Santa Monica Pier With Kids: Prices, Parking, What’s Free

Quick answer

• Walking the pier is free. The rides, the carousel and the aquarium are not.
• 380 Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, CA 90401. The pier is generally accessible roughly 6am–10pm.
• Pacific Park is ungated — no entry fee. You pay per ride.
• Individual rides: about $6–$20. The Pacific Wheel is around $17.
• Unlimited ride wristband: about $40 online for ages 8+, about $20 for 7 and under. Cheaper online than at the gate. ⚠️ Check current prices before you go.
• The carousel is about $2 a ride, inside a 1916 National Historic Landmark.
• ⚠️ Heal the Bay Aquarium, under the pier: Saturdays and Sundays only, 12–4pm. $12 adult, $5 child 4–12, under 3 free.
• Parking: pier deck lot is closest and limited; beach lots roughly $7–$18 a day.
• Metro E Line to Downtown Santa Monica, then a 0.9-mile walk or the free shuttle.
• Allow 3–4 hours. Longer if you stay for sunset, which you should.

The Santa Monica Pier was built in 1909 to carry a sewage pipe out into the bay.

One of the most photographed structures in the world started life as municipal plumbing. The fun came seven years later, when Charles Looff built a pleasure pier alongside it in 1916 and put a carousel in the middle of it — and that carousel building is still there, and is now a National Historic Landmark.

We went after a day in Hollywood, wanting something slower, and got a good four hours out of it. What we did not know beforehand — and what cost us — is further down: what the rides actually cost, and that there is an aquarium underneath the pier that only opens at weekends.

Here is everything, with the numbers.

Is Santa Monica Pier free?

Yes. Walking onto the pier costs nothing, and so does most of what makes it enjoyable — the view, the beach, the street performers, the Route 66 sign, watching people fish off the end.

What costs money:

Pacific Park rides	About $6–$20 each
Unlimited ride wristband	About $40 (8+) / $20 (7 and under), online
The Pacific Wheel	Around $17
The carousel	About $2
Heal the Bay Aquarium	$12 adult · $5 child 4–12
Parking	About $7–$18 a day
Food	Whatever you let it be

A family can have a genuinely good three hours here for the price of parking, and that is worth knowing before you arrive braced for an expensive day.

Pacific Park — what the rides really cost

Pacific Park is ungated. You do not pay to walk in, which surprises people. You pay per ride, or you buy a wristband.

Twelve rides, plus a midway of carnival games (the games are separate and are not on the wristband).

Individual tickets run about $6 to $20 depending on the ride.

The unlimited wristband is roughly $40 online for ages 8 and up, and about $20 for children 7 and under — and it is cheaper online than at the gate, so buy before you leave the hotel.

The maths that matters: if your children will do three or more rides, the wristband wins. If they want the Ferris wheel and one other thing, buy singles. With two children who want everything, buy the wristbands online the night before.

⚠️ Prices change seasonally and I have seen them quoted differently in different places. Check pacpark.com on the day — and put a note in your article saying you did, with the month.

The Pacific Wheel is the one everybody comes for: the world’s first and only solar-powered Ferris wheel, about $17 a ride, and children aged 3 and under ride free with a ticketed adult.

Opening hours vary a lot. Roughly 11am–11pm daily in summer; much shorter in the off-season, typically late morning to early evening on weekdays. The pier itself stays open when the rides are shut, so a winter visit is still worth it — just not for rides.

 The aquarium under the pier — weekends only

This is the thing to plan around, and almost nobody mentions it.

Heal the Bay Aquarium is at 1600 Ocean Front Walk, directly underneath the pier, and it is one of the best-value family attractions in Los Angeles.

Open	Saturdays and Sundays only, 12pm–4pm
Adults and teens 13+	$12
Children 4–12	$5
Under 3	Free with an adult ticket
Students and seniors 65+	$10
Military	Free

What is in it: over 100 local species. Touch tanks with sea stars and sea urchins, a kelp forest, a shark nursery where you can see swell sharks developing inside their egg cases, jellies, rockfish, eels, and a tank showing what actually lives under the pier you have been standing on — which is the exhibit children find hardest to walk away from.

Two hours of pier and one hour of aquarium is a better afternoon than four hours of pier, and it costs less than two ride wristbands.

But you have to be there on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If your Santa Monica day is flexible, move it.

The carousel — $2, and a National Historic Landmark

The Looff Hippodrome opened on 12 June 1916 and is one of the very few surviving buildings of its kind. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

The carousel inside is not the original — it came from Ocean Park Pier in 1939, a Philadelphia Toboggan Company machine.

A ride is about $2. Two dollars, in a National Historic Landmark, on the Santa Monica Pier.

Scenes from The Sting were filmed inside it in 1973, which is a nice thing to mention to anyone old enough to care.

Hours vary seasonally — check before you make it the plan.

The Route 66 sign

In 2009 the Santa Monica Pier was dedicated as the official western terminus of Route 66, and there is a sign on the pier marking the end of the trail.

It is free, it takes two minutes, and there is usually a small queue of people photographing it. Worth doing if anyone in the family has any feeling about the Mother Road; skippable if not.

Parking, and the honest advice

The closest parking is the deck at the bottom of the ramp on the pier itself. It is convenient and it has very few spaces, so on a weekend afternoon you will queue for it and probably not get in.

Lot 1 North and the Santa Monica Beach lots are the realistic option: roughly $7 to $18 for the day, depending on season and day of week.

Expect around $5–$15 for a few hours, more at weekends and on holidays.

The advice: if you are arriving after 11am on a weekend, do not try for the pier deck. Go straight to a beach lot, pay the day rate, and walk. You will save twenty minutes and your temper.

Getting there without a car

The Metro E Line runs to Downtown Santa Monica station, which is 0.9 miles from the pier — about a fifteen-minute walk, or there is a free shuttle.

The Big Blue Bus Routes 3 and Rapid 3 run from LAX.

With children, the Metro is the better call for a sunset visit — the traffic out of Santa Monica in the evening is genuinely bad, and the walk down to the pier is flat and easy.

What we did

We came here after a day in Hollywood, wanting something slower.

We walked the beach first, which turned out to be the right order — the pier is loud and busy, and half an hour on the sand before it made the rest of the afternoon work better.

Then the pier itself: the Ferris wheel, the carnival games, hot dogs and churros, and the street performers, who are genuinely good and who our kids stood watching for longer than they rode anything.

We stayed for sunset, and that is the part I would insist on. The wheel lights up as the sun goes into the Pacific and there is a reason it is the most photographed thing in the city.

Doing it with kids

Allow three to four hours, or five with sunset.

The order that works: beach first, pier second, sunset last.

• Go on a weekday if you want the rides without queues. Go at a weekend if you want the aquarium. You cannot have both, which is annoying but worth knowing.
• Sunset is the signature experience and it is free
• It gets cold and windy fast once the sun goes down, even in summer. Bring a layer each.
• The pier is flat and fully walkable with a pushchair
• Food on the pier is expensive and average. Eat before, or walk into Santa Monica proper.
• The midway games are not on the wristband and they add up fast. Decide in advance.
• Original Muscle Beach is on the sand just south of the pier — free, and worth two minutes if your children like climbing on things.

 Is it worth it?

Yes — it is one of the few things in Los Angeles that is genuinely as good as it looks in the pictures.

Do it in the late afternoon into sunset. Park in a beach lot, walk the sand first, do two or three rides rather than everything, and stay until the wheel is lit.

And if your dates allow a Saturday or Sunday, add the aquarium. It is the best twelve dollars you will spend in the city.

Where we stayed

We stayed at The Biltmore Los Angeles in downtown, about thirty to forty-five minutes from Santa Monica depending on traffic.

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Internal link: our stay at The Biltmore Los Angeles

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What else to do the same day

Venice Beach is two miles south along the boardwalk and is the obvious pairing — you can walk or cycle between them.

The Getty Villa is up the coast in Malibu and makes a good morning before an afternoon at the pier.

Internal links to add:

• Venice Beach in a day
• Getty Villa and Point Dume
• our full Los Angeles guide