What changed on Key West and the Dry Tortugas

Our jet ski and parasailing page gave Key West’s practical rule as 16 to drive with a parent on the back and 18 to drive alone, with Fury the exception that lets 14- and 15-year-olds drive when an adult rides with them. Fury goes further: a 16- or 17-year-old may drive a jet ski of their own there with a photo ID, a passed boating test and a parent signing at check-in. The page now says so. The things-to-do page, which gave drivers as 16 with a parent aboard, now adds Fury’s 14, with an adult aboard and a parent at check-in. Barefoot Billy’s and Sunset Watersports’ rules are as before.

Our jet ski and parasailing page said Sunset Watersports would fly a child from 4, if they met a minimum weight, and that it decided tandem and triple flights on site. Its parasailing page now lists every flight for ages 5 and up, and says solo or tandem flights are decided on site by weight. The page says so, and Fury’s rules, from 6 with a parent at check-in for anyone under 18, are as before.

By 3 November 2026 Viator had stopped selling the Dry Tortugas ferry day trip we linked. Its listing now says the product is unavailable, and Viator’s partner system marks it inactive. No other partner of ours sells the ferry, so the booking card for it is gone from every page that showed it: the Dry Tortugas, camping, hotels-near-the-ferry and cruise-ship-days pages. The ferry itself still sails, and Tuesday 24 November is still a day to plan on no boat.

The ferry sells its own seats on its own booking calendar. Our pages now say so, and no longer describe a Viator ticket. The lines saying Viator had no date on sale after 31 October, and that its ticket was non-refundable and could not be changed, are gone from, or now in the past tense on, the Dry Tortugas, Christmas and New Year’s, January-to-March, hotels, hurricane-season and things-to-do pages. Those were the Viator listing’s terms, not the ferry’s own.

The fare and the days off have not changed. The adult fare is still $260, with the park entrance fee included. The next days off on the operator’s list are still Tuesday 24 November, which our pages treat as a day with no ferry, and Friday 11 December, and standby still starts at 6:30 a.m. The Dry Tortugas page opens, as it has since 27 October, on the four hotels near the ferry dock, and they are now its only booking cards.

Our lighthouse page said the Custom House had the society’s best online price, $13.95 for an adult against $15.50 at the lighthouse and Fort East Martello. That was a 10%-off offer, and it ran through September: on 30 October the Custom House ticket was $15.50 at checkout, the same as the other two, though the society’s own Custom House page still showed $13.95.

The same page said buying the lighthouse ticket online saved a dollar fifty on the $17 gate price. Online tickets carry a 6% booking fee, added at checkout, so an adult’s comes to $16.43: 57 cents under the gate, not a dollar fifty. The lighthouse page now says both, and every other page that gives the online price adds the fee.

Our fishing charters page priced the Gulfstream IV, chartered whole for a group, at $2,000 for 1 to 25 people and $2,200 for 26 to 45. Its booking page sells it at $2,000 for up to 20 and $2,200 for 21 to 35, for five hours from 8, 9 or 10 a.m., and adds a $100 fuel surcharge, a 3% card processing fee and a 6% booking fee at checkout; its form also ticks an optional 10% trip protection, which can be unticked. The page now gives those figures, and links the charter.

Gulfstream Fishing’s own description of the charter still says the boat takes groups of up to 45; 35 is the most its booking page sells.

Our Key West day trip page gave the Miami Tour Company’s downtown meeting point as the Holiday Inn at 340 Biscayne Boulevard. Its booking page now lists the main pickup at 146 Biscayne Boulevard at 7:15 a.m., with paid parking in the Bayside garage.

The page also said neither bus operator publishes when its bus leaves Key West. Both do: the Miami Tour Company’s leaves at 5:30 p.m., and Travel to Key West’s around 5 to 5:30 p.m., before the sunset in every month of the year.

The page had the bus tours back in Miami around 9:45 p.m. The Miami Tour Company’s booking pages put its bus back at about 9:15 to 9:30 p.m., earlier than the 9:45 the company itself gave on 23 September, and Travel to Key West’s listing gives 9:15 to 10:30 p.m., so the page now gives ranges instead of one time.

Our Key West day trip page priced Travel to Key West’s coach day from Miami from $49. On Viator, $49 is the coach’s one-way fare. The day the page describes, down in the morning and back the same evening, is $54 round trip for an adult and $51 for a child.

