Alcatraz night tour, a must-see?
 

I lived in San Francisco seven years and never went to Alcatraz. Now I'm visiting with a group, and they want to do the night tour. Is it a must-see or a must-miss?

I thought it was a must see, the night tour gives you more access, you can take as much time as you want, you get daylight, sunset and dark if you stay that long, the pictures alone you can get of the bridge, island, and city at sunset were worth it. I had a great time.

Thanks, Wednesday. I booked the tour this weekend. I don't want to miss anything wonderful!

I'm sorry, I just don't get the idea of going to Alcatraz, ever. The views of SF are just as good [better?]from the ferries to Sausalito or Tiburon, and I lack any fascination with criminals. This isn't to criticize anyone who wants to go, just an answer to your question: for me, Alcatraz will always be a must-miss.

Here is a quote from an entry I made recently about the Alcatraz (night) tour.

"Of necessity we had booked the Alcatraz tour weeks earlier, and expected it to be one of the highlights of our trip. And it was very interesting and enjoyable. This claustrophobe opted NOT to be shut into a solitary confinement cell, but the others in our party did...I doubt that too many prisoners spent their time "in the hole" giggling.
If I had one objection to the Alcatraz trip, it was that the "audio tour" for which we were all issued headphones pretty much forced one to follow the rigidly timed route (with a hundred or so other visitors)...I would have preferred more docents, or maybe just a written guide, so that one could spend more or less time at the various sites depending on one's interest level. The long audio re-enactment of an attempted prison breakout seemed a bit tedious to me (just my opinion of course.)"

Also, the promise of being able to "take as much time as you want" is not quite true, as the tour boat doesn't arrive until about 7 pm and the last boat off the island leaves at 9:30. We found that the guide's introduction, the audio tour, and a quick visit to the gift shop took up all the available time.

In retrospect: glad we did it, won't do it again.

Uh, the attraction of Alcatraz most certainly does *not* stem from a "fascination with criminals." If you've never been, you shouldn't judge so harshly.

We found the Alcatraz night tour to be great. Of course, the skyline of SF if awesome. The boat ride across was cool...very cool. Take warm clothes and jackets etc...

My kids and I really enjoyed seeing the prison. It isn't very often you get to see the insides of a famous prison. Much less one that is closed.

Have fun

We just did a day tour recently and when using the headset you can stop/pause it any time if you want to linger or whatever at any particular spot. Then when ready to move on, start it again. I did that to stay away from the crowds at each point. Wasn't a problem.

For TAW: yes, we did pause the audiotape on several occasions. My problem was there was no way to "fast-forward" through the parts which were not of interest to me, because one would then lose one's way for the rest of the audio tour...since critical directions (go to the second cell, turn left, go to the end of the hallway and turn right, etc. etc.)would then be missed.