Most Los Angeles neighborhoods treat summer as a calendar. Marina del Rey treats it as a route. The distinction matters if you live here, because the harbor gives you a piece of civic infrastructure that residents from Culver City to Playa Vista quietly envy every June through September, and most people on Via Marina still forget to use it.
The infrastructure is a boat. A one-dollar boat, cash only, that stops eight times around the main channel and turns three separate weekend outings into one continuous afternoon. Understand the WaterBus, and the rest of the summer schedule reorganizes itself around your slip, your patio, or your walk to Chace Park.
The one-dollar spine
The Marina del Rey WaterBus is the piece of the summer schedule most residents underuse. During the regular season, the boat runs Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from June 19 through September 7, 2026, plus the Fourth of July and Labor Day, with no Monday through Thursday service; summer service starts at 11:00 AM and runs until 11:00 PM on Fridays, Saturdays, and the Fourth of July, and until 9:00 PM on Sundays and Labor Day. Rides are $1 per person per one-way trip, cash only, and a full loop takes about 45 minutes.
The route is what changes the shape of a Saturday. The 2026 route has eight boarding stops along the marina, including Fisherman's Village at 13723 Fiji Way, Burton Chace Park, the Waterfront Walk near the Ritz-Carlton, and Del Rey Landing. If you live on the Peninsula side and your friends are staying at the Ritz for a wedding block, the boat solves the parking problem you were about to complain about. It also runs on select fall dates: Fridays from September 4 through September 25 for Dance MDR, and Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, for Marina Spooktacular, which means the "summer" service is really a five-month season if you know when to look.
The instructive way to think about the WaterBus is not as a shuttle but as a permission slip. It permits a two-restaurant lunch. It permits leaving the car at home on concert nights. It permits treating Chace Park like a Central Park you can arrive at by ferry.
| Weekend plan | Car version | WaterBus version |
|---|---|---|
| Brunch at the Ritz, sculpture stop at Mother's Beach, sunset drink at Fisherman's Village | Three separate drives, three parking lots | One $3 fare, no keys |
| Saturday concert at Chace Park | Circle for parking after 5:00 PM | Board at Del Rey Landing, walk in |
| Errand at the Farmers Market, then a friend's boat | Park twice | One loop |
Two music series stacked in the same weekend
If you have lived in Marina del Rey for more than a summer, you know Burton Chace Park. What is easier to miss is that two separate free music series are running at the same time this July and August, one in the afternoon and one at night, at opposite ends of the harbor.
The afternoon set belongs to Fisherman's Village. Fisherman's Village has free live music every weekend in July 2026, including a show on the Fourth of July, with bands playing Saturdays and Sundays at 13723 Fiji Way, and most shows running from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. The July lineup is more eclectic than the setting suggests:
- Saturday, July 11: Ohio Trio Band, doo wop, R&B, country western, soul, and pop
- Sunday, July 12: Jimbo Ross and the Bodacious Band, Chicago blues, funk, soul, and zydeco
- Saturday, July 18: Henry Benavides, salsa, merengue, cumbia, and bolero
- Sunday, July 19: U.S. 99, vintage rock and roll, surf, rockabilly, and R&B
- Saturday, July 25: Lizzy B and the Hive, a tribute to the women of rock and roll
The evening set belongs to Chace Park. Now in its 26th year, the Marina del Rey Summer Concert Series returns with free concerts at beautiful Burton Chace Park. The 2026 schedule opens Saturday, July 11 with the Marina del Rey Symphony performing Encanto in Concert live to film, followed by Los Lobos on July 18, TBA on July 25, Marina del Rey Symphony Video Game Music on August 1, Monsieur Periné on August 8, and D Smoke and Carl Thomas on August 15. Gourmet food trucks arrive at 5:00 p.m., or you can pack your own picnic, and there is no reserved seating, so arriving early gets you the best spots.
Two data points that residents rarely stitch together: the popularity of the Summer Concert Series creates heavy traffic delays on the roads surrounding the park, and the Marina del Rey WaterBus and Beach Shuttle offer convenient access on concert nights. If your neighbor complains about the concert traffic, they are almost certainly still driving to it.
