Key West with kids: the age limits that decide each trip

Key West takes children almost everywhere, and charges less for them, usually up to age 12. The rules that decide a family’s day are few, they are written down, and nearly all of them are on the water or after dark. Here they are, sight by sight and trip by trip, with what a child pays wherever the price is fixed.

Sights, museums and rides

The Hemingway Home is the simplest: $19 for an adult, $7 for a child of 6 to 12 and nothing at 5 and under, so two adults and two children pay $52 at the gate, or $53.56 by card. The museum’s famous cats are part of the admission, and a guided tour leaves every 15 minutes from 9:15 a.m.

The butterfly conservatory, at 1316 Duval Street, is a glass dome of free-flying butterflies, birds and two flamingos. Adults are $17.50, children 4 to 12 are $12.50 and 3 and under free, with sales tax on top, and one ticket lets you back in as often as you like until the 4:30 last admission. Strollers wait outside: the conservatory does not allow them, and stroller parking is available. It closes at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with the last ticket at 1:30.

The Key West Aquarium, in Mallory Square, keeps its own hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the last entrance at 5:30, every day; the city’s facility page still gives 10 to 4:30, and the aquarium’s are the ones to plan on. Guided talks of 15 to 20 minutes run through the day, most with a feeding, all in the price: the sea turtles three times a day, the touch tank at 1:45 p.m., and a “tuck-in” at 5:15, when children help put the touch tank’s animals to bed. The 50,000-gallon Atlantic Shores exhibit is closed for repairs (as of 3 November), with admission reduced meanwhile, though the aquarium’s presentation schedule still lists that exhibit’s feedings.

NOAA’s Eco-Discovery Center, the free one at 35 East Quay Road, is temporarily closed while NOAA works out the repairs its roof needs, with no reopening date.

At sunset, Mallory Square is free every night, and in winter it is early: 5:40 p.m. on 15 November, 5:38 on 5 December, 6:00 on 15 January and 7:38 on 20 March, after the clocks go forward, by the Naval Observatory’s tables.

Beaches, a pool and a splash pad

Higgs Beach is the one for children. The city runs it: free, open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., with two children’s playgrounds, restrooms, showers, a restaurant and a chair-and-umbrella concession, on what the city calls “calm, shallow waters”. It is a flat ride from Old Town along the Atlantic side.

Truman Waterfront Park, at the end of Southard Street, has a playground and a splash pad. The park is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and the splash pad 9 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., every day. Fort Zachary Taylor is at the end of the same street, through Truman Annex.

The city’s pool is free, and it has lifeguards. The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Pool, at 300 Catherine Street, has a standard pool and a baby pool. Open swim is 1 to 5:45 p.m. every day; weekday mornings are for lap swimming, and it is closed on the city’s holidays. Its rules are written for families:

• children under 5 need an adult with them at all times;
• anyone under 16 passes a swim test before using the deep end;
• no disposable diapers;
• baby floats with seats are allowed, other floats and fins are not.

Fort Zachary Taylor has the best swimming on the island, the park says, over a rocky bottom, and it recommends water shoes. It is $6 a car for up to eight people plus 50 cents a head, or $2.50 each on foot or by bike, with no child rate, open 8 a.m. to sundown. In the park’s words: “No lifeguards are on duty; swim at your own risk.”

Smathers Beach, half a mile of sand on South Roosevelt Boulevard, is, in the city’s words, well known to visitors during spring break. Its restrooms open 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., parking is $5 an hour, and the city lists no lifeguard there either.

Snorkeling from the shore means the pier pilings at Higgs and the breakwaters at Fort Zach. The reef is several miles out and takes a boat.

On the water

The reef trip takes any age, and Floridays supplies masks, fins and flotation vests, but it asks that snorkelers be comfortable in water over their heads and able to swim. It is about an hour out, an hour at the reef and an hour back, with a restroom aboard. For a child who cannot swim yet, it is a sail, not a snorkel.

Fishing needs no license for anyone under 16 in Florida, and the party boats include the license for everyone aboard. On the Gulfstream IV even a toddler has a fare: $42.95 at 4 and under.

Dolphins off Key West are wild, so the trips watch them from a boat and nobody swims with them. Honest Eco’s dolphin and sunset sail runs only from mid-October to April; the dolphin page has the trips that run all year.

