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.

• Alcatraz Family Fun
• Alcatraz Night Tour
• Alcatraz and Hollywood
• Alcatraz Video Installation

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.

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.

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.

For general Night Tour information, please call (415) 561-4926. Attention, this is not the ticket reservation line! You can purchase tickets at (415) 981-7625 ONLY!

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 for more detailed information on volunteering for the program.

Alcatraz Kids Tours are back! If you are looking for a fun-filled, educational adventure for your family, then join us for a Kids Tour of the Rock. In addition to the in the ticket included Cellhouse Audio Tour, these family oriented programs consist of a special guided tour from the Alcatraz dock to the cellhouse. Bring your camera, dress in layers and prepare for a fun night on the Rock!!!

Our upcoming Kids Tours are: 

Saturday, November 1, 2008 — Pirates, Rebels and Spies: Pirates in San Francisco Bay? It's true! Hear the unusual tale of a band of Confederates who became pirates in order to steal Caliofrnia's gold, and learn about Fortress' Alcatraz role in the plot. This tour is designed for ages 7+ and their families. Purchase tickets for the 4:20 p.m. departure. For more informatioin please call our docent Eric at (415) 561-4926.

Friday, November 28, 2008 — Pirates, Rebels and Spies: Pirates in San Francisco Bay? It's true! Hear the unusual tale of a band of Confederates who became pirates in order to steal Caliofrnia's gold, and learn about Fortress' Alcatraz role in the plot. This tour is designed for ages 7+ and their families. Purchase tickets for the 4:20 p.m. departure. For more informatioin please call our docent Eric at (415) 561-4926.

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 veiw 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 videoo 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 versin of Alcatraz, spotlighting the real tunnels and the real utility corridor tha foiled inmate Jim Quillen's hope for escape.