A variety of guided tours are offered each day by park rangers and other staff. Tour themes include natural history, San Francisco Bay, the civilian life of correctional officers, escape attempts, and other interesting topics. Listen for tour announcements, given at the island’s dock area. Or, experience the island at night by taking the Alcatraz Night Tour, a unique program limited to just a few hundred visitors each evening. Called the “best tour of the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Chronicle, it includes special programs, tours, and activities offered only to the island’s night visitors.
Fresh Air Ferry Ride Speed across the bay through the wind and salt spray as the ferry takes you from Pier 33 to one of the most infamous island prisons of all time. The make-believe home of Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz, the prison housed many a bad guy in its heyday.
Walk-in Prison Experience Step behind bars into the depths of a maximum-security cellhouse. See where prisoners ate, slept, exercised, or did time in the isolation of the “Treatment Unit,” or worse still, in the complete darkness of the “Hole.” Learn how some of the convicts made their escapes.
Sound and Light Take advantage of the audiovisual aids to learn some history: the cellhouse audio tour features voices and stories of actual inmates and guards, and a video exhibit explains the birth of the Native American Red Power movement at Alcatraz.
Special Tips
- Take a jacket or you may do time with the sniffles.
- Ages 8 and up
Experience the many moods of Alcatraz with an evening visit to the Island. Enjoy the beauty of a sunset silhouetting the Golden Gate Bridge. Learn compelling stories about the Island's history and residents. Get spectacular 360-degree views of the whole Bay Area lit up at night... and feel a chill run down your spine as you venture into dark corners of the old island prison. The Alcatraz Night Tour is a unique program limited to just a few hundred visitors per evening that includes special programs, tours and activities not offered during the day. See a list of sample programs to the right. The Night Tour was selected "Best Tour of the Bay Area" by San Francisco Magazine and has also been highlighted by the Los Angeles Times, Family Fun Magazine, Coastal Living, San Francisco radio station KFOG, the television show "Bay Area Backroads," and a variety of other media outlets. Read one of the reviews to the right.
Ticket Information The Alcatraz Night Tour operates year-round, Thursday-Monday evenings. The evening includes roundtrip ferry transportation, a live boat narration, a guided tour from Dock to Cellhouse, the Cellhouse Audio Tour, a keepsake souvenir brochure, and a variety of special presentations. Tickets are $31.50 for adults, $30.50 for juniors (ages 12-17), $29.25 for ages 62+, and $18.75 for children ages 5-11. Children under age 5 are free. For general Alcatraz at Night information, please call (415) 561-4926. Wear warm clothing and comfortable walking shoes, bring your camera, and get ready to have an exciting and memorable evening on The Rock! Proceeds from the Alcatraz Night Tour support preservation and restoration projects on Alcatraz and throughout the Golden Gate National Parks.
Volunteer for the Alcatraz Night Tour Volunteers with the Alcatraz Night Tour program work in one of America's most famous sites, learn about the island's history and share it with friends and visitors. Activities include welcoming and orienting arriving visitors, delivering interpretive programs and behind-the-scenes tours, demonstrating prison equipment and helping to protect the island's natural features. Call the volunteer hotline at (415) 561-4755 or click here for more detailed information on volunteering for the program. The evening includes roundtrip ferry transportation, a live boat narration, a guided tour from Dock to Cellhouse, the Cellhouse Audio Tour, a keepsake souvenir brochure, recreation use fee, and a variety of special programs and presentations offered only at night.
Exhibit, Tours, and Products Explore Hollywood's Fascination with "The Rock." From film-noir gangsters to pyrotechnic-explosive prisoner escapes, the story of Alcatraz as a harsh and desolate prison within sight of San Francisco's skyline has long fascinated Hollywood. In movie after movie, it summed up the Alcatraz legend in a somber voiceover: "The rock. A little iron curtain world of lost souls sitting in the shadow of the Golden Gate." (Experiment Alcatraz, 1950). This is the Alcatraz that the vast majority of the island's 1.4 million annual visitors expect to encounter, a lonely fortress haunted by disturbed and desperate men. They want to see where the Birdman of Alcatraz kept his birds, visit the underground tunnels featured in The Rock, or the brutal dungeon cell from Murder in the First. Now, a new permanent exhibit, special tours, and interpretive products—developed by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in partnership with the National Park Service—give visitors to Alcatraz Island the fascinating historic facts that they are eager to learn juxtaposed against the dramatic movie fiction they often already know. Alcatraz at the Movies
- The Rock (1996)
- Murder in the First (1995)
- So, I Married an Ax Murder (1993)
- Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
- The Enforcer (1976)
- Skidoo (1968)
- Point Blank (1967)
- Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
- Alcatraz Experiment (1950)
- Train to Alcatraz (1948)
- Seven Miles from Alcatraz (1943)
- San Francisco Docks (1941)
- Passport to Alcatraz (1940)
- House Across the Bay (1940)
- King of Alcatraz (1938)
- The Last Gangster (1937)
- Alcatraz Island (opened on November 6, 1937 - the same weekend that this new exhibit opens on Alcatraz!)
The video installation, ALCATRAZ: ESCAPE FROM REALITY!, features a series of scenes revealing Hollywood's view of Alcatraz as movie fantasies. Adding to the visual drama of Hollywood's characterization of Alcatraz, reproductions of vintage movie posters will be mounted near the continuous-loop video display. Showcasing interviews, documentary footage, short captions and/or running subtitles, the video installation explains the difference between the myth and reality. The video also includes new footage that shows the truth behind Hollywood's version of Alcatraz, spotlighting the real tunnels and the real utility corridor that foiled inmate Jim Quillen's hope for escape.
Alcatraz Audio: the 1962 Escape
Alcatraz Audio: Doing Time
Alcatraz Day Tour Information & Ticket Prices The Day Tour operates year-round. Tickets are $24.50 for adults and juniors (ages 12-17), $23.25 for ages 62+, $15.25 for children ages 5-11, and $74.50 for a family (two adults and two children, ages 5-11). Children under age 5 are free. These prices include the Audio Tour.
Alcatraz Night Tour Information & Ticket Prices The Alcatraz Night Tour operates year-round, Thursday-Monday evenings. Tickets are $31.50 for adults, $30.50 for juniors (ages 12-17), $29.25 for ages 62+, and $18.75 for children ages 5-11. Children under age 5 are free. For general Alcatraz at Night information, please call (415) 561-4926. Buy tickets several days in advance (one week in summer), wear warm clothing and comfortable walking shoes, bring your camera, and get ready to have an exciting and memorable visit to The Rock!
- "Princes, Traitors and Spies"—the stories of lesser known but fascinating residents of Alcatraz
- "What Lies Beneath: The Alcatraz Dungeons"—a virtual tour of the Civil War fortress that still exists underneath the federal prison (slide show)
- "Sanity and Survival on the Rock"—an exploration of the many psychological challenges that inmates faced
- "A Roll of the Drums, A Call to Arms"—the activities and thoughts of soldiers stationed on Fortress Alcatraz during the Civil War
- "Gold, Greed and Gambling"—the triumphs and tragedies of the Gold Rush in words and pictures
- "Cold War Alcatraz"—the story of a convicted spy sentenced to Alcatraz for sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviets
- "Alcatraz versus Al Capone"—learn how Alcatraz finally broke the power and spirit of the infamous Al Capone
- "The Road to Solitary"—learn about an inmate's choices and decisions that resulted in the ultimate punishment on Alcatraz, solitary confinement
- "Escapes of All Sorts: A Tour of the Hospital"—a behind-the-scenes tour of the hospital wing
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