Jet skis: what the law says and what the tours add

Florida law lets nobody under 14 drive a jet ski, and bars a rental business from renting a motorized boat to anyone under 18, so a parent rents it. Every rider, passengers included, wears a life jacket that is not an inflatable one. The island tours add their own rules to the law’s:

At Fury a natural or adoptive parent, with photo ID, signs the waiver at check-in for anyone under 18. A 16- or 17-year-old may drive a jet ski of their own there with a photo ID, a passed boating test and that parent’s signature, but cannot carry a passenger of 4 to 15 on it, and two of them sharing one must both meet those rules. Every operator wants a parent for a driver under 18: Barefoot Billy’s and Sunset Watersports a parent or guardian on the back, Fury a parent at check-in. Grandparents traveling with grandchildren should plan around it.

The boating test. Florida requires a boating card, or a passed short state exam, of anyone born on or after 1 January 1988 who drives a boat of 10 horsepower or more, which is every tour jet ski. The law excuses a driver accompanied by an adult of 18 or more who holds a card or does not need one, and who is responsible for the boat. Fury’s page says two things: that anyone born in 1988 or after must pass the test or hold a card, and that one may drive without it when riding with someone born before 1988 or holding a card. Barefoot Billy’s and Sunset Watersports ask every driver born after 1 January 1988 for a passed test all the same. Plan on the teenager taking it; Barefoot Billy’s calls it a 10-minute test and texts the link after you book.

Parasailing

Sunset Watersports flies from age 5, from 201 William Street, and decides solo or tandem flights on site by weight. Fury flies from 6, from 241 Front Street, two or three people at a time with 450 pounds in all. A child of 6 to 13 flies with someone 14 or older, anyone 6 to 14 needs an adult on the boat, and anyone under 18 needs a parent at check-in, with ID, to sign the waiver; the listing’s words are an “actual or adoptive parent”, so grandparents traveling with grandchildren should plan around it. By law no commercial parasail flies in sustained winds over 20 mph; the jet ski and parasailing page has the rest of the weather rules.

After dark

• Ghosts & Gravestones, the night trolley from Front and Duval, takes no child under 4 (“Due to the loud noises on our tour, children under the age of 4 are not allowed on board”), needs an adult with every child under 10, and says it “may not be suitable for children under 13 years of age.”
• Robert the Doll After Dark, inside Fort East Martello, is for 10 and up, on both the one-hour and the two-hour visit. By day the same fort’s museum takes any age, with under-7s free, and Robert is on display.
• The ghost tours page has both night visits and how to see Robert with younger children.

Getting around with children

• Car seats. Florida requires a crash-tested, federally approved child restraint for every child aged 5 or under in a motor vehicle: a separate carrier or an integrated seat through age 3, and from 4 a booster seat is allowed. A rental car and a rented golf cart both need one. In a hired taxi, limousine or van with a driver, the law takes the duty off the driver and puts it on the parent: “It is the obligation and responsibility of the parent, guardian, or other person responsible for a child’s welfare … to comply with the requirements of this section.” So a child of 5 or under still rides in a seat there, one the parent provides. Buses are left out altogether: school buses and buses carrying paying passengers, the city bus among them.
• Golf carts. The driver must be 22, and the rental we list supplies no car seats or boosters. Renting a golf cart has the rest of the rules.
• Bikes. Every rider or passenger under 16 wears a bicycle helmet, a child in a bike trailer included, and a shop may not rent a bike for a child under 16 unless the child has a helmet or the shop supplies one.
• The bus. The city fare is $2, and children 5 and under ride free with a fare-paying adult. Getting around without a car has the routes.

The Dry Tortugas with children

Fort Jefferson is about 70 miles west, reached only by boat or seaplane. The park’s $15 entrance fee is for 16 and older; anyone 15 or under is exempt. The ferry fare includes the fee. For the seaplane, the Park Service’s fee page says two things: that the seaplane charges the fee on arrival, so bring cash for each person 16 and over, and that it collects the fee before leaving Key West, by cash, card or park pass. Bring cash either way.

When families come

December’s parades and the New Year’s Eve drops are on the Christmas and New Year’s page. Spring break is not one week: the January-to-March page has ten schools’ 2027 weeks, eight of them between 6 and 21 March, and the Keys’ own schools are off from 22 to 26 March. The water is at its coolest from December to February, in the low to mid 70s °F at NOAA’s Key West harbor station, and the best-time page has the figures month by month.

Where to stay

Old Town puts the sights, Mallory Square and the aquarium within a walk; Higgs Beach is a flat ride away on the Atlantic side. Where to stay compares the areas, and a vacation rental of under 30 days needs a city license, so check the address on the city’s list before you pay. Booking.com’s Key West list is below, with Viator’s full Key West catalog; check the departure point on any trip before you book it, since several leave from Miami.

For every other sight on the island, with the one fact that decides each, the things-to-do page is the list.