Hours, fees, and the lot-full gate
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park sits at the south tip of the island, at the end of Crandon Boulevard. Florida State Parks lists it open 8 a.m. until sundown, 365 days a year.
Gate prices, checked Oct 2026: $8 per vehicle with two to eight people, $4 for a single-occupant vehicle or motorcycle, and $2 for pedestrians, bicyclists, extra passengers, holders of an Individual Annual Entrance Pass riding with someone else, and ride-service drop-offs. Day entrance by boat to No Name Harbor is $8.
The lot can fill. The park’s picnic-pavilion rules say a reservation does not guarantee entrance once the park has reached capacity. Florida State Parks also tells paddlers to arrive early on weekends because parking fills quickly. We could not find an official space count on the park pages, so this guide does not publish one. Call the park at 786-582-2673 before you leave on a holiday weekend.
If you need the lighthouse tour and a parking space on a Saturday, treat 8 a.m. as the plan, not 11.
Current repair notices on the park page as of Oct 19, 2026: beach access #3 and the fishing piers have been listed closed for repairs since September 11, 2023. Our beaches comparison still carries the June 4, 2025 note that restroom #2 and picnic pavilions A8 and A9 were also closed for renovations. If a sign at the gate disagrees, the sign wins.
Cape Florida Lighthouse tours
You do not buy a separate lighthouse ticket. The Cape Florida Light page says tours are free with park entry. No reservation is listed.
Official Florida State Parks pages agree on a morning window and disagree with some other listings on the clock time. The Light page: visitors may tour the tower five days a week, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday. The experiences page: tours Thursday through Monday, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The tower, keeper’s quarters, and kitchen are open only during tour times. The lighthouse grounds are listed open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
The Florida Lighthouse Association still lists guided tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. That is not the Florida State Parks page. Ask at the entrance station. Do not plan a 1 p.m. climb from a third-party listing.
Climb rules from the Light page: 109 spiral steps, narrow spaces, and heights. Children must be 42 inches tall and able to climb on their own. Infants may be carried in a harness with arms free for the handrail. Pets are not permitted in the tower.
If the climb is the reason you came, be in the park before 10 a.m. on a Thursday through Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday you can see the tower from outside.
History, from the park’s own history page: the lighthouse was completed in 1825, damaged in the Second Seminole War, and rebuilt in 1846. That rebuilt tower is listed as the oldest standing structure in Miami-Dade County. Cape Florida was designated a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Site in September 2004. The experiences page adds the National Register listing in 1971.
Where to swim
Florida State Parks describes a mile and a quarter of Atlantic beach, open to swimming, reached from access points in Areas A, B, and C — any left turn after you enter. It also says, plainly, that there are no lifeguards, so swimming is at your own risk. That is the difference with Crandon. If you have kids in the water, Crandon is the guarded beach.
The park says the waves are very gentle because of a reef about six miles offshore. That is the park’s description, not a promise for today. Check the NWS surf-hazard forecast before you commit. There are no lifeguard-tower flags at Bill Baggs to override that forecast. In winter, the park asks visitors to watch for Portuguese man-of-war warnings posted at the ranger station.
Outdoor showers are near restrooms in Areas A, B, and C and along beach accesses 4, 6, and 7. Two beach wheelchairs and two swimming wheelchairs are free, first come, first served, at the bike rental area. A Mobi-Mat is at Beach Access No. 6 next to the Lighthouse Café.
Pets: 6-foot leash, picnic areas, seawall, bike trails, and hiking trails. Not on the beach, not in the restaurants, not in the lighthouse.
If the Atlantic side is a mess of weed, walk the bayside seawall instead of forcing a swim.
Food on site
Two park restaurants, both named on the official experiences page: Lighthouse Café on the Atlantic side, and Boater's Grill on Biscayne Bay at No Name Harbor. The park says Boater’s Grill is open for lunch and dinner. Confirm today’s hours on those venue pages, or with the restaurants, before you count on a table. The park concession also rents chairs and umbrellas, and bikes from a few steps away from the café.
Picnic tables and grills are spread through the park. Eighteen covered pavilions rent in person, Monday through Friday, at the ranger station. Uncovered tables are first come, first served.
Getting there from the Rickenbacker
There is one road onto the island. Cross the Rickenbacker Causeway, stay on Crandon Boulevard through Crandon Park and the Village, and keep going until the state-park gate. The park address is 1200 S. Crandon Blvd., Key Biscayne, FL 33149.
Miami-Dade lists the two-axle causeway toll at $3.25 with SunPass or $6.50 with Toll-By-Plate. Check live causeway incidents before you sit in that line for a park that may already be at capacity. If you are on a bike or on foot, the $2 park walk-up fee still applies — and a capacity closure can turn you away too.
After the gate, left turns are the beach lots. Stay on the park road for the lighthouse, Lighthouse Café, and No Name Harbor.
Water quality, flags, and the beach cam
Florida DOH samples Cape Florida as its own site. A Good at Crandon is not a result for Bill Baggs. A sample is a dated snapshot, not a live reading. Check today’s Cape Florida row before anyone goes in. Then look at the flag and rip-current forecast. There is no lifeguard here to make a different call.
There is no Bill Baggs beach cam on this site, and the park does not publish one we reuse. The Key Biscayne beach cam is the Village camera. Use it for sky and crowd color on that shoreline. Do not treat it as Cape Florida. It also cannot show bacteria.
Seaweed is a third check. Sargassum is a regional satellite outlook, not a report of this exact stretch. For wind and waves if you are paddling, use the marine forecast. Kayak launch, per the park, is Beach Access No. 1 at the north end of Area A — the only beach landing site they list. If you only want an email when an advisory changes, use the form on this page.