January 23, 2026
Summertime at Kavanaugh’s Resort, a warm Monday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. with crowds gathered for what has become an unusually popular 1-hour of excitement in the heart of our resort. It’s the Kavanaugh Rubber Duck Races!!! 2026 will bring us our twentieth year of the duck races, a tradition that we never saw coming, but we certainly have fallen in love with!
It’s an interesting story of how the duck races came about back in 2007. It all started with our re-development in 2005-2006 and the unique water features that we put in around the resort, which included a waterfall and stream. In the summer of 2006, we had a family group that had come for many years. During that first summer with these new water features, they went out and picked up rubber ducks and decided to run some family duck races on the stream, and we took notice.
Almost immediately, we realized that the stream was perfect for such an event and might be something worth trying out as a weekly event. Shoot, we might even get 10-20 people to participate in such an activity! In 2007 we officially announced that we would be doing the duck races every Monday of the summer, and it became apparent very quickly that people loved it. Since that first race we have had 234 runnings of the event, only missing one race after the 2015 July storm, and shutting the event down for the last 6 weeks of the summer during the 2020 Covid year. Each week, you will see Kavanaugh family members working at the event. In fact, Tom has announced every race, and Mark has been at the finish line gate for over 80% of the races. John is always there signing people in and chatting (we retired him from duck refereeing years ago because we are all getting old)! Of course, Maddi (John, and Vicki’s granddaughter) has been doing these races every year and started them that first summer as a 6-year-old helper!
Many of the family have assisted with the races over the years, and today, Tom’s grandchildren, Liam, Amelia, Charlotte, and Elizabeth help every Monday as their “first resort job.” We often talk about how we have watched our guests’ children grow up during the duck race years and now have their own children participating in the event, which is so cool for us. Many of our guests take the races very seriously, and it shows in all the excitement that goes on during the race. We even have families plan their vacation around making sure they are here on Mondays, and certainly have families plan their weekly itinerary around this fabulous 2:00 p.m. event. We could never have imagined that the Rubber Duck Races would become such a big part of our summer season, but are thrilled to know that they have helped bring so much joy to our guests. We look forward to another great racing season in 2026!