Alcatraz Island, situated off the coast of San Francisco, is famous for housing one of the worlds most notorious prison grounds (nicknamed The Rock). Today it provides a fascinating tourist attraction, welcoming over 1 million visitors per year.
Having visited Alcatraz as part of our California Road Trip and noticing its continued popularity during a return visit to San Francisco a couple of years later, I've put together a list of top 10 tips to help plan a visit to this iconic island.
1. Buy your tickets in advance
I cannot express enough how important this is if Alcatraz Island is one of your must visit attractions.
When we arrived for our early morning tour, there was a sign indicating all tours were sold out for the day. The same sign stated there were no tours available for the following 3 days, during our next San Francisco trip.
Tickets are available to purchase 3 months in advance and we booked ours through www.alcatrazcruises.com.
There are a number of options, including: Early Bird Tour (08.45 ferry), Day Tour (09.10 ferry onwards) and Night Tour (17.55 and 18.30 ferry). Check the website for up-to-date times and ticket prices.
2. Book an early time slot
If you're keen to avoid the crowds, booking one of the earlier sailing times will enable you to tour the island while it's still relatively quiet.
We booked an early Day Tour, which left Alcatraz Landing at 9.30am. Although the Early Bird visitors were already on the island, it was significantly quieter before the next few ferries arrived.
Also, the ferry takes approximately 20 minutes (both ways) and you can easily spend 2-3 hours touring. So an early start means you can return to the mainland around lunchtime.
3. Choose an outdoor seat on the ferry (weather permitting)
Being out on the water, especially on a clear day, provides a unique opportunity to view the amazing San Francisco skyline, The Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz Island itself from a different perspective.
Get those cameras ready:
4. Buy the $1 Guide
These are available to purchase from a stand on the islands landing dock.
As well as providing a handy map - with information about the main buildings, the guide is full of interesting facts about the prison history, including some of it's famous inhabitants. It's an easy and interesting read, so is a great learning tool for kids as they tour the island.
The guide also makes for a nice, cheap momento of your visit.
5. Head straight to the Audio Tour
Assuming you've booked an early ferry time, I suggest making the Audio Tour one of your first activities. As one of the highlights of the island, it's extremely popular and queues form relatively early in the day.
To be one of the first of your group to reach the Cellhouse, when you arrive on Alcatraz Island, stand to the right side of the crowd which gathers to listen to the National Parks employee speech. As soon as the speech finishes, make your way up the path to your right and head straight to the Cellhouse.
By doing this, we experienced no queue to pick up the headphones for the tour, but noticed a long line as we left.
6. Time your tour to avoid being in a large group
Once you're handed your audio tour equipment, you determine when to actually begin the tour. If you are able to, leave a long gap between the people starting the tour in front of you, before you press play on your headphones.
Everyone tours the route at the same speed - as visitors are taken to specific locations and pause to listen to the information being given. So, if you are in a large group with others, you'll struggle to get near certain information boards, cells etc. which can hinder your enjoyment of the experience.
If you find yourself caught in a large group, press pause for a while, allow the masses to move on, then continue your tour.
Hint: During your tour, pause the audio and take your headphones off when you're walking past the cells. As visitors are wearing headphones and listening, it's eerily silent - we found this added to the whole amazing experience.
7. Allow plenty of time to explore the rest of the island
Although the audio tour was the highlight of visiting Alcatraz Island, there are still plenty of other areas to see.
One of our favourites was climbing the steep steps to the Recreation Yard, where you can still make out the baseball diamond.
The New Industries Building was housing an interesting exhibition while we were there, which was worth a look.
While the gardens and wildlife provide a fantastic contrast from the oppressive buildings, as do the views of San Francisco:
8. Wear good walking shoes and appropriate clothing
Exploring Alcatraz Island requires a significant amount of walking and much of the terrain is very uneven, therefore, we recommend wearing good walking shoes with proper grips underneath, especially if visiting in wet weather.
The island is exposed to the elements, so be prepared for all weathers: expect a chilly breeze when crossing on the ferry and on the island itself, we would also suggest you take some sort of rainproof clothing, as well as sun block - the sun made an appearance while we were there and it quickly became quite intense. You are in California after all.
9. Take drinks and snacks with you
Although bottled water is available to purchase from the book stores on the island, there is nowhere to buy food. If you're planning to eat lunch while you're there, you will need to take your own picnic and use the designated picnic area beside the landing dock.
For ease, we took a couple of snack bars and some water in our backpacks to keep us going, then caught the ferry back to the mainland for lunch.
10. When leaving Alcatraz Island, arrive at the landing dock in plenty of time
When planning your exit from the island, make sure you're aware of sailing times back to the mainland, and arrive at the landing dock at least 15 minutes beforehand.
We arrived at the landing dock at 12.10pm, for the 12.25 sailing. A large queue had already formed, and although we managed to get on the 12.25pm ferry, those towards the back of the queue were required to catch the next ferry, which meant a further 30 minute wait.
Visiting Alcatraz Island was one of our favourite experiences during our trip to San Francisco and one which we highly recommend. I hope these hints and tips help you enjoy this fascinating attraction as much as we all did.
You may also like:
