By Karen

Updated August 23, 2024.

Alcatraz Tickets Sold Out?

What to do when Alcatraz is sold out...

How do you get last minute Alcatraz tickets if Alcatraz is sold out for the dates you want to go?

Some good news: there is an abundance of Day Tour and Night Tour tickets at the moment!

As of early June, 2024, you can usually get day tour tickets the next day for Alcatraz.

Night tour tickets are also available next day...pretty amazing.

I don't know how long this remarkable situation will last, but enjoy it! I have never seen this; they would normally be sold out months in advance at this point.

Book them directly at day tour or night tour tickets.

There are now basically three ways to get Alcatraz tickets for sold-out days:

Important Change! City Experiences made a major change in their ticket sale procedures.

For many years, they offered 50-100 tickets very early in the morning for same-day tickets for the Day Tours on sold-out days. That option is no longer available.

That means no more lining up early before the office opens for same-day, Day Tour tickets.

The good news: they are still selling a limited number of standby tickets for the Night Tour! See below for how to get them.

For years, visitors could line up super early at the ticket office to get a ticket for one of that day's Day Tours. It was a little desperate, but a great way to get a ticket when Alcatraz was sold out for weeks or months in advance.

Starting in early 2019, they ended that practice. There used to be lines forming by 3 or 4 am every day during the summer! But you could almost certainly score a ticket that way if you were determined.

A new booking system went into effect in 2019 and the extra tickets (from cancellations) that used to be sold early that morning are now fed back into the online booking system.

So hopefully, there will be more tickets available for people checking for last-minute cancellations.

Little boy trying to hitchhike at an empty boat dock.

1) Checking for Canceled Tickets

The official website for Alcatraz tour tickets, cityexperiences.com, adds back the canceled tickets to their online ticket sales. The customer service rep told me they update these several times a day, so keep checking for the days you want.

In high season, the summer months, the tickets are often sold out a month or two in advance, but I've seen tickets pop up for a date one week in advance, in July, so it is possible if your timing is good.

A number of people have told me they've had success getting tickets this way.

An easy way to do it: stay on the window with the day you want and just keep hitting "refresh".

2) Alcatraz Combination Tours

There are also many other companies that sell tickets to Alcatraz in combination with their other tours.

If you don't mind paying more and just not doing the other tour, or if it's OK to do the other tour(s) as well, it's worth looking into some of the combination tours for availability.

Note: I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through some of the links on this page, at no extra cost to you. This helps me provide all the free information I post on this website. Thank you for your support!

There's a great variety of well-liked, Alcatraz combo tours.

You can pair Alcatraz with a city tour, or a trip to Muir Woods, Sausalito, or a bay cruise, or a number of other San Francisco activities.

These tours might have tickets...

The availability of these tours comes and goes. Check them to see their current status.

When Alcatraz is sold out, many of the popular combination tours are also sold out, but there are some companies that still have Alcatraz tickets for the sold-out days in summer and into fall.

I rounded up some popular tours to check out for Alcatraz tickets on sold-out days.

Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour + Alcatraz. Get Alcatraz tickets plus a 2-day pass on the double-decker tour bus, with stops at many of San Francisco's attractions. You can get off and explore then catch another one to continue. Bus tours include a walking tour of Chinatown and a Sausalito tour. $120. See Hop On Hop Off & Alcatraz for info and booking.

Alcatraz plus a City Bus Tour. See Alcatraz and tour the city sights by bus, with photo stops at the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park and Twin Peaks. All in one day. $160. See Alcatraz & City Tour for more info and booking.

Alcatraz & Bay Cruise. Explore Alcatraz, and sail around the bay, past Alcatraz and Angel Island, and out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Great views out on the water (and go under the bridge - very cool). $138. See Alcatraz & Sail the Bay for info and booking.

Alcatraz & Ferry Building Food Tour. Explore the Ferry Building with a guide and sample local, artisan foods in the morning, then head off to Alcatraz in the afternoon. $174. See Alcatraz & Ferry Building Tour for info and booking.

Alcatraz and a Guided Bike Tour (across the bridge). Do Alcatraz one day, and the day before, explore San Francisco on a bike, with a guide who takes you along the SF waterfront and over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. $179. See Alcatraz and Bike Tour for info and booking.

Alcatraz, Muir Woods & Sausalito. Tour Alcatraz and explore the ancient redwoods of Muir Woods all in one day, with a stop in the charming, seaside town of Sausalito. $109. See Alcatraz, Muir Woods & Sausalito Tour for info and booking.

There are tons of Alcatraz combination tours available. You can check out a long list of them at Alcatraz combo tours.

3) Night Tour Standby Tickets

Even though the same-day tickets for sold-out Day Tours are a thing of the past, you still have a chance at getting out to the Rock on a Night Tour (which I think is even better than the Day Tour).

During the high season, they typically have about 20 standby tickets for sale (and around 10 tickets during the winter).

How the standby tickets work. Each day that the Night Tour runs (Tuesdays through Saturdays), they will have standby tickets for that evening's tours for sale at the ticket office at Pier 33.

The number sold is limited, so it's first come, first served. The ticket office opens at 9 am. If you get a standby ticket, you have a chance to get on the Night Tour for that evening. After they board the passengers for that sailing, they allow the standbys on if there is room (no-shows or cancellations).

If you don't get on that evening, you go back to ticket office that night and get a refund. They are open till 7 pm.

What are your chances? According to staff members at the pier, there's no guarantee of getting on with a standby ticket, of course, but there's a very good chance that you'll get out to Alcatraz that night. Hurray!

Another way of getting Night Tour tickets.

Now you can also find tours combining other attractions with the Alcatraz Night Tour.

When the night tour is sold out, which it often is, you can check out some of the combo tours for night tour availability.

Note: since Covid, the night tour combos hadn't been available, but they started up again in August 2023.

Three combo night tours are currently available (as of August 2024):

1. The Alcatraz Night Tour plus a one hour boat tour cruise on San Francisco Bay. Sail all around the bay and out under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Check the Alcatraz Night Tour/Bay Cruise combo for rates and availability.

2. Alcatraz Night Tour with Muir Woods and Sausalito. Cross the Golden Gate Bridge with a stop at a viewpoint. Explore the ancient redwoods, then see the charming seaside town of Sausalito. Next it's off to the night tour of Alcatraz.

See Alcatraz Night Tour/Muir Woods/Sausalito for info and booking.

3. Alcatraz Night Tour & Yosemite Day Tour.

See Alcatraz at night the first day, with entry to the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39. Next day, get picked up at your hotel for an all day trip to Yosemite, including a tour of Yosemite, then three hours to explore there.

See Alcatraz Night Tour/Yosemite for info and booking.

One more way to get on the sold-out Night Tour: get a ticket for the Behind the Scenes Tour because it includes the night tour.

On the Behind the Scenes Tour, after you have your guided tour of areas not generally open to the public, you are free to explore the island and join in the night tour activities.

This is a longer shot because the Behind the Scenes tour is more limited and those tickets are even more likely to be sold out, but you never know!

See my tips on the Behind the Scenes Tour.

Note: Need tickets within the next four days?

The tour companies that book the combination tours have to give City Experiences the names of visitors at least four days before the scheduled tour.

As a result, if you need tickets sooner than four days, the only way to get Alcatraz tickets is watching their website for cancellations or scoring a Night Tour standby ticket.

A long shot...

If Lady Luck is smiling upon you, you just might get a same-day ticket at the ticket booth.

Normally, there aren't any tickets available for the same day, even in winter, but it's possible someone is trying to sell an extra ticket they can't use and the ticket taker will let you know.

One time I was going on a Behind the Scenes tour with my son, and he decided not to go. I let the staff at the ticket booth know I had an extra ticket (the tour was leaving within the hour), and a short time later they found a taker.

We agreed on a price and the staff issued him a new ticket in his name. (Alcatraz tickets have to be in your name, hence the recommendation not to buy directly from someone offering you a ticket at the pier.)

So you never know; it's worth checking in at the ticket booth on Pier 33.

Seasonal variation in difficulty

The hardest time to get Alcatraz tickets historically is during the summer tourist season: June, July and August.

The Day Tours are usually booked up two months in advance, and the Night Tour and Behind the Scenes Tour are booked up even farther out. It's crucial to book the Alcatraz tours well in advance if you want to visit in summer.

But even heading into the summer season in May, and towards the end of the season in September, tickets are booked up far ahead.

However, since Covid, the tickets (especially Day Tour tickets) have been much easier to get.

Amazingly, next-day tickets have been available all last winter and still there into June of 2024.

This is unheard of in the history of Alcatraz tickets, so take advantage!

Alcatraz tours are also very popular during many of the year's holidays, and they tend to sell out well in advance during those times as well.

During the Christmas Holiday season, it tends to be especially tough to get tickets.

However, after the holiday season is over, by the second week of January, things tend to get back to the winter pattern of ticket sales when it's much easier to get tickets.

Memorial Day Weekend (May 25-27, 2024) is usually very busy, booking up far in advance, and Easter Week (from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, March 24-31, 2024) also tends to book up fast.

Tickets for the four-day Thanksgiving Holiday (November 28-Dec 1, 2024) are hard to get as well.

The same pattern holds for the 3-day Labor Day Weekend in early September (Aug 31-Sept 2, 2024).

The first week of October every year is Fleet Week in SF and there's a surge in the demand for Alcatraz tickets for that week also.

Off Season - Winter Tickets

The only time it's normally "easy" to get Alcatraz tickets is in winter, and that's only the Day Tour tickets: in November (but not over the Thanksgiving Holiday), and in January & February, after new year's and before spring.

In winter, you may get same-day tickets online or in person, depending on how early you start trying, but you can usually get tickets for most or all of the day tours for the next day, including the coveted Early Bird tour.

March is iffy; later in March it starts to get booked up again, especially if it's close to Easter break (Easter Sunday is March 31, 2024).

Even in winter, there's normally still a wait to get tickets for the night tours and the Behind the Scenes tours.

The Night Tours tend to be sold out about 6 weeks in advance even in the slow season, and the Behind the Scenes tours about 2 weeks in advance. (They're much easier to get at the moment; as of December, 2023, only one week out for both of them.)

Something cool for California residents. Residents get a good deal on Alcatraz tickets during the slow season in January and February every year.

The Buy One Get One Free sale is available for select Day Tours during those two months. Check with cityexperiences.com for booking and more info.

Alcatraz Ferry at Pier 33

Missed the Boat?

What if you've missed your boat that day? Refunds aren't available, but you do get one more shot at it. You can wait by the standby line sign when a ship is boarding, and if there are any no-shows, they will let people on after the ticketed passengers have boarded.

On a very busy day at the end of December, I saw 8 people waiting in the standby line for the 12:30 pm boat, and all 8 got on.

This is now the only "standby" boarding allowed for Alcatraz Day Tours. (The Night Tour standbys also wait here for their tours.)

People waiting in the standby line for day tour ferry to Alcatraz.

Standby line for a missed, day-tour ferry in November

Beware of Scalpers

You may run into people offering to sell you their tickets at the dock at steep prices. This is risky for a couple of reasons.

First, selling scalped tickets is a misdemeanor in California, not something one would want to be involved in, and second, there's a good chance the tickets won't be usable.

But since people can print their own tickets from their own computers, dates and times could be easily altered, and when the ticket bar codes are scanned getting on the boat, they may not be for the right day or time (or the printout may be a duplicate already sold to someone else!).

Also, at the departure gate they may check to see if the name on the ticket matches yours.

The tickets have to be in your name; they can't be transferred after purchase, to avoid scalping. Oops. Best not to take the chance.

The exception: if someone has tickets they can't use, they can take them to the ticket booth at Alcatraz Landing and let them know.

Then the staff will let people trying to purchase tickets know about the available tickets and issue them the tickets if they want to buy them. But that is doing it through City Experiences and with their approval.

What about Stub Hub tickets? The problem with buying "second hand" tickets for Alcatraz is that the tickets are officially not transferable; they are issued in the name of the person who purchased the tickets.

If they check names at boarding, the tickets won't be honored unless the purchaser is present, though they usually don't check. And those tickets are usually quite expensive.

Deciding Which Alcatraz Tour to Take

There are the four varieties of Alcatraz prison tours.

For more information on what the various Alcatraz tours are like, see:

It's never this gloomy in San Francisco.

Alcatraz Bay Cruises: the Next-Best Alternative

If none of the above options works, there are bay cruises that sail around Alcatraz, but don't stop at the island.

You get a great view of Alcatraz, and a trip out under the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a treat in itself.

Bay Cruise. There's a nice, one-hour ferry cruise from Pier 39 that circles Alcatraz and also takes you out under the Golden Gate. $38. See bay cruise for more info and booking.

Catamaran Cruise. There is also a very popular, 90-minute sunset sailing tour on a catamaran that goes out under the Golden Gate, as well as sailing around Alcatraz Island. Gorgeous views of the bay, bridge and city, plus complimentary wine and beer, and snacks on board. $80. Leaves from Pier 39. See Adventure Cat cruise for more info and booking.

For more cruise options, see my recommendations on what I think are the best San Francisco Bay Cruises for details and tips about the various bay tours.

View of Alcatraz cellblock on bay cruise

View of Alcatraz on a Bay Cruise

The Other Side of Alcatraz Island

The Red and White Ferry Heading for Alcatraz

Boarding the Alcatraz Ferry, Pier 33

Alcatraz Prison and Al Capone, getting Alcatraz tickets when sold out.

For more information on Pier 33, the ferry ride, what to bring, parking, transportation, and what to expect on the island, see my tips on visiting Alcatraz Island.

Need a parking place? Check out my list of best places to park for Alcatraz.