The page and its booking card now give $54, and the page compares that with the Miami Tour Company’s $74, which has a 6% booking fee on top.

On 27 October 2026 the Dry Tortugas day trip we link on Viator had seats on two more dates, 30 and 31 October, and nothing on sale in the year after that.

The ferry’s own booking calendar, read date by date the same day, was the only place selling later dates. It had seats on only a few dates in November and December, and on most sailing days from January to August 2027. Every date from 18 December to 4 January was sold out. The limit is still Viator’s allocation, not the boat.

Tuesday 24 November is in doubt. The operator’s stand-by page lists it as a maintenance day with no ferry, and its camping calendar had no camping trip that sailed out or back on the 24th, as for every other maintenance day. Its day-trip calendar still sold seats for the 24th, and offered no sailing on any other listed maintenance day. Our pages now give both, and treat the 24th as a day with no ferry.

Because the Viator ticket cannot be bought for any date from November, the Dry Tortugas page now opens on the four hotels near the ferry, with the ferry card after the article, and the January-to-March page no longer carries the ferry card. The October 2026 dates on our pages (no ferry on 22 and 23 October, Fantasy Fest from 16 to 25 October) are now in the past tense or gone, and Fantasy Fest’s 2027 dates, 22 to 31 October, are in their place.

The camping calendar was sold out on every date it offered, from 10 November to the end of March 2027; April opens on the next release day, Monday 2 November.

The fishing charters page said a party-boat seat came with the rod, the bait and the license, and that the crew cleaned your fish. On the Gulfstream IV, the seat that page now links, the license is included, but a rod is $5, paid at check-in, and fish cleaning is 50 cents a fish, paid to the crew. The page says so beside its price.

The FishMonster MAX seat on the same page still includes the license, bait and filleting.

Pier B’s calendar has dropped two calls: the Azamara Onward on 21 December 2026 and the Azamara Journey on 7 January 2027. Neither day has another ship at that pier.

So December’s days with no ship at Pier B are now the 9th, 21st, 30th and 31st, not the 9th, 30th and 31st, and January has 25 calls, with no ship on the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 14th, 26th and 30th. The Christmas Eve and Christmas Day calls, and the quiet stretch from 30 December to 2 January, are unchanged.

The page comparing the Conch Tour Train and the Old Town Trolley linked the shore-excursion versions of both rides, which are for cruise passengers. It now links the standard tickets, at the same prices: from $45.10 for the train and from $55.60 for a day on the trolley. The shore-excursion listings stay on the cruise-stop page.

The ratings on the page are the standard tickets’ now: 4.4 from 906 reviews for the train and 4.4 from 1,798 for the trolley. The page had given the train’s shore excursion as 4.6 from 43, its reviews’ figure on 13 October. A review added since then brought that listing to 4.47 from 44, below the 4.6 shown, and the cruise-stop page now gives it as 4.4 from 44.

The page also said only the train closes one day a year. The trolley closes the same day, the last Saturday in October, for Fantasy Fest, which in 2027 is 30 October, inside the festival’s 22 to 31 October.

Our where-to-stay page quoted the city’s definition of transient lodging as anything rented for “less than 30 days or one calendar month”. That was the wording of a city web page since taken down. The definition in the Code of Ordinances, Sec. 86–9, says less than 28 days: transient lodging is any unit “rented for a period or periods of less than 28 days”, or advertised or held out to the public as a place rented to transients, “regardless of the occurrence of an actual rental.” The 30-day figure is the Code’s licensing rule: Sec. 18–601 makes it unlawful to lease a residential property for less than 30 days or one calendar month without a city business tax receipt. The page and its FAQ now quote both. Its advice that a rental under 30 days needs a license stands, and the gap it describes against the city’s 29-day floor for non-transient rentals now covers a 28- or 29-day stay, not only a 29-day one.

The privacy page listed what Viator’s report shows us for each booking: the date it was made, the date of the trip, which trip it was, its total and our commission. That list was short. The report also shows Viator’s reference number for the booking, how many travelers it is for and the country Viator records for the customer; its status, whether it has been paid and, if it was canceled, when and by whom; which of our pages it is credited to; and, for some bookings, the exact link it came through.

It shows no name, no email address and no payment details, and the page still says so. It now names everything the report records about the customer: the country Viator records for them and how many people are traveling.

Our New Year’s Eve page said the pub still listed this year’s shoe-drop winner as “to be announced”. Its finals results, held 10 October, now name the two runners-up, Tp Lords and FiFi DuBois, and no longer carry the “winner TBA” line, but they name no winner either. The page says exactly that.

The Dry Tortugas day trip we link on Viator had seats on only nine more dates on 16 October 2026: 18 to 21, 24, 25 and 29 to 31 October. Every date from 1 November to the end of August 2027 was marked sold out.

The ferry itself still had seats on many of those dates: its own booking calendar the same day had seats on some November and December dates and on most sailing days from January to April. The limit is Viator’s allocation, not the boat.

The boat was full over the holidays: 20 December to 4 January had no seat left on its own calendar. The Christmas and New Year’s page had said to book the ferry as soon as the room was booked; it now gives those dates and the standby sheet instead.

The booking card for the trip now says so on every page that shows it. The Dry Tortugas page explains it under “Dry Tortugas ferry sold out?”, and the January to March page no longer points readers planning those months to a ticket that cannot be booked for them.

Three smaller points from the same review. The Dry Tortugas page called the 175-passenger cap the park’s limit; it is the operator’s, which states that the Yankee Freedom III is certified for 250 and that it limits each trip to 175. The page said the ferry’s galley sells for cash; the operator’s day-trip and tour pages say cash or credit card, and one of its FAQ answers still says cash, so the page no longer says how you pay. And the hotels-near-the-ferry page gave the operator’s change and refund terms as the ferry ticket’s; it now says that the Viator ticket on that page is non-refundable and cannot be changed from the start. The seaplane’s fares, $527 for a half day and $910 for a full day, were re-read and are unchanged.

The privacy page said a click on one of our affiliate links takes you to Viator, and named Viator as the only booking company involved. Since 1 October 2026 this site has also carried links to places to stay and rental cars on Booking.com, and those go through CJ (Commission Junction), the affiliate network that runs Booking.com’s program. The page now says what such a click does: it passes through CJ, which records it, on its way to Booking.com, and Booking.com credits us only if you book in that same visit.

It also said that what comes back to us is never “your name, your email, your payment details or what you booked”. The last part was wrong. Viator’s reports show us, for each booking, the date it was made, the date of the trip, which trip it was, its total and our commission. They carry no name, no email and no payment details, and the page now says exactly that.

Its short version said the only personal information we ever hold is an email address you typed in yourself. That left out what comes with the address. MailerLite, which stores our list, records the IP address a signup and its confirmation came from, and when, as its proof that the person asked to join, and, like most mailing services, it can record which of our emails each subscriber opens and which links they click. A message sent to hello@plankeywest.com stays in our mailbox. The page now says all of this.

Three smaller corrections on the same page:

• SMTP2GO delivers our replies when you write to us. The page said it delivered the mailing list’s emails, which MailerLite sends.
• The list of services now also names Google, whose Gmail mailbox receives mail sent to hello@plankeywest.com, and CJ and Booking.com. With them the list is complete.
• The click counter’s description now lists all six things it records, including the time of the click, and says how the country is found: Cloudflare reads it from your connection, and the address itself is never stored.

Our pages said Honest Eco’s dolphin watch and sunset sail runs November to April only, as the “Offered Nov — Apr” on its home page still does. On 13 October the trip had sailings scheduled on every day from 15 October 2026 to 30 April 2027, except 18 October, and none in May or June. The trip’s own page now says only that it sails “in the Winter months”. Every page that said November now says mid-October to April; the dolphin page, the sunset sail page, the Christmas page and the best-time table give the 2026–27 dates, and the dolphin page notes that the home page still says November.

Our camping page got two things wrong and left a third incomplete.

The water. It worked out that two people camping two nights carry twelve gallons, at the Park Service’s two gallons per person per day over three days. The Park Service also asks campers to bring an extra day’s food and water in case the ferry is canceled, so the same trip is four days of water: 16 gallons, about 130 pounds.

The fee. Its answer on cost said the $15 nightly site fee came on top of the ferry fare and the park entrance fee. For ferry campers the fare already includes the entrance fee; the site fee is the only thing paid on the island. Campers who come by private boat buy the entrance pass separately.

