Alcatraz, San Francisco

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Boat cruises leave Pier 33 at San Francisco and transport you to Alcatraz Island where you can view the prison made famous in several movies. Best to get your tickets online before you go at www.alcatrazcruises.com
They usually don't give out discounts. For a family of 4 (2 adults & 2 kids) you can order by phone (415-981-ROCK or 415-981-7625) and they give you $5 off the whole order.
There is another outfit that does the boat tours - the Blue & Gold Fleet but be warned that the Fleet does NOT stop at Alcatraz. They are strictly boat tours.
There is no validated parking available so you have to take your chances at one of the numerous parking garages there. The one across the street (Bay St Parking) charges about $20 per car. Pier 27 (about 1 1/2 blocks down charges $15 per car. All of these are all-day parking if you can find a spot.

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I received a lot of advice regarding Alcatraz before leaving for San Francisco. Some said not to miss it and others said don't bother. The don't bother people must have been smoking crack. Alcatraz was awesome!

My interest in historic prisons probably emerged while watching films such as "The Bird Man of Alcatraz". This old prison had a lot to live up to and it certainly did. We had no trouble booking a ferry trip to the island on Pier 41. We mingled around the departure area while waiting for our boat. The trip to the island was beautiful and we got some great photos of the island, the Golden Gate Bridge and of the San Francisco skyline.

Upon arriving at the prison we picked up audio phones. Typically, I am not a big audio guide person (i.e. I found most of the audio guides in Rome to be of little value and mostly shunned them), but the Alcatraz audio guide was very informative and interesting. Some of the narration is done by ex-prisoners of The Rock.

We followed the audio tour throughout the prison. It was wonderous wandering through the cells, blocks, administrative wing and dining room. One area that was not on the audio tour, but that we were glad we found, was The Yard - where convicts went for exercise and fresh air. I found The Yard to be particularly fascinating (and surprisingly small). I climbed to the top step and took a seat just like Clint Eastwood's character in Escape from Alcatraz.

We spent about 3 hours wandering through the prison and island grounds. The flowers and gardens, even in the winter, were beautiful and the view of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island are not to be missed.

Alcatraz is a must do for those visiting San Francisco!

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Alcatraz Island (or The Rock) is a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, about 1.5 miles off the coast. The island is home to the infamous Alcatraz Prison, which is these days uninhabited by inmates and is instead a major tourist attraction.

The prison closed due to deteriorating buildings and high operating costs, with the last inmates leaving the island in 1963. Alcatraz served as a federal penitentiary for 29 years, and during this time 36 prisoners tried to escape, with all but 5 being re-captured.

We visited the island for a few hours one afternoon. You can catch a ferry from Pier 33, near Fisherman's Wharf. Pre-booking is recommended for the trip as there are limited ferry services and it is very popular. The price of the ferry ticket ($26 in Sep 2008) included access to the island and an audio guide - which we found very informative.

The tour covers most of the prison. It was a little eerie walking though the cell blocks, scary to see the size of the cells, and interesting to stand in the concrete, walled recreation yard. The audio soundtrack was spoken by ex-prison guards and inmates which really gave you a feel for their time on the island and added to our experience.

I enjoyed the visit to Alcatraz much more than I thought I would and would certainly recommend it if you have the time during your stay.

The buildings on Alcatraz Island, in the middle of San Francisco Bay, were originally an Army garrison, but the island is best known for its now-defunct Federal prison, 1934-1963. The prison was close enough for the prisoners to hear music and traffic noises from the city, but out of 14 attempted escapes, only 2 might possibly have been successful. The super-cold waters of the Bay are as effective as barbed wire.

Buy tickets in advance through Alcatraz Cruises (website below); the tours fill up weeks ahead of time. Wear warm clothing and comfortable walking shoes -- the hike from the boat landing to the prison is steep, and the prison is cold. Boats leave from Pier 33.

The cellhouse audio tour is a very good way to tour the prison, a sort of total immersion experience.

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Alcatraz was one the must-see spots on my first trip to San Francisco. The island tours have audio you can follow along with that gives you a history of some of the island most famous events and prisoners. One of the greatest things about Alcatraz is the view of San Francisco from the Southside of the island!

