Prison Museum Ticket Prices: 13 famous former prisons compared

A ticket to a famous former prison costs anything from under two euros to over forty. We took the full adult price of 13 of the best-known prison museums in the world from their official websites, converted it into euros at the same day's rates and noted what each ticket actually gets you.

Two of them sit on islands and include the boat in the price: Alcatraz and Robben Island. We treat them separately, because a ticket that includes a ferry is not comparable with a plain entry ticket. For the others we give the standard price at the ticket office, and mention online discounts where they exist.

Key findings

Alcatraz is the most expensive prison museum in the comparison: $47.95 for an adult day tour, about €42.89, with the return ferry and the cellhouse audio tour included.

Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi is the cheapest: 50,000 dong, about €1.75. A visit to Alcatraz costs about 24 times as much.

Robben Island ranks fourth of 13, at ZAR 600 (€32.44) for international adults. Of the two island prisons with the boat included, it is the cheaper one: Alcatraz costs 32% more.

The median ticket is €20.57, the price of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Eight of the 13 cost more than €15, and five cost less than €10.

Among the six sites that publish how long a visit takes, Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin gives you the most time per euro, at €5.33 an hour. Robben Island comes third, at €9.27 an hour, crossings included.

• Alcatraz (ferry included)€42.89
• Doge's Palace prisons€35.00
• Port Arthur Historic Site€34.31
• Robben Island (ferry included)€32.44
• Old Melbourne Gaol€23.70
• Crumlin Road Gaol€21.90
• Eastern State Penitentiary€20.57
• Fremantle Prison€15.59
• Constitution Hill€8.11
• Kilmainham Gaol€8.00
• Trubetskoy Bastion prison€5.26
• Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum€4.47
• Hoa Lo Prison€1.75

Official prices, in euros at the ECB exchange rate; dong and roubles at the Vietcombank and Bank of Russia rates.

All 13 prisons: price and what the ticket includes

Prices are for one adult at the ticket office, as published by each site. Where a cheaper online price exists, it is in the notes below. The euro column is our conversion; the visit length is the one the site states, or “Not stated” when it gives none. The last column links to the ticket on Tiqets, for the prisons sold there.

Read the table with the last two columns in mind. The Doge's Palace ticket also opens three other museums on St Mark's Square, Port Arthur includes a short harbour cruise, and Alcatraz and Robben Island pay for a boat crossing before you see a single cell.

What an hour inside costs

A low price can buy a short visit, and a high one can fill half a day. Six of the 13 sites publish a visit length, so for those we divided the price by the hours. This is our own calculation, not a figure any site publishes.

• Kilmainham Gaol€5.33
• Constitution Hill€8.11
• Robben Island€9.27
• Eastern State Penitentiary€10.29
• Fremantle Prison€12.48
• Crumlin Road Gaol€14.60

Our calculation: full adult price divided by the visit length each site publishes. Robben Island's 3.5 hours include both ferry crossings.

Kilmainham Gaol comes out best: a 90-minute guided tour for €8. Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast is the most expensive per hour, at €14.60. Robben Island's figure includes the two crossings, 30 to 60 minutes each way, so the time on the island is shorter than the 3.5 hours suggest; the view of Table Mountain from the boat is part of the visit, though.

What you get at each prison

Alcatraz, San Francisco

The National Park Service lists the Alcatraz day tour at $47.95 for adults. The price covers the round trip with Alcatraz City Cruises, the cellhouse audio tour and the federal recreation fee. The park suggests planning “at least a few hours” on the island. You can also book Alcatraz tickets on Tiqets, with the ferry from Pier 33 and the audio tour included.

Doge's Palace prisons, Venice

The prisons have no ticket of their own: they are the last part of the regular route through the Doge's Palace, reached across the Bridge of Sighs. The St. Mark's Square Museums ticket costs €35, or €30 online at least 30 days before your visit, and also opens the Museo Correr, the Archaeological Museum and the rooms of the Marciana Library. The Doge's Palace fast-track ticket on Tiqets also includes the Bridge of Sighs.

Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania

General admission at Port Arthur costs A$55. It includes a 20-minute harbour cruise, short talks by guides through the day and access to more than 30 buildings and ruins. The site says most visitors stay between half a day and a full day. Tiqets sells Port Arthur entry with the harbour cruise as well.

Robben Island, Cape Town

The Robben Island Museum charges ZAR 600 for international adults and ZAR 400 for South African citizens. The ticket includes the return ferry from the V&A Waterfront, a bus tour of the island and a guided visit to the Maximum Security Prison, often led by a former political prisoner, ending at Nelson Mandela's cell. The tour lasts 3.5 hours, ferry included. You can book the ferry and prison tour on Tiqets from €42.50; all the options are on our Robben Island tickets page.

Old Melbourne Gaol, Melbourne

An adult ticket costs A$38, plus booking fees. It gives self-guided access to the gaol and an audio guide you download to your phone. The site does not say how long a visit takes.

Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast

The gaol tour costs £18.50 at the door and £17.50 online, and lasts about 90 minutes. The official page does not say whether the visit is guided or self-guided. Crumlin Road Gaol tickets are also on Tiqets.

Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia

Daytime admission is $23 at the door and $21 online. One ticket covers everything: the audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi, a 45-minute guided tour, short mini tours and Al Capone's cell. Eastern State's own FAQ says most visitors spend about two hours on site.

Fremantle Prison, Perth

Beyond the gatehouse you can only go on a guided tour. The Convict Prison Tour costs A$25 and lasts 1 hour 15 minutes; Behind Bars and True Crime cost the same, and two tours together cost A$35.

Constitution Hill, Johannesburg

The former prison complex where both Mandela and Gandhi were held is visited on guided tours. The one-hour Highlights tour costs ZAR 150 and leaves every hour; the two-hour Full tour costs ZAR 200. There is no separate price for foreign visitors.

Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin

Kilmainham Gaol is open only by guