Alcatraz Experience-Audio Tour Reviews

We visited Alcatraz on the tail end of the COVID pandemic, when they were still limiting use of the usual audio devices. The phone app really is a nice solution. I made sure everyone in my group brought headphones and downloaded AlcatrazExperienceAudioTour ahead of time. The audio quality sounded great and the tour was very immersive.

My one complaint? It was a little tricky figuring out where to start the tour. There was a very specific area to start it where there were staff and signage to tell you, but that could have been made clearer. We got into the cell house and just assumed the staff was missing, not realizing we were in a queue for where the tour actually starts. And if you start it early AlcatrazExperienceAudioTour actually goes out of its way to prevent you from restarting it or going backwards. Why? What is this trying to prevent?

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to get around this just by deleting and re-installing AlcatrazExperienceAudioTour which wipes out the data it stores on your device to enforce this. But as those of us in the industry like to say, that’s just a bad UX (“user experience”).

The idea of this is great, but the execution is seriously flawed. I stood outsides and downloaded AlcatrazExperienceAudioTour , then waited for the initial content to download, but that only for me through the first part of the of the tour. Then it tries to download more content, but the WiFi they provide barely works, if you have signal at all, and the cell signal is also weak to non-existent. That means the tour stops and you are left trying to find a signal to download.

It really needs to download the entire audio content at the beginning and confirm that so that once you start the tour you’re not left waiting for more content to download.

For now, just save yourself the pain and take one of their devices.

This is a great new tour of the history of the Rock! It is put together expertly, it is narrated by experienced island historians, it is engaging, and most of all, it is relevant. Each historic chapter has a tie-in to present day. This is history interpretation at its best!

I had a great experience on Alcatraz taking an outdoor audio tour, learning about the island’s fascinating history. Really interesting, well told, great voices too.

A great new tour, during this tough time! I can’t wait!

Great, interesting stories about guards, inmates, escapes, kids, and lots of other people who lived in Alcatraz!

But the soundtrack on the audio tour was pretty bad. No donda