Alcatraz tours, which is best?

satrdayboy_2

We are travelling to SF in October, will arrive on Thursday evening and will have 2 full days there before leaving on Sunday morning. Plan to do alcatraz and combine it with a 48hr open top bus pass, do any of these tours allow you to visit Alcatraz in the evening, or do you have to do a daylight visit. Had a look at couple of sites and they dont seem to do Open topen bus and evening visit. Also what would evening temps. be like on Alcatraz in October?
Thank You

Caz3121

There is an evening tour, we did it recently and it was very good. There are plently of the open top bus tours that stop down by the pier, I would buy the Alcatraz tickets separately from the official site http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/.
Book well in advance as they (especially the evening tours) sell out the closer you get to the time, when we were there it was a Saturday and there were no tickets available till the Wednesday

phatbear

Theres only one company that runs tours to alcatraz therefore it doesnt matter who you buy your tickets through you will end up on one if their boats. You can organise/chech the schedule yourself:

http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/

Even when its warm in sf it tends to be a lot cooler in alcatraz.

princessfufu

Just to say I have done both evening and day time visits on seperate holidays and I much preferred the day time tour. I felt the evening tour seemed a little rushed (even though you go at your own pace with the audio tape). Definately need a sweatshirt/cardigan in the evening and especially to visit Alcatraz.

loobs40

When we visited last year, there was no tour guide as such. You hop on the boat, disembark at Alcatraz , and then you go round Alcatraz at your own pace with the Audio guide. I think we then got on the next available boat to get back to the mainland

ponymad_3

loobs40 wrote: »

When we visited last year, there was no tour guide as such. You hop on the boat, disembark at Alcatraz , and then you go round Alcatraz at your own pace with the Audio guide. I think we then got on the next available boat to get back to the mainland

Yes that sounds like what we did too... the trip is definitely worthwhile ours was daytime and it was very interesting. We had been told it would be cold so we took big fleeces.. it was a bit of a heatwave in SF at the time (we went roughly the same time as you) It was still very warm on A! Layers is probably the way to go...

BTW not sure if its a regular thing but we saw an amazing airshow over the Fishermans wharf area and if its on every year I would really recommend. It was chance for us so moght be worthwhile googling.. think I was in SF the first week in Oct

neilbond007

I went in August a few years ago. Left Vegas it was 38C. San Fran was 13C. Alcatraz felt like it was 5C. Wrap up warm!

claire16c

I did the daytime tour in May and it was really good. It was about 18C in SF, and SF is known for being foggy, and one day it was very foggy could barely see the bridge. Alcatraz is even colder and windier.

So in Oct I would not want to do a night time tour. If you do, bring a hat and warm coat!! I was cold in May day time and we were really lucky because it was sunny, the day before it was pouring with rain, would have been really miserable to do it then.

Im not sure Id bother with an open top bus tour either, incase the weather is bad. SF isnt really that big, and public transport is easy to use, and you can walk obviously too.

laughingsheep

ponymad wrote: »

BTW not sure if its a regular thing but we saw an amazing airshow over the Fishermans wharf area and if its on every year I would really recommend. It was chance for us so moght be worthwhile googling.. think I was in SF the first week in Oct

Ponymad, the airshow is known as fleet week, http://www.fleetweek.us/ I'll be in SF that weekend & OH is really looking forward to the airshow. The website talks about ticket sales, but it seems you can view it from a number of public areas.