Pull into Bayfront Festival Park on a Friday night in December and you'll see the problem before you find a spot for it: forty families circling the same three rows, headlights bouncing off the harbor, everyone hunting for one open space so the night can actually start. Bentleyville Tour of Lights is free to walk through, but getting a group there in one piece is its own project — and the question that decides whether your night starts warm or starts cold is simple: where does a bus actually park, and what does it cost to leave it there?
The short version: Bentleyville's own lot sits right off Railroad Street, it opens at 4 PM, and it charges by the vehicle, not by the seat. A charter bus, party bus, or minibus rolls your whole group through the same gate as a single car — for a single vehicle's rate. Below is exactly how that works, what Bentleyville's own pages say about parking and access, and what changed in 2024 that makes a private bus close to the only real group shuttle left to this display.
Why Rent a Bus to Bentleyville Tour of Lights?
Bentleyville only runs from 5 PM to 9 or 10 PM, so every group is arriving and leaving inside the same tight window as large numbers of other families — last season alone drew 295,300 visitors through Bayfront Festival Park. Splitting a group of 30 or 40 people into a dozen personal vehicles means a dozen separate lot searches, a dozen chances someone gets turned around on Railroad Street in the dark, and a dozen cold walks back to a car nobody can quite remember parking.
A Duluth charter bus or party bus folds all of that into one stop. Everyone climbs on warm, the group walks in together, and the bus holds the spot while you're inside looking at five million lights instead of texting to find out where everyone parked. One quick form or a call to 218-302-9370 gets your group a quote — and a plan for a night that's supposed to be easy in the first place.
Charter Bus & Party Bus Parking at Bentleyville Tour of Lights
Bentleyville sits inside Bayfront Festival Park at 700 W Railroad St, Duluth, MN 55802, right on the harbor between downtown and Canal Park. Onsite parking runs $12 per vehicle, or $10 if you pay cash, and the lots open at 4 PM every night of the season — a full hour before the lights turn on. That $12 is charged per vehicle, not per rider, which is the whole case for a bus in one sentence: ten cars of families pay $12 each, $120 total, for the same forty people one 30-passenger minibus brings through the same gate for a single $12.
Bentleyville's own site doesn't publish a separate motorcoach lane or a reserved bus row, so a charter bus uses the same Railroad Street entrance and the same paid lot as every other vehicle. That's a plain gap in the published rules, worth a call ahead if your group tops 50 people, but not a reason to skip the bus. A support team can check current lot conditions for your date when you request pricing at 218-302-9370.
Accessible parking is first-come, first-served with a permit displayed, and Bentleyville spreads accessible spaces across three lots — its own onsite lot, the DECC next door, and the Great Lakes Aquarium lot down the harbor. For a group with riders who need the shortest walk in, arriving right at 4 PM matters more here than almost anywhere else on this list.
Bus Parking at the DECC When Bentleyville's Lot Fills
Bentleyville is one of ten venues run by the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, whose main campus sits a couple of minutes down the harbor at 350 Harbor Drive. When the Railroad Street lot fills on a busy Saturday, the DECC's own parking is the backup — but not all of it fits a coach. The DECC's parking ramp clears just 8 feet 2 inches, too low for a full-size charter bus, so an oversized vehicle needs the DECC's surface lot, not the ramp.
Surface parking runs the same flat rate as the ramp, and the DECC's own page notes RV parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis — a decent sign a coach can find room there too, though it's worth confirming same-day before you commit a 40-foot vehicle to it.
Why There's No Shuttle to Bentleyville Tour of Lights Anymore
For years, the North Shore Scenic Railroad ran a dedicated Bentleyville train, and a "Jingle Bus" looped hotels straight to the gate. Neither exists anymore. Bentleyville's own site confirms the railroad "will not be offering the Bentleyville Shuttle Trains" due to scheduling limits, and the hotel Jingle Bus stopped running as of 2024 — the current advice is to call your hotel directly and ask if it runs its own shuttle.
Most don't.
That leaves two ways into Bentleyville: drive yourself and hunt for one of those $12 spaces among a quarter-million other visitors' worth of traffic, or book one bus that drops your whole group at the same gate. For a family reunion, a church youth group, or a company holiday outing, a Duluth party bus rental or minibus is now close to the only group shuttle this event has left.
Bentleyville Tour of Lights Hours, Dates & the Crowd-O-Meter
Bentleyville runs November 21 through December 26, 2026, with the lights on Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 9 PM and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 PM. Admission has always been free — Bentleyville calls itself "America's Largest Free Walk-Through Lighting Display," and that free admission is exactly why the parking lot, not a ticket gate, is the bottleneck your group needs to plan around.
Bentleyville posts a Crowd-O-Meter to flag its busiest and quietest nights. A weeknight visit, pulling in right at 4 PM when the lot opens and before the after-work and after-school crowd arrives, is consistently the easier night for a longer vehicle to find lot space and for your group to walk the display without shuffling behind a few hundred strangers. If your dates are flexible, that's the single easiest lever you have.
Walking Bentleyville Tour of Lights With a Group
Bayfront Festival Park sits directly on Lake Superior, and the wind off the harbor is the detail every guide undersells. Bentleyville's own advice is blunt about it: dress in layers, since "it is always easier to remove a layer than to add one" once you're a half-mile into five million lights with nowhere indoors to warm up. A bus waiting nearby is somewhere a cold rider can duck back to before the whole group is ready to leave — something a car parked three rows deep in a packed lot can't offer.
Bentleyville describes Bayfront Festival Park as fully accessible, with pathways kept clear and free wheelchairs and strollers available near the main entrance on a first-come, first-served basis. Free hot cocoa, coffee, cookies, popcorn, and marshmallow-roasting firepits are spread through the route, so budget real time — this isn't a fifteen-minute walk-by.
Getting to Bentleyville Tour of Lights From Around the Northland
Bayfront Festival Park sits at the bottom of downtown Duluth, reached off I-35 by way of Railroad Street along the waterfront. That approach is the same stretch of harbor road that Canal Park traffic, DECC event traffic, and Bentleyville traffic all share on a Friday or Saturday night, so budget extra minutes even before you start hunting for the lot itself.
Groups come from well outside Duluth for this display. Superior, Wisconsin is a few minutes across the Bong Bridge; Hermantown and Proctor are a short ride up the hill; Two Harbors and Cloquet both sit under a half hour out. For groups coming from further away, whether that's the Iron Range or a longer haul down from the Twin Cities, a private bus means nobody makes that whole drive back after dark on their own.
The Duluth service area page covers how far pickup can reach for a group like that.
Leaving Bentleyville Tour of Lights After the Lights Go Quiet
Bentleyville doesn't clear out all at once the way a stadium does, but the last thirty minutes before closing still bunches everyone toward the same Railroad Street exit at the same time. Families with tired kids, strollers, and a wagon full of gear are all funneling for the same lot rows you parked in three hours earlier.
A bus skips the scramble. Agree on a pickup window before your group splits up inside, and the bus holds its spot — engine warm, heat running — instead of sitting somewhere in a line of cars all trying to back out of the same row at once. Nobody's walking a dark parking lot at 9:45 PM looking for a car they can barely see.
What Size Bus Fits Your Bentleyville Tour of Lights Group?
Bentleyville groups run everywhere from a dozen grandkids to a full church congregation, so the right vehicle comes down to headcount more than anything else.
| Vehicle | Typical seats | Best for | Key amenities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sprinter van | Up to ~14 | A single family or a small group of friends | Climate control, individual seating, easy loading for kids and gear |
| 30-passenger minibus | ~25–30 | Church groups, scout troops, office outings | Reclining seats, working heat for a cold harbor night, overhead storage for coats and donation boxes |
| Party bus | ~15–40 | Extended family gatherings, milestone celebrations, work parties | Sound system and lighting for the ride, plenty of room to spread out |
| Charter bus | Up to 56 | Large congregations, senior groups, multi-family reunions | Onboard restroom, undercarriage storage, WiFi and power outlets for longer hauls in from outside Duluth |
See the full vehicle lineup for photos and exact capacities before you request pricing.
Bentleyville Tour of Lights Bus Rental Prices
Pricing depends on your group size, how many hours you need the bus (including the time it sits waiting during your visit), and how far it's traveling to reach your group. To give you an idea: a 25-person group booking a minibus for a 3-hour round trip from central Duluth might land somewhere in the $450–$650 range — split across 25 people, that's under $30 a head for a night that would otherwise mean 8 to 10 separate cars, each paying its own $12 at the gate, plus gas. It always varies with your date and headcount, so the fastest way to a number is a quick form or a call to 218-302-9370 — you can compare vehicles and prices in about a minute.
See the Duluth bus rental prices page for more on how quotes are built.
Bring a Donation: Bentleyville's Salvation Army Food & Toy Drive
Bentleyville partners with The Salvation Army, and visitors are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items or a new, unwrapped toy for local families. Bentleyville's own numbers put last season's total at 8,074 pounds of food and 1,069 toys, spread across seven Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin communities.
A church group or school class is often already collecting donations before the trip — this is the moment to bring the box along. A minibus or charter bus has the overhead space and underseat room a car doesn't, so the donation bin rides with the group instead of taking up a trunk somebody has to remember separately. Groups organizing a collection drive around the trip might also look at Duluth church transportation for coordinating a whole congregation's ride.
Groups That Book Bentleyville Tour of Lights Charter Bus Rentals
The same door-to-door trip works for very different groups, all solving the same cold-parking-lot problem.
Church and youth groups combine the trip with the Salvation Army donation drive, often stopping for dinner in Canal Park on the way. School classes with an early-December field trip date can use a Duluth school bus rental or a minibus, built around field trip transportation with a fixed drop-off and pickup window. Offices running a holiday outing skip the designated-transportation provider problem of a stop for dinner afterward by booking through Duluth corporate transportation.
And extended families gathering for the holidays use one bus to collect everyone from a hotel block instead of renting five or six cars for one night. For a trip that pairs Bentleyville with dinner or another stop, the Duluth group transportation services page covers multi-stop planning.
Also planning a trip to Amsoil Arena or a run out to Black Bear Casino Resort? Those guides cover their own drop-offs.
Tips for Visiting Bentleyville Tour of Lights With a Bus Group
- Arrive right at 4 PM. That's when the lots open, a full hour before the lights turn on, and it's the easiest time for a longer vehicle to find space.
- Bring cash if you can. Parking runs $10 cash versus $12 by card, though Venmo, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover are all accepted too.
- Dress for the harbor wind, not the forecast. Bentleyville sits right on Lake Superior, and it runs colder than a downtown Duluth weather app suggests.
- Set a pickup window before the group splits up. Bentleyville has no paging system for a group scattered across the display, so agree on a meeting spot and a time before anyone wanders off toward the firepits.
- Pack the donation box in the bus, not a trunk. Nonperishable food or a new, unwrapped toy goes to The Salvation Army, and it's one less thing for a family to carry from a car.
- Check the Crowd-O-Meter before you pick a date. A weeknight visit means less circling for a lot spot and more room to actually see the display.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do buses park at Bentleyville Tour of Lights?
Bentleyville doesn't publish a separate motorcoach lot, so a charter bus, party bus, or minibus uses the same Railroad Street entrance and paid lot as every other vehicle at Bayfront Festival Park. The lot charges $12 per vehicle ($10 cash) regardless of size, and opens at 4 PM. If that lot is full, the DECC's surface lot next door is the backup — its parking ramp clears only 8 feet 2 inches, too low for a coach, so a bus needs the surface lot specifically.
How much does it cost to rent a bus to Bentleyville Tour of Lights?
Pricing depends on your group size, the hours you need the bus, and how far it travels to reach you. To give you an idea, a 25-person minibus trip from central Duluth might run somewhere in the $450–$650 range for a few hours, though it always varies. Fill out the quick form or call 218-302-9370 for pricing on your date.
Is there a shuttle or train to Bentleyville anymore?
No. Bentleyville's own site confirms the North Shore Scenic Railroad no longer runs its Bentleyville Shuttle Train, and the hotel "Jingle Bus" stopped running as of 2024. A private bus or driving yourself are the two ways a group gets there now.
What time do the Bentleyville parking lots open?
The lots open at 4 PM every night of the season, a full hour before the lights turn on at 5 PM.
Is Bentleyville Tour of Lights really free?
Yes. Bentleyville calls itself America's Largest Free Walk-Through Lighting Display, and there's no admission charge — the only cost most groups pay is the $12 ($10 cash) parking cost per vehicle.
Is Bentleyville accessible for wheelchairs and strollers?
Yes. Bentleyville describes Bayfront Festival Park as fully accessible, with pathways kept clear, and it offers free wheelchairs and strollers near the main entrance on a first-come, first-served basis. Accessible parking is available with a permit at Bentleyville's own lot, the DECC, and the Great Lakes Aquarium lot, also first-come, first-served.
What should our group bring?
Warm layers — Bayfront Festival Park sits directly on Lake Superior, and the wind runs colder than the forecast suggests. Bentleyville also asks visitors to bring a nonperishable food item or a new, unwrapped toy for its Salvation Army donation drive.
What size bus does our group need?
For a dozen people or a single family, a Sprinter van is plenty. Church groups, scout troops, and office outings in the 25-to-30 range typically book a minibus. Larger congregations, multi-family reunions, or groups over 40 people usually need a full-size charter bus with an onboard restroom for the ride in from outside Duluth.
How far in advance should we book?
Weekends in December are Bentleyville's busiest nights per its own Crowd-O-Meter, and that's also when Duluth's bus supply is tightest for holiday parties, school outings, and family gatherings happening the same week. Booking two to three weeks ahead is a reasonable window for most dates; for a Friday or Saturday close to Christmas, call as soon as your date is set.
Can the bus wait for us during our visit?
Yes. The bus is booked for a block of hours, so it holds a parking spot and stays warm while your group walks the display, then it's right there for your agreed pickup time instead of somewhere in a line of cars all backing out of the same row.
Book Your Bentleyville Tour of Lights Bus Today
The lights are free. Getting a group there together, warm, and parked without ten separate cars circling the same three rows is the part Duluthminibuscompany.com makes easy. Fill out the quick form or call 218-302-9370 and compare vehicles and prices for your date — a minibus, a party bus, or a full-size charter bus, whichever fits your Bentleyville group best.
