How We Got a Private Tour of Alcatraz
We were planning our trip to San Francisco and as all tourists I went on line to get tickets to Alcatraz. NO GO!
Sold out for 2 months. Granted it was July but I didn’t think it would be this difficult. I told Dale that if we couldn’t go to Alcatraz I didn’t want to go to San Francisco. It would just sit there and taunt me and I couldn’t bear that heartache as This has been my dream for so long.
So Dale did what all loving husbands do and reassured me that once we are there in person we can go to the ticket office and just buy them. I agreed. Once landed in San Fran, we hotfooted it over to the ticket office on the pier and guess what; they were sold out for 2 months. Broken-heartedly I still lined up in the hopes that someone cancelled only to be stared at by a silent woman who after hearing my plea just silently (and rudely) pointed to the sign of ‘sold out’ then told me to get out of the line. I did.
Then we discovered that the companies selling tickets to the tourist buses also sell tickets to Alcatraz and we started our mission to stalk them in the hopes that someone may cancel as they were also all sold out. Don’t get me wrong. We still enjoyed our time in San Fran (see post here) but I didn’t come all the way just to stare at the Rock from the Bay. Which I also did. A lot!
Eureka!!! Our persistence paid off and on the very last day in San Fran for the very last boat to the Rock, we got our tickets. I was beyond excited. And it was everything that we expected. We did the self guided audio tour, immersed ourselves in the sounds and experiences of the place and took some amazing pictures. As we were the last boat out we unfortunately missed the ‘being locked in the cell’ experience but we made our own ‘in cell experience’. Also by this time there weren’t that many tourists on the island so we managed to get some great photos with just us in them.
In the meantime I got talking with one of the guards who knew so much about the history of the place and he asked if we wanted to go up to Al Capone’s cell. I didn’t really hear what he said so I said No, only to find Dale choking beside me going ‘WHAT? You just said no to Al Capone’s cell?’ Haha, after we cleared up that little misunderstanding the guard took us up to the second level and we got to see the cell. Little secret – its exactly the same as all the other cells! Just on the second floor where the tourists aren’t allowed, so that was cool.
Then the guard said ‘I need to do a sweep of the island to make sure there are no more tourist left behind, would you like to come with me?’ Let me tell you, I didn’t mishear him this time. A huge YES!
And this is how we got a private tour of the Rock.