The fuel. It named only charcoal briquettes. The ferry’s camping rules and its FAQ allow Sterno gel as well, the two fuels factory sealed and handed over separately at loading, and refuse lighter fluid along with compressed gas and liquid fuel. The Park Service still names charcoal in the campsite grills, and gas camping stoves, as the only fires allowed on the island, and the page now prints both.

The page now also carries the ferry’s gear limit (one bin, one bag and one cooler per person), the three-night maximum, the camper fares, and the rules for loading day, the campground and the way back.

The booking card for the Yankee Freedom day trip opened with “The only way to see Fort Jefferson in a day.” It is not the only way: the seaplane’s morning, afternoon and full-day trips also go out to the fort and back the same day, as our Dry Tortugas page says. The card now calls the trip what it is, the ferry day trip to Fort Jefferson.

Since 1 October our pages said there was no Dry Tortugas ferry from 11 to 25 October 2026, the Yankee Freedom’s yard period, and that all of Fantasy Fest fell inside it. That was the operator’s own list of days off. On 12 October its stand-by page dropped the yard line, and it now lists only single maintenance days, the next on Tuesday 24 November and Friday 11 December 2026.

On 13 October the operator’s booking calendar offered sailings on every day from 14 to 31 October except Thursday 22 and Friday 23 October. Several were already sold out: 14 to 17 October, 26 October and 28 October. Fantasy Fest, 16 to 25 October, has a ferry on eight of its ten days, and the 16th and 17th are gone.

Every page that said there was no ferry now names the two days without one, and the pages about October and Fantasy Fest give the sold-out dates. Camper seats are sold on a separate calendar, so the camping page says to check that one for an October night. For a day trip on any other October date, book now.

The $79 Floridays sunset sail, with the bar included, is about an hour and a half on its listing, not the two hours its card, the sunset sail page and the Christmas page gave. The schooner When And If is two hours and Honest Eco’s catamaran three, as before.

The same page said the bar was most of the price difference between the $79 boat and the schooner, and that if you drink, the more expensive boat is often the better value. On these two boats it is the other way around: the $79 sail pours champagne, white wine, margaritas and craft beer, the schooner beer and wine. The schooner’s extra buys the 1939 boat and about half an hour more on the water.

The dolphin sail’s card said Honest Eco watches the dolphins “at a legal distance” as “a licensed eco operator”. Neither the listing nor Honest Eco’s own pages make that claim, and a card for a trip we earn from should not make it for them, so it is gone.

On the jet ski and parasailing page, the Fury parasail we list flies two or three people together, never one alone, with 450 pounds in all, and anyone under 18 needs a parent at check-in, with ID, to sign the waiver. The page had said Fury flew single flights too, and that children went from 6 “with an adult”, which undersold the parent rule. Fury’s own page still names single flights in its weight limit, but it pairs every flyer with another from the same group.

The ferry operator used to list a maintenance day as “Thursday, May 30, 2027”. 30 May 2027 is a Sunday, so our Dry Tortugas page printed it as the operator wrote it and said one of the two was a typo. The operator’s list now reads Thursday, May 20, 2027, and it has added four more days when the Yankee Freedom does not sail: Tuesday 22 June, Friday 16 July, Thursday 19 August and Wednesday 15 September 2027.

The earlier days are unchanged: Tuesday 24 November and Friday 11 December 2026, then Tuesday 19 January, Tuesday 16 February, Wednesday 17 March and Friday 23 April 2027. The Dry Tortugas page lists them all, and the new January-to-March page carries the three in the peak season.

Our month-by-month table gave December’s average water temperature as 75°F. Every hourly reading NOAA’s Key West harbor station recorded in December over 2021 to 2025 averages 74.1°F: 73.3 in 2023, 72.6 in 2024 and 76.3 in 2025. The station has no December water readings for 2021 or 2022; for most months its water record begins in 2023. The table now says 74, and its note says which years the water figures cover. The other eleven months matched the station’s record.

NOAA’s free Eco-Discovery Center at 35 East Quay Road, on the way to Fort Zachary Taylor, is closed. NOAA’s own page now reads:

“The NOAA Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center is temporarily closed while NOAA evaluates findings from a recent structural assessment of the facility. NOAA will be working with engineers to determine the extent of the issues with the roof and address necessary repairs.”

It gives no reopening date. The notice went up in the first week of October; until then the page listed the center as open Wednesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and three of our pages still said so. They now say it is closed, and the cruise-stop page’s plan for the day no longer sends you there. NOAA’s 360-degree virtual tour of the sanctuary and the center is online while it is shut. We watch NOAA’s page daily and will say when it reopens.

