach roads run higher than normal during those days. If you are launching out of a Cape Coral or south Fort Myers ramp Friday morning, check the tide chart before the race schedule. By Saturday and Sunday the peak has passed.
Can you do both on Saturday? Yes, if you go south
This is the part where twenty years of moving people and equipment on a schedule is actually useful.
Princesses vs. Superheroes ends at 1 p.m. FGCU sits in south Lee County off Ben Hill Griffin Parkway. The instinct after leaving campus is to head northwest toward Summerlin and San Carlos, because that is the way everyone from Fort Myers goes to the beach. On Saturday the 12th, with race traffic, that instinct is wrong.
From FGCU you are already south. Take Bonita Beach Road west, up through Lover's Key, and onto the island over the new Big Carlos Pass Bridge. It is more miles and frequently fewer minutes, it drops you on the quiet end of Estero Boulevard rather than into Times Square, and you are approaching against the direction most of the day's traffic is flowing.
Realistically that puts you on the beach somewhere around 2 p.m. with racing still going. Bring water and expect tired kids. A costume morning followed by a beach afternoon in September is a lot of day, and there is no shame in taking the win at 1 p.m. and going home.
One note on deliveries that weekend
Race weekend changes nothing about a setup in Cape Coral. Our trucks run the Cape grid and cross at the Cape Coral or Midpoint bridges. We are not touching San Carlos Boulevard, and a Saturday morning delivery in Pelican or off Del Prado is a normal Saturday morning delivery.
What it does change is anything on or near the island, plus Iona and the San Carlos corridor — and Saturday morning specifically, because our equipment is committed on the FGCU campus until early afternoon. So for the 12th and 13th we are padding delivery windows south of Summerlin rather than promising a tight arrival we would have to walk back at 10 a.m. with a truck sitting still. If your setup is in that zone those two days, we will call you the night before with a real window instead of an optimistic one.
And if you are bringing kids to campus Saturday morning, say hello. I will be the one standing next to the inflatables answering the phone.
Sources
- Greater Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce — ROAR Offshore 2026 and Trolley & Tram Information
- Cape Coral Breeze, Aug. 13, 2026 — Offshore powerboat racing returning to Fort Myers Beach Sept. 11-13
- WGCU, June 30, 2026 — Ribbon cut on Big Carlos Pass project
About the author
Gabriel Denny — Co-owner, SWFL Amusements LLC
Gabe is co-owner of SWFL Amusements. He spent 20+ years in the Air Force, first enlisting after high school before commissioning and retiring as a Major. He is a 5x CFO, which he continues to do when not working bounce houses. He lives in NW Cape Coral and answers the company phone himself, including at 2am.