Venus excursions leave twice a day and cost $85. The lesbian owned and operated Venus Charters offers three-hour snorkeling and dolphin watching cruises that include a snack and beverages. It features a women-only champagne sunset cruise on Thursdays for $32 if you book online. There are also a couple of gay cruises, one is called the Blu Q. It will also go by the beachside AIDS memorial, which merited a passing reference from a mainstream tour. It will take you by places, like Tennessee Williams's house, that the mainstream tours overlook. But take heart, an open-air gay trolley tour commences every Saturday at 11 a.m. I took a couple of the tours but neither mentioned anything about gay life or the gay history of the island. Key West hasn't had a real train since a hurricane destroyed the tracks north of the city in 1935. By the way, the "train" is not a real train but a motorized open-air tram car pulled by a truck made to look like a train. The best way to get the lay of the land is to take an Old Town Trolley or Conch Tour Train of the island. Your vacation won't be dampened even if it rains. There are a wealth of sights, museums, and other attractions in the city that will more than occupy your time. You can have a great time in Key West and never set foot on a beach. Many people who have never been to Key West assume it's all about the beaches. But its popularity as a gay vacation getaway soared along with real estate prices through the 1980s and it continues today. Key West has long been popular with gay men and lesbians even before gay author Tennessee Williams first called the city home in the 1940s. Some may question whether that is part urban legend but no one would question the city's rags to riches resurrection. Locals like to tell the story of a Duval Street storeowner who sold his business for $5, just to get it off his hands. Before that rebirth 30 years ago, its floundering popularity was evident in the rundown and abandoned storefronts along Duval Street, in the center of downtown. The nightlife and gay vacation resorts that sprouted up like weeds in the late 1970s and early 1980s were largely responsible for a renaissance in the city. The Bourbon Street Pub complex, along Key West's main drag, Duval Street, is at the gay center of nightlife in Key West.
It's just part of another day in the live and let live vacation island paradise just 90 miles from Cuba. While playing pool in the nude may get you thrown out of a bar in San Francisco, it doesn't raise an eyebrow in Key West. There was a small group of people at the bar and a man playing pool – in the nude. I followed another man through a curtain to another bar in back of the main bar. I entered the 801 Bourbon bar on a Sunday afternoon during my first day on the island at the southernmost tip of the continental U.S. It was a Key West moment that was enough to shock this San Franciscan.