Most things to do in Pembroke Park, FL with kids sit just outside the town line, and any honest guide has to start there. Pembroke Park covers 1.666 square miles and holds roughly 6,300 residents, so what the town itself contributes is four free municipal parks and a handful of places to eat. The beach, the indoor playgrounds, the ice rink, the water park and the science museum all sit five to fifty minutes away. This guide is arranged by drive time, closest first.
Pembroke Park's Family Map, Sorted by Drive Time
Two roads organize everything. West Hallandale Beach Boulevard runs east to west through the middle of town and carries its restaurants and shops, while Pembroke Road marks the southern edge along the Miami-Dade line. I-95 sits to the east and the Florida Turnpike to the west, which is why a fifteen minute drive covers so much ground from here.
Four rings do the work in practice. Under five minutes you have the town parks and a sit-down breakfast. Five to fifteen minutes gets you the Atlantic, two boardwalks and an indoor mini golf course. Fifteen to thirty minutes covers Pembroke Pines and its indoor play, bowling, ice and water park. Thirty to fifty minutes buys museums, wildlife and airboats.
Age matters more than distance for choosing between them. Toddlers do best at the town playgrounds, the padded indoor play spaces and free library story times. Children roughly five to twelve get the most out of bowling, mini golf, the lazy river and the science museum. Teenagers want the beach, the ice rink and an airboat.
Inside the Town Limits: Four Free Parks and One Family Table
The Raymond P. Oglesby Preserve is the best of the town's four parks and the one to pick if you have a single free morning. The west-side site holds a walking and fitness trail, a playground, picnic tables, BBQ grills and rentable pavilions, plus something genuinely scarce in this part of Broward, which is shade. Pavilion and BBQ reservations go through the Town of Pembroke Park Parks Department at 954-986-0790 and need an application. Everything else about the park is free.
Patrick Behan Park is the east-side equivalent and the other town site you can book for a birthday. It also carries outdoor pavilion and BBQ rental facilities through the same application process, and its position near the Hallandale Beach line and the I-95 approach makes it the easier one for guests driving in. Turn up without a reservation and you're competing with whoever booked the pavilion that day.
Ryan Park and the Howard P. Clark Linear Walkway round out the town's four sites, and both are mostly used by residents rather than visitors. Ryan Park is a west-side neighborhood playground with no pavilion rental listed, so it works for an hour rather than an event. The Linear Walkway on the east side is the closest thing Pembroke Park has to a dedicated pedestrian route, and between June and September early morning is the only comfortable time to use it.
Untoasted is the strongest sit-down family meal with an actual Pembroke Park address, at 3121 W Hallandale Beach Blvd, Suite 101. The kitchen runs benedicts and specialty French toast plates alongside burgers, wraps, pizza and salads, so a table of picky eaters can be fed from one menu. It's open every day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and closes at four, which makes it a breakfast or lunch stop, never a dinner. Weekend mid-morning is the busy window. For the wider bench of options, our Pembroke Park restaurant guide covers the corridor and the towns around it.
Five to Fifteen Minutes: Beaches, Playgrounds and Blacklight Mini Golf
Hallandale Beach and its boardwalk are the nearest ocean, under ten minutes east on the same road that runs through Pembroke Park. Visit Lauderdale describes the sand as clear, pristine and peaceful, and the boardwalk gets steady use from walkers, joggers and cyclists. It's quieter than Hollywood Beach, which is exactly why local families use it. If your household has accumulated boogie boards, beach wagons and bikes faster than the garage can absorb them, a 5×10 storage unit holds the lot.
Joseph Scavo Park in Hallandale Beach is the closest well-equipped free playground to Pembroke Park. The remodeled site pairs a playground with separate dog parks for large and small dogs, a basketball court and a walking path, so the child and the dog can both be dealt with in one stop. Free entry makes it a genuine answer for a cheap afternoon rather than a consolation prize.
The Hollywood Beach Broadwalk is a 2.2 mile paved beachfront promenade lined with cafes and rental stands, voted one of America's best boardwalks by Travel and Leisure. About fifteen minutes from Pembroke Park, it's the rare beach outing where a stroller rolls properly. Beach parking is metered and fills by mid-morning on weekends and right through the winter season, so arrive before 10 a.m. or plan on paying for a garage.
Monster Mini Golf in Miramar is the indoor option nobody expects to need until the sky opens. The climate-controlled 18-hole course plays under blacklight, and the building also holds a video arcade with a prize center, mini bowling, laser tag and a laser maze. Best for roughly five and up, since the blacklight rooms can unsettle toddlers. Because it's entirely indoors, treat it as a storm and August-heat plan rather than a nice-day one.
Snake Warrior's Island Park in Miramar is the quiet outlier: a wetland and birding site on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail with archaeological significance to Native Americans. It suits an older child who will actually look through binoculars for twenty minutes. Shade is limited across the open wetland, so go early or skip it in summer.
Fifteen to Thirty Minutes: Indoor Play, Bowling, Ice and a Lazy River
Kids Empire Pembroke Pines is the default answer for children aged one to twelve when the weather turns. The indoor padded playground sits inside Pembroke Lakes Mall at 11401 Pines Blvd, with a seating area for adults and party rooms, and waivers are signed online before you arrive. Hours run 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday through Sunday.
AMF Pembroke Pines Lanes gives you blacklight bowling with large video walls, plus an arcade, billiards and foosball, and party packages for both kids and adults. The real selling point in August is that all of it is air conditioned. Weekend evenings are the busiest stretch, so a weekday afternoon usually gets you a lane without waiting.
Pines Ice Arena runs public skating sessions and classes across a range of skill levels, which is an unlikely thing to find twenty minutes from a South Florida beach. Public session times shift around hockey and figure skating bookings, so check the current schedule before you drive over. Rental skates make it a low-commitment first attempt for a child who has never been on ice.
C.B. Smith Park in Pembroke Pines is the regional park families drive to for a full day, roughly 25 to 30 minutes west and firmly outside Pembroke Park. It packs batting cages, a driving range, tennis, squash and pickleball courts, trails and rentable lakeside pavilions with BBQ grills that are spaced far enough apart for a bounce house, which is why they book out. Paradise Cove Water Park sits inside it with a large pool, two interactive water playgrounds, a lazy river tube ride and two waterslides, charged as a separate fee on top of park entry. That surprise catches first-timers out. The coolers, folding tables and party bins that come out three times a year fit in 5×5 lockers the rest of the time.
Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlour and Restaurant in Dania Beach is the reward stop. More than 50 handmade ice cream flavors are made daily on site, alongside classic diner burgers and hot dogs and a vintage country store, and the Kitchen Sink sundae is built for four or more people. Find it at 128 S. Federal Highway with free on-site parking, open Sunday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Do not order the Kitchen Sink for a party of two.
Thirty to Fifty Minutes: Museums, Wildlife and Airboats
The Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale is the strongest rainy-day option in the region for school-age children, about half an hour north. More than 200 hands-on exhibits cover flight simulation and live animal habitats, and a five-story IMAX 3D theater sits inside the building. Buy the IMAX slot together with admission rather than at the counter, because showtimes are fixed and the good ones go.
Young At Art Museum in Plantation is built around making things rather than looking at them, with programs running from infants through teenagers, including a Mommy and Me class for ages 0 to 24 months. It's at 8000 W Broward Blvd, Suite 1208, inside Broward Mall next to Macy's, which makes parking and lunch trivial. Hours run Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with occasional special-event closures, so call 954-424-0085 before making the drive.
Flamingo Gardens in Davie puts 60 acres of botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary about 25 minutes northwest. The sanctuary holds alligators, bears, bobcats, eagles, otters, panthers, peacocks and flamingos, the grounds hold more than 3,000 rare plants and some of Florida's oldest trees, and the 1930s Wray Home Museum sits on site. Old-growth canopy shades most of the route, which makes it far more tolerable in summer than an open park. Go in the morning, when the animals are actually moving.
Everglades Holiday Park at 21940 Griffin Road runs 60-minute guided airboat tours through the sawgrass, plus live alligator rescue presentations and animal encounters. Tours start at 9 a.m. with the last at 5 p.m., seven days a week, and there's a cafe and gift shop on site. Book the earliest tour of the day for the calmest water and the most wildlife. Tours are weather dependent, so a summer thunderstorm can take your slot away.
Heat, Storms and the Bad-Weather Plan
Summer heat is the constraint nobody plans around, and it decides more family days here than rain does. Climate Seeker puts the summer feels-like temperature near 106F, and on August 11, 2026 the National Weather Service had the area under a Heat Advisory with a 91F temperature and a 106F heat index. Between June and September, schedule anything outdoors before 11 a.m. and hold the indoor list in reserve.
Afternoon thunderstorms are close to a daily feature once the wet season starts in May, with the area averaging around 69 thunderstorm days a year, and the town runs a Thor Guard lightning prediction system over its parks for that reason. When the sky goes dark, Kids Empire, Monster Mini Golf, the AMF lanes, Pines Ice Arena and the Museum of Discovery and Science are the fallbacks. Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 with a statistical peak on September 10, so book refundable rates if you're travelling between August and October. Our guide to the best time to visit Pembroke Park breaks the calendar down month by month.
Nothing on this list is walkable from a Pembroke Park address, so budget for a car and for parking. Beach meters fill fastest on winter weekends, when the town's population roughly doubles as Canadian snowbirds arrive. That same season brings the longest restaurant waits, and it runs December through April.
South Florida humidity is the other quiet problem, because it ruins the things families store badly: sports gear, craft supplies, sleeping bags and photo albums all suffer in a hot garage. Climate controlled storage in Pembroke Park is the fix for anything you want back in the same condition. When the garage has stopped being a garage entirely, a 10×10 unit takes about a room's worth off your hands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to do in Pembroke with kids?
Start with the four free town parks, then drive. The Raymond P. Oglesby Preserve and Patrick Behan Park cover playgrounds and picnics inside Pembroke Park. Within fifteen minutes you reach Hallandale Beach, Joseph Scavo Park and the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk. Within thirty you get Kids Empire, AMF Pembroke Pines Lanes, Pines Ice Arena and Paradise Cove Water Park. Our wider Pembroke Park things to do guide covers the adult side of the same map.
What free things can you do in Pembroke Park with kids?
All four town parks are free to use, and only the pavilions and BBQ areas at the Preserve and Behan Park need a paid reservation. Joseph Scavo Park in Hallandale Beach is free, both boardwalks are free to walk, and library and community-center story times in Pembroke Pines run at no charge. The beaches cost nothing beyond parking, which is the one line item to plan for.
What are some fun places for kids to visit in Pembroke Pines?
Pembroke Pines carries most of the indoor options. Kids Empire inside Pembroke Lakes Mall takes ages one to twelve, AMF Pembroke Pines Lanes handles bowling and arcade games, and Pines Ice Arena runs public skating sessions. C.B. Smith Park adds batting cages, trails and rentable pavilions, with Paradise Cove Water Park and its lazy river inside the same grounds on a separate ticket.
What are the best family day trips from Pembroke Park?
The four that reward a full day are the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Young At Art Museum in Plantation, Flamingo Gardens in Davie and an airboat tour at Everglades Holiday Park. All sit between roughly 25 and 50 minutes out. Leave early in summer, because heat and afternoon storms both build after lunch. Our Pembroke Park day trips guide goes further afield.
Is Pembroke Park a good area for families?
Pembroke Park works as a base rather than a destination. The town is small, largely residential and heavily rented, and it has no mall, water park or major attraction inside its borders. What it has is a central position: the ocean is under ten minutes east, the family attractions of Pembroke Pines are under thirty minutes west, and two major highways bracket the town.
Storage Space for the Gear Families Accumulate
Kids generate equipment faster than a South Florida house generates closets, and Value Store It's Pembroke Park facility rents month to month with no long term contract, which fits a problem that lasts a school year rather than forever. A narrow 10×5 space suits strollers, folding chairs and a couple of bikes, while 5×15 units take long awkward loads like paddleboards and folding tables. Step up to 10×15 storage or a 10×20 unit once camping bins and holiday decorations join the pile, and the 10×30 size is what people rent while a house is being renovated around them. If you're not sure which one you need, the storage unit size calculator works it out before you drive over.
