Alcatraz Cruises
Park Programs
An exciting variety of special programs and guided tours are offered on Alcatraz Island. Join a guided history or nature walk, visit a special exhibit, or even make an evening outing and explore The Rock at night. Check the links at right to learn more about the wide array of guided tours, evening programs, kids’ tours, and exhibits offered on the island.
National Park Service Guided Tours
Join the island staff for a guided walking tour of Alcatraz Island. Programs are offered throughout the day and generally start either at the dock or lighthouse. Topics may include Famous Inmates, Escapes, Hollywood’s Rock, 200 Years of Alcatraz History, and Fortress Alcatraz. Some programs even take visitors into restricted areas of the island.
Guided tours generally last 45 minutes to an hour, and may involve walking moderate distances.
Tours and times vary daily, so check the Program Board when you arrive on the island dock. No reservations are required, and all programs are free.
Night Tours
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. Enjoy spectacular views of the Golden Gate and City at sunset. 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.
Alcatraz Kidz Tourz
Looking for something fun, unusual, and educational to do with your family? Join us for "Alcatraz Kidz Tourz"—special family-oriented programs offered year-round! "Alcatraz Kidz Tourz" include both a family-oriented guided tour from the dock to prison building and a special program designed for kids later in the evening, after the Cellhouse Audio Tour. Some programs are appropriate for kids of all ages, while others are specially tailored for children of a particular age group.
Special Exhibits
"Alcatraz: Stories From the Rock"
Alcatraz: Stories From the Rock takes viewers on a journey through the Island’s many chapters: its early role as a military fortress, the famous federal penitentiary years, the Indian occupation that altered the course of history, and finally the popular National Park and wildlife refuge it is today.
Alcatraz stands as a powerful symbol of protection and change. The film explores Alcatraz as it began, as it evolved, and as it stands today and allows viewers to discover the many layers that make it an incredible time capsule of history and human drama.
Other Exhibits
Video Exhibit: “We Hold the Rock”
The occupation of Alcatraz Island from 1969 to 1971 by “Indians of All Tribes” changed the course of U.S. and American Indian history, and brought world-wide attention to the plight of American Indians. The award winning video/exhibit, “WE HOLD THE ROCK,” produced by the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, is shown continually in the China Alley exhibit behind the main theater area near the dock.
Display: “Alcatraz and the American Prison Experience”
"Alcatraz and the American Prison Experience," a major interpretive exhibit, explains the place of Alcatraz in the evolution of prisons in America from Colonial days to the present. Produced in partnership with the federal Bureau of Prisons, the exhibit also looks at family life on Alcatraz and trends in American penology. The exhibit is housed in two historic fortress storerooms in the China Alley display area near the dock.
Upcoming Events
Fleet Week / Blue Angels Air Shows
Every year San Francisco sponsors "Fleet Week", a celebration and welcome for the U.S. Navy. This weeklong event includes parades of ships, flying demonstrations by the Navy’s Blue Angels, and public visits to naval ships tied up along the Embarcadero. The annual event also brings throngs of people to the waterfront, especially to watch the precision flying of the Blue Angels.
Alcatraz provides an excellent viewing platform for the Blue Angels display, and many people come to the island during Fleet Week just to watch their aerial exhibitions.
Be prepared for heavy crowds during Fleet Week and for possible delays to ferry operations between Alcatraz Island and the mainland.
Fleet Week 2006 will be held from Thursday, October 5 through Monday, October 9.
The Blue Angels Air Shows will occur on Saturday, October 7 and Sunday, October 8.
Indigenous People’s Sunrise Ceremony
The Indigenous People’s sunrise ceremony is a commemoration of the start of the 1969-1971 occupation of Alcatraz by the “Indians of All Tribes” -- an event that galvanized the new indigenous people's rights movement in the United States. The International Indian Treaty Council sponsors the event twice each fall on Alcatraz Island.
This year the Alcatraz Sunrise Ceremonies will be held on Monday October 9, 2006 and Thursday, November 23, 2006. Special boats will depart Pier 33 starting at 5:00 AM and return to the mainland by 8:30 AM. |
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