Family weekends in Davis County, from free to the big gate.

The county's biggest free day is the Hill Aerospace Museum at 7961 Cottonwood Street, off base by the North Gate with no base access needed, open Tuesday through Saturday 9 am to 4 pm with free admission and free parking. More than ninety aircraft, missiles and aerospace vehicles fill the grounds and three galleries, the newest a 90,000 square foot hall opened in 2024, and the newest airframe is an F-22 Raptor; the 2026 season adds a $15 A-10 virtual reality flight and a free Open Aircraft Day on September 21 with cockpit access.

That is the top line, and it is all this page says, because the base and its museum are their own page on The Local with the gates, the show and the noise map in full. For a family page the facts are three: free, closed Sunday and Monday, and two to three hours from the car back to the car.

Ten minutes west of Station Park at 1157 South Waterfowl Way, the wildlife division's Eccles Wildlife Education Center is a free wetlands center with a 1.6 mile stroller-friendly loop, a boardwalk section over the marsh, and since 2025 a raised, accessible viewing deck over a great blue heron rookery; the building is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 to 4 and the trails in daylight any day, the gate opening at 7 and closing at 5. Leashed dogs are allowed on the grounds, bikes are not.

It matters on this page for one reason beyond the price: since July 1, 2026 adults need a free permit or a license to enter the wildlife management area next door, and the division's own list exempts the education center and its trails, so this is the door for anyone with children or without a license. February is Bald Eagle Month here with guided walks and a live eagle program; the rest of the bay, its closures and its calendar are the bay page's.

For fifteen dollars a vehicle, up to eight people, the state park across the causeway from Syracuse is the county's best value day: bison and pronghorn on the flats, the 0.4 mile Buffalo Point walk, the beach at Bridger Bay with showers to rinse the salt, the ranch at the south end and, one Saturday a year, the bison roundup, which is free to watch on top of park entry and falls on October 24 in 2026 with the corral push best seen from White Rock Bay from mid morning. Cyclists and walkers pay $3, and the island annual pass is $65.

The honest notes belong on the island page and are only summarized here: the visitor center is closed for construction and its replacement theater opens in 2026 with no firm date, the marina is unusable at the current lake level, the water at Bridger Bay is more than a third of a mile from the parking across soft mud, and the biting gnats own April through June. Choose July or the fall, carry water, and read the park's current-conditions page the morning of.

The South Davis Recreation Center at 550 North 200 West in Bountiful is the county's one year-round ice rink, with public sessions on a school-year schedule from August 20, 2026 that includes Saturdays 12:30 to 2:30 and 7 to 9 and Sundays 1 to 3, plus a leisure pool with a slide, a lap pool and, in summer, an outdoor pool and splash pad. Day passes are $8 for adults and $6 for youth and seniors for residents of the five-city district, Bountiful, Centerville, West Bountiful, Woods Cross and North Salt Lake, and fifty cents more for everyone else, which means a Farmington or Layton household pays the non-resident rate; skate rental is $3, each skating session is a separate admission, and children under three are free.

From late November the district also runs the Bountiful Ice Ribbon, an outdoor seasonal rink at 75 East 200 South, $8 adult and $6 child for the public and half that for center members, with $3 skate rental, weekday evenings and longer weekend hours until it closes in early spring; in August it is closed with a sign promising late November. The center's ice closes for competitions a few days a year, the district says to check back often, and its schedule flipped with the school year on August 20.

Layton Surf 'n Swim at 465 North Wasatch Drive is a city-run indoor wave pool that generates eight different wave patterns, with an eight-lane lap area and two racquetball courts, and it is the cheapest paid water day in the county: open wave admission is $4 in the winter schedule and $5 in summer, seniors $4, children under three free in a swim diaper, tube rental $3 and no outside floats, with a Wednesday inflatable obstacle course for ages six and up. Open wave runs Monday through Saturday 12 to 6:45 and the pool is closed Sundays.

Two facts change the plan. Everyone who enters pays admission, swimming or not, which the city states in its party rules; and punch passes and year passes cannot be bought at the front desk, only at the Parks and Recreation office on weekdays. The winter schedule began August 20, 2026, when the price dropped from $5 to $4; the address that circulates on 275 East is wrong, and 437 North Wasatch, up the street, is city hall.

Clearfield's Aquatic and Fitness Center at 825 South State Street is the north county's indoor water day: a leisure pool with a lazy river, a lap and competition pool, a hot tub, an outdoor pool and splash pad in summer, plus a weight room, cardio, an indoor track and courts, all on one day pass of $8 for adults, $6 for ages four to seventeen and $3 for three and under, with no resident discount on day passes. Group rates knock a dollar off, and monthly memberships are where residency matters.

The catch is the calendar. Clearfield publishes its swim hours only inside an embedded calendar, and from August 20, 2026 the school-year schedule dropped open plunge entirely on Monday and Wednesday evenings, runs it Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons into the evening, Saturday 12:30 to 7 and Sunday 12:30 to 4:30, and closes the competition pool for programming two evenings a week; the widely posted 5 am to 10 pm figure is the building's fitness hours and not the pool's. Read the city's calendar for the week you go rather than any listing, including the summary above.

Cherry Hill at 1325 South Main, which its own 2026 brochure places in Fruit Heights while its mail goes to Kaysville, is the county's mid-priced water day: a water park with an all-day splash pass at $36 on weekdays and $41 on Saturdays, or the King of the Hill pass at $41 and $46 that adds the mini golf, the maze, the blaster boats, the climbing rock and the play structure, with after-4 and after-6 rates down to $16, seniors at $23 and $28, infants and toddlers at $3 with no free age, and up to $3 off per ticket online. The eighteen hole mini golf alone is $10, the 120 site campground runs April 1 to November 1 with limited winter RV camping, and the pie pantry sells take-and-bake through December.

The season is the trap. The water park opened Friday May 22, 2026, ran Monday through Saturday from May 23 through August 19, then dropped to Friday evenings and Saturdays from August 21, opened Labor Day Monday, and closes for the year on Saturday September 12; it is closed every Sunday all season, and it closed one Thursday in August for a private booking. In October it becomes Scary Hill, mini golf, tractor rides and a maze at $14, closed Sundays and Halloween. Boondocks in Kaysville at 525 South Deseret Drive is the other paid fun center in the county, with bowling, go-karts and laser tag, and publishes no prices online.

Lagoon at 375 North Lagoon Drive in Farmington is the county's big ticket and the right thing to end on: a single day is $99.95 plus tax for anyone 48 inches or taller and $76.95 for anyone under, priced by height and not age, with standard parking $20 a vehicle, and it opened for 2026 on March 28, ran weekends until May 22, then daily through August 19 with a scattering of closed days in late August, and runs Frightmares from September 11 to the last day of the season on November 8. Lagoon-A-Beach, the water park, is included with admission and opened May 23, dropped daily operation after August 18, and closes September 7; tube rental there is $5.

That is where this page stops, deliberately. The rides, the season pass, the new swing ride that opened with the park in March, the campground and the three attractions on the National Register are Farmington's own page on The Local, because a park older than the state it sits in belongs to the city that grew up around it. For a family page the facts are the price, the parking, the height rule, the season, and the honest note that the daily schedule thins hard in the third week of August, when the whole county's water season does.