I would book Alcatraz for early afternoon on Day 2 of your holiday. As you say, there is an included sightseeing tour in the morning which you won't want to miss. I believe this finishes around noon. It is followed by an optional harbour cruise so bear that in mind if you want to do everything. So I would book for 1pm or later if you don't want to do the harbour cruise, or for 2pm or later if you want to do the cruise as well.

Kind regards,

Olly, your editor

I wonder if you are able to offer any advice. I am going on the America's Golden West tour in May 2011.

A couple of fellow travellers have communicated with each other via the your community web site and the question that keeps occuring is that we would all like to book to goto Alcraz while in San Francisco, we know that it is advisable to book in advance but we are unsure due to the timing of the included excursions what time of the day to book this trip. There is a trip included in the morning of day 2 but I wondered how long this trip lasted to enable us to book in the correct time slots.

Hope that you can help in this matter as I am really looking forward to this trip.

Donna