Admission costs going up at state parks, Brookgreen Gardens

Connecting with nature at state parks or a popular garden attraction on the south Strand will cost you more this year.

Admission to Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island went up $2 for most tickets Jan. 3, while the cost of an annual pass to state parks including Myrtle Beach State Park and Huntington Beach State Park went up at the beginning of January.

The cost increases come at a time when consumers still are budget-conscious because of the economy, but officials said the price hikes couldn’t be avoided.

Brookgreen Gardens, a 450-acre gardens and zoo attraction, raised admission fees for the first time in a decade, saying the costs to run the property also have gone up. Brookgreen, which is a non-profit, has had to pay more to run the gardens, with higher prices for everything from fertilizer and plants to insurance, spokeswoman Helen Benso said.

“All those prices have gone up,” she said. “Everything has gone up. We have tried our best to not [increase admission], but we just have to.”

Admission to Brookgreen has gone up $2 for most, to $14 for ages 13 to 64, and to $12 for ages 65 and older. Cost for children ages 4 to 12 went up $1 to $7. The new prices went into effect Jan. 3. A pass still is good for admission for seven consecutive days and the costs for annual passes didn’t change. They are still $60 for an individual or $90 for a family.

As for the state parks including Myrtle Beach State Park and Huntington Beach State Park, rates for annual passes went up at the beginning of the month, though daily admission remains the same at $5 for adults, $3.25 for seniors and $3 for children.

The S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism department, which oversees Myrtle Beach state and Huntington parks and 45 others across the state, raised rates for its annual passes and created new annual passes as the department continues to try to make the parks pay for themselves. It’s the first rate hike in seven years, according to the state parks department.

The passport pass, good for a year, went to $75 from $50; seniors and disabled residents now will pay $37.50.

There’s also a new kind of annual pass, dubbed the Statewide Park Passport Plus, that sells for $99 and will get you park admission as well as a few perks, including free admission to historic house tours such as Atalaya at Huntington Beach State Park and a $10 gift card that can be used toward rental of cabins or campsites at the parks.

There’s also a third, cheaper annual pass for parks off the coast because those aren’t as popular as the oceanfront parks, said Marion Edmonds, spokesman for the state parks department.

At Myrtle Beach State Park, the regular annual pass is popular among the more than 1 million visitors to the oceanfront park each year, especially locals who buy the pass to go to the beach during the summer, assistant park manager Amanda Jenkins said, adding that weekends during the summer are super busy.

“It is a pretty high-demand item,” she said of the annual pass.

The coastal parks, including the two along the Grand Strand, are the most popular parks in the state. Because the annual pass is good for everyone in a car up to a 15-passenger van, officials say it’s still a good deal even with the price increase.

“We’ve had very few complaints about it,” Jenkins said. “They still realize it’s a good value.”

But some annual pass holders aren’t happy about having to pay more when it comes time to renew their passes this year.

“That’s quite a jump,” said William Riddle, an annual pass holder who splits his time between Myrtle Beach and Virginia.

Riddle owns a house across the street from Myrtle Beach State Park and enjoys going there on nice days just to “loaf.” His pass expires in August, and he plans to renew it, even at the higher price.

“If that’s what it costs, I’ll have to pay it,” he said. “But that’s a pretty big jump.”

The state parks department hiked the rates to continue to move toward the parks being self-sustaining. The revenue from the state parks covers about 82 percent of the cost to run them, Edmonds said, adding that officials weighed the economy and other issues before deciding to raise the annual pass rates.

“It’s never anything you go into lightly,” he said.