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NOTE: When I was doing my research to purchase tickets to visit Alcatraz Island I found many sites charging astronomical prices. The link I provided below is the official site for the Alcatraz Isalnd tours where your purchase price can be as much as $10 less per ticket than those other tours. We paid $26 per person for the ferry and audio guide of the cell and the island from the National Park Service.

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Enjoyed our boat trip and tour of Alcatraz. The views were wonderful, it was a lot of fun. We got off the dock and toured the guard house, officers club, military chapel, barracks, wardens house, lighthouse, cell blocks and if you call them gardens. Alcatraz was a U.S. Army fort and military prison (1859 -1934), a federal penitentiary (1934 –1963), and the American Indians occupied Alcatraz (1969–1971).

Teargas canisters were installed in the roof of the dining hall; they could be activated remotely, from the gun gallery as well as from outside observation points. Guard towers were positioned around the perimeter, and metal detectors were positioned outside the dining hall and on the Prison Industries access path. The cell house contained nearly 350 cells, far from the perimeter wall. If an inmate managed to tunnel through the cell wall, he would still need to escape from the cell house itself. The inmates would only be assigned to B, C, and D blocks, since the primary prison population was not allowed to exceed 300 (although the record was 302). The new measures, combined with the isolating barrier created by the cold Bay water, meant the prison was ready to receive the nation's most incorrigible and dangerous criminals.

During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed no prisoners as having ever successfully escaped. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; seven were shot and killed, two drowned, June 11, 1962 in one of the most intricate escapes ever devised the bodies of Clarence & John Anglin were never found.

The "Birdman of Alcatraz," was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942; he spent 17 years on "the Rock" — six years in segregation in D Block, and eleven years in the prison hospital. In 1959 he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield. Al Capone arrived on Alcatraz in 1934, prison officials made it clear that he would not be receiving any preferential treatment. While serving his time in Atlanta, Capone, a master manipulator, had continued running his rackets from behind bars by buying off guards. "Big Al" generated incredible media attention while on Alcatraz though he served just four and a half years of his sentence there before developing symptoms of syphilis and being transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in Los Angeles.

Costs led U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to close Alcatraz in 1963.

We took the Alcatraz ferry tour to see the prison.
We booked this online before we left Ireland, which is advisable.
We also booked the first trip out, which was good, because although it was hard to get up and organised early and the ferry was full, we were the first ferry out there and it meant that the place wasn't overrun with people, though there were quite a lot. It also meant we finished up early and could spend the rest of the day doing other things.
The tour starts when you get off the ferry, there is a volunteer tour guide who gives you information about the history of the place, and tips on what to do on the island. There are guided walking tours if you want to wait for them, they have marked times.
The way into the prison itself is up an incline and there are driven carts if you have any difficulties in walking, but its an easy walk and is nice seeing all the bright flowers growing along the way.
Before you reach the prison there is an area where you can sit and listen to a taped account of time on Alcatraz from both a former prisoner and a former resident on the island- the island was also home to the families of the prison guards, who grew up on the island, and were fwerried to and from school everyday. They discribe their childhood on the island as idyllic and that they never really paid much heed to the prison overlooking them.
There is also a shop here, but it was closed when we started, and had reopened by the time we were ready to leave the island as we went back in to have a look at some of the displays.
When you go into the prison first, you are issued with a set of headphones and an audio guide which brings you around the prison. Its certainly very interesting and I wouldn't have wanted to have been a prisoner there! The place still has a certain oudour to it, very musty and sour, and the cells were tiny. There is a sense of melancholy about the place also,probably because its empty of inhabitants and parts are very neglected and overgrown- the excercise yard in particluar- and when you compare the photos they have up to the real thing, its hard to imagine people in it.
There are plenty of restrooms available both when you get off the ferry and at the top near the guards offices when you come out of the prison.
No food to be consumed anywhere other than the ferry area.
There are tons and tons of huge seagulls everywhere, and we saw a pelican roosting in one of the windows also.
Photos to come