Our Bahia Honda page said the park was on Big Pine Key. That is only its mailing address: 36850 Overseas Highway, Big Pine Key, FL 33043, as Florida State Parks lists it. The park itself is its own island, Bahia Honda Key, around Mile Marker 37. The state’s own page calls it “the remote island of Bahia Honda Key” that Flagler’s railroad opened up.

The page now says the park is on Bahia Honda Key, and keeps the address with a note that it is the mailing address. The distance from Key West, about 37 miles, was right and is unchanged.

We said the city’s transit plan had the Duval Loop returning in the fiscal year that began 1 October 2026 if a budget gap closed. The budget the city adopted in September left it unfunded: the city manager told the commission on 10 September that tourist-tax money could not be used for the Loop, and the finance director has asked the county attorney for a written opinion. The Loop stays suspended with no restart date. The getting-around page now says so and is next re-checked on 15 November.

Our card for Floridays’ Key West Sailing & Snorkeling reef trip showed a rating of 4.7 from 249 reviews. The note on the same card, and our reef snorkeling guide, gave 4.5 across the same 249 reviews.

A rating on a trip we earn from is the one number that must never read higher than it is, so where two of our figures disagree, the lower one stands. The card now shows 4.5, the same as the note and the guide. The next listing check reads the figure again from the reviews section of the tour’s Viator page, and if it moves, this log will say so.

Earlier today we set this card to 4.5, the lower of the two figures our own pages gave for Floridays’ Key West Sailing & Snorkeling reef trip, until the listing could be read again. It has been: the reviews section says 4.7 based on 249 reviews. The 4.7 was right and our note and guide had kept an older 4.5. The card, its note and the reef snorkeling guide now all say 4.7.

On 23 September we said a substitute boat, the Big Cat, would run the Dry Tortugas ferry service from 12 to 18 October 2026, with no ferry from 19 to 25 October. The Park Service notice behind it was last year’s: its own dates run from 4 September to 25 October 2025, and the park’s site no longer shows it.

For 2026 the operator lists the Yankee Freedom’s yard period as Sunday 11 to Sunday 25 October, when the ferry does not run, and neither the operator nor the Park Service has announced a substitute boat. Every page that gave the Big Cat dates now says there is no ferry from 11 to 25 October. All of Fantasy Fest, 16 to 25 October, falls inside those two weeks.

Do not plan a ferry day in those two weeks, or a hotel night for one, unless the operator’s booking calendar sells you a seat for your date.

On 23 September we said Bush Key was open on its harbor side only through fall 2026. On 29 September the Park Service posted that most of Bush Key is now open to the public. A small area on the north side of Bush Key, all of Long Key and all vegetation stay closed until further notice, to protect nesting frigatebirds. The Dry Tortugas page now says so.

Our snorkeling page said a broad anchoring ban was coming to the sanctuary’s protected reefs in 2027, and that it would change how trips from Key West run.

The sanctuary’s own page is more precise: “In 2027, anchoring of any kind will be prohibited in SPAs except for Hen and Chickens, Cheeca Rocks, Newfound Harbor Key, Eastern Dry Rocks, Rock Key, and Sand Key.” The last three are the reefs off Key West. Anchoring on coral, and anchoring when a mooring buoy is free, are already banned there and stay banned; the total ban skips them.

The page now says so, and its description no longer promises a change that these reefs will not see.

We printed the gate hours as 7 a.m. to sunset, daily. That is one of three versions the city publishes:

• its cemetery page: “7 AM to Sunset, Daily”
• its facility listing’s hours box: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., every day
• further down the same listing: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in summer, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. in winter

On a summer evening those differ by more than an hour. The page now prints all three and advises being out by 6 p.m., which fits every version. It also now says that guided tours are arranged through the Sexton’s office on 305-809-3986.

Two fixes to the trolley-or-train page.

The $52.45 “regular price” is not one. We printed the train’s $40.80 from-price “against a stated regular price of $52.45” and called both operators’ prices promotional. The $52.45 sits inside a commented-out block in the operator’s page code, under the $40.80 ticket and under an $80.90 package alike. It is not shown to anyone and it is not a regular price. The page now gives the from-prices as published and nothing else.

The closure day could be either of two Saturdays. The operator says the train is “Closed the last Saturday in October (Fantasy Fest).” In 2026 the last Saturday in October is the 31st, and Fantasy Fest runs 16 to 25 October with its parade on Saturday the 24th. The page now gives both.

Our reef snorkeling page carried the Honest Eco “Dolphin Watch and Sunset Sail” card and described it as an electric-boat dolphin and snorkel trip. It is neither. The operator’s page is plain: “This dolphin tour does not feature Snorkeling.” It runs on a 42-foot sailing catamaran, and Honest Eco offers it November to April.

Anyone who booked it from that page expecting to snorkel would have spent three hours watching for dolphins and the sunset instead. The card is gone from the snorkeling page, and the paragraph about no-motor zones now describes what those zones mean without pinning it to a product.

Two Park Service closures at Dry Tortugas that our page did not mention:

• Sections of the moat wall damaged by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 are closed for repair and reinforcement until winter 2026. Follow the signs and do not cross the barricades.
• Bush Key is open on its harbor side only through fall 2026, to protect nesting sooty terns, brown noddies and magnificent frigatebirds. Boats keep 100 feet off the island.

The moat wall is where the page sends people to snorkel, so the closure is now next to that advice.

We said there was no ferry to the Dry Tortugas from 11 to 25 October, the Yankee Freedom’s yard period. The Park Service’s alert says a substitute boat, the Big Cat, runs the service from 12 to 18 October, and that there is no ferry from 19 to 25 October. Both pages now say so, and the camping page asks you to confirm with the operator whether the Big Cat takes campers.

Two pages said an operator does not publish something that it does.

The Hemingway Home. We said the museum gives no cat count and that the figures quoted elsewhere do not come from it. They do. The museum says it is home to nearly 60 polydactyl cats; about half show the six toes, and all of them carry the gene.

The Key West Lighthouse. We said the society publishes no accessibility statement and told readers with mobility concerns to call before buying. It publishes one: “With exception of the tower, the property is fully ADA accessible and the Museum Store is equipped with restrooms.” The tower is 88 steps; the grounds, the Keeper’s Quarters and its Fresnel lens are all open to you without them.

The lighthouse page also said the society runs three museums. It runs four — the fourth is the Tennessee Williams Museum — and sells a Culture Pass that covers all of them.

The state’s alert for the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail reads: “Effective Nov. 17: The Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is closed from Mile Marker 71 south to Mile Marker 71.5 for repairs. The Channel 5 bridge and parking lot are open.”

The notice gives no year, and it is still posted on 23 September 2026, so we are treating that half-mile as closed until the state takes the banner down. If your ride crosses it, the trail office is on 305-853-3571. We will check again on 18 November.

Monroe County conveyed Clarence S. Higgs Memorial Beach Park to the City of Key West on 1 May 2026. Our Higgs page, checked in September, still called it a county park, said the city did not list it, and quoted county pages that no longer exist.

What the city publishes, and what the page now says:

• Hours: 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., every day. We had the county-era 7:30 a.m. until sunset.
• Restrooms and showers. We said we could not confirm either, so the beach finder’s Restrooms filter hid the beach we recommend for children. It now shows it, along with food, chairs, water sports and shade.
• Pavilions are booked through the city, with Gregory Veliz Jr. on 305-809-3767. We had a number for the restaurant tenant.

The Key West Garden Club’s summer closure (Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 July to 30 September this year) is also now on the page.

Our cruise-day page was built on “three berths, two calendars, and one nobody publishes”: the Navy Mole, which we said left every ship day impossible to check.

The Mole has not served large cruise ships since 2020, Keys News reports, and the Navy terminated the city’s lease on it by a letter of 5 May 2026, effective 3 August 2026. The two working berths, Mallory Square Dock and Pier B, each have a published calendar, and between them they cover the big ships. Check both and you have the day.

The city’s own port page still lists three docking facilities including the Mole. The page now quotes that and says why it is out of date.

The Yankee Freedom III is in its yard period from Sunday 11 October to Sunday 25 October 2026, and does not run. That is the whole of Fantasy Fest and the five days before it.

The operator also lists single maintenance days with no ferry. The next are Tuesday 24 November and Friday 11 December 2026, then 19 January, 16 February, 17 March and 23 April 2027. Its list also shows “Thursday, May 30, 2027”, and 30 May 2027 is a Sunday, so that one needs a phone call.

Our Dry Tortugas page said the ferry runs daily and offered the standby line as the fix for a sold-out week. Neither holds on those dates: there is no boat to stand by for. The page now lists the days, and points to the seaplane and the Park Service’s permitted charters for them. The camping page carries the same dates, and the cruise-day page no longer recommends the Tortugas on them.

Both beach pages told readers there is no entry fee at Smathers or Higgs, and that is right: they are city beaches, and you pay for parking, not for the sand.

The structured data we publish for search engines said the opposite. It marked both beaches as charging, because it treated any wording in the entry-fee field as a fee. It now reads “Free” on both, and search engines get the same answer readers do.

The beach finder’s pill for Smathers was also being cut off at the edge of its card. It fits now.

We printed the base vehicle fee at both state parks and stopped there. Both add a Monroe County surcharge of 50 cents per person:

• Fort Zachary Taylor: $6 per vehicle (up to eight people) plus 50 cents a person, so $8 for a car of four. $4.50 for a single-occupant car or motorcycle. $2.50 each for pedestrians and cyclists.
• Bahia Honda: $8 per vehicle (two to eight people) plus 50 cents a person, so $10 for a car of four. The same $4.50 and $2.50 rates apply.

The Smathers page’s cost comparison was built on Fort Zach’s $6 and now uses $8.

Fort Zach’s page also now says what the park says about its beach: no lifeguards are on duty, and water shoes are recommended because of the rocky bottom. Bahia Honda has no lifeguards either.

Our hurricane page said the “48 hours” figure for visitor evacuations had no source and declined to print it. It has one. The Keys’ hurricane evacuation memorandum of understanding, signed by the state, Monroe County and the Keys cities, sets the order:

• About 48 hours before tropical-storm winds: mandatory evacuation of visitors and non-residents. State parks and campgrounds should close at the same point or sooner.
• About 30 hours before: phased mandatory evacuation of permanent residents, by zone. Key West is Zone 1.

So visitors go about 18 hours ahead of residents, not “48 hours before residents” as it is usually put.

The page also said evacuations happened in ten of the 21 documented seasons. Its own table shows nine.

We described this booking as changeable. It is not. The terms are explicit: non-refundable, and cannot be changed for any reason.

On a $260 trip that sells out weeks ahead, that is the most important line on the page, and it was wrong.

So book the date you are sure of — and book it for day one or two of your trip. The operator is contractually obligated to the Park Service to run daily in all weather unless sea conditions would compromise safety, and it says plainly that trips are not canceled for rain, so this is a steadier booking than the internet suggests. But there is one boat a day, and a crossing called off on your last morning is one you do not get to take.

This page said three times that the crossing “cancels for weather, more often than people expect.” We had no source for that, and the operator’s published position is close to the opposite: it is contractually obligated to the Park Service to operate daily in all weather unless sea conditions may compromise safety, and trips are not canceled for rain. A cancellation is the captain’s call on sea state.

The advice has not changed — book it for day one or two, because there is one boat a day — but the reason we gave for it was invented, and this site is not supposed to do that.

Two things the page was missing entirely and now carries:

• The park entrance fee is $15 per person, good for seven consecutive days, free for anyone 15 or under. A ferry ticket includes it. Seaplane passengers pay it on arrival instead.
• The same-day standby line. Be at the terminal on the morning of the trip; there is no pre-trip list; unclaimed seats are released 15 minutes before departure, at 7:45 am.

Our beach page asked “is there an entrance fee?” and answered without a number. It is $6 per vehicle. The park is open 8 a.m. until sundown, 365 days a year, and the fort itself closes at 5 p.m.

That second closing time matters, because the same page recommends a late afternoon for the light. That works for the beach and it is too late for the fort, which the page now says.

We were also telling Google this beach was free. The page’s structured data derived isAccessibleForFree from a national-park fee flag, and this is a state park — so the flag was correctly false and the schema was wrong. It now derives from the fee itself.

Our title, our meta description and our home page all said the Dry Tortugas ferry sells out months ahead. Four paragraphs into the same page we said weeks, which is the right number for day trips.

The months figure belongs to camping on Garden Key, which is a different and much scarcer thing.

Both are now stated correctly. The practical advice does not change — book it before you book the hotel, because it is the only fixed point in a Keys trip — but a reader who believed the old line might have given up on a trip that was still there.