Wednesdays are for the boats that race
The summer story most out-of-town guides miss is Wednesday. The Sunset Series Regatta is a weekly sailing tradition in Marina del Rey since 1964, held every Wednesday evening from April 15 to September 2, 2026, with up to 75 sailboats competing across eight classes in 21 scheduled races on Santa Monica Bay.
Sixty-two years is a useful baseline. It predates the Ritz-Carlton, the Marriott, and every condo tower on Via Marina. If you live near the mouth of the harbor and wonder why traffic on Fiji Way thickens between four and five on a Wednesday, the answer is a race that has been happening on that patch of water since Lyndon Johnson was president. Watching from the South Jetty, from Chace Park, or from a slip is one of the few free-with-a-view activities in Los Angeles where the sightline actually delivers.
The Tony P's corner is becoming something else
The most consequential change to the waterfront this year is not on the calendar. It is on the shoreline.
Los Angeles County officials have entered a license agreement with the California Yacht Club for the former Tony P's Dockside Grill site, following the restaurant's closure, with the Department of Beaches and Harbors allowing the club to operate at the site while both parties work toward a lease amendment. The county entered the agreement with the California Yacht Club to open a new sea-to-table restaurant at the site, aiming for a Spring 2026 opening. The project remains in the design phase, and in the interim the club will offer bar service for its members at the site.
For residents who have been in Marina del Rey long enough to remember Tony P's as a Sunday morning default, the shift matters in two ways. The building keeps its role as a public-facing dining anchor rather than becoming a members-only clubhouse, and the California Yacht Club takes on stewardship of a site that has held the same corner for decades. Whether "sea-to-table" translates into another Cast & Plow or something closer to the old dockside energy will define one of the harbor's most visible corners for the next ten years.
A resident's Saturday, rebuilt around the water
Take a July Saturday. Assemble it the way someone with a slip would, not the way someone with a Waze route would.
- 9:00 AM. Farmers Market by Mother's Beach, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., every Saturday year-round, free admission. Walk or bike. Parking here on a summer Saturday is a tax you do not need to pay.
- 11:15 AM. Board the WaterBus at the closest stop to your building. Go one loop. Get off at Fisherman's Village.
- 12:30 PM. Lunch at the Village. Stay for the 2:00 PM band. On July 18 that means Henry Benavides and a salsa set at 13723 Fiji Way; on July 25 it means Lizzy B and the Hive.
- 4:00 PM. Reboard the WaterBus. Head toward Chace Park. If it is a Wednesday, cross to a jetty vantage and watch the Sunset Series fleet rig up instead.
- 5:00 PM. Food trucks arrive at Chace Park for the evening concert. On July 11 that is Encanto in Concert, on July 18 Los Lobos, on August 15 D Smoke and Carl Thomas.
- 9:00 PM. WaterBus back. No parking exit, no attendant, no queue on Admiralty Way.
The math on the fare is worth stating plainly. If you hop off at a stop and want to get back on later, that is another $1 per person when you re-board, and a family of four doing a full round-trip costs $8. Four hours of transit, three destinations, one harbor.
The summer thesis, in one sentence
The value of living in Marina del Rey in July is not the proximity to any single amenity. It is the ability to string them together without touching a car. The WaterBus is the reason. The two overlapping music series are the payoff. The Wednesday regatta is the reminder that this pattern has been the neighborhood's summer rhythm since 1964. And the corner where Tony P's stood is the reminder that the harbor keeps rewriting itself, one lease at a time.
If you own here, this is the summer to lend the boat to a friend and take the WaterBus to your own concert. If you are thinking about a slip, a Peninsula walk-up, or a condo on Bora Bora Way, spend a Saturday running the loop above before you talk to anyone about square footage.
When you are ready to talk about what living on this piece of water actually costs, and what it actually returns, Gina Martino is available for a private conversation. Receive Exclusive Off-Market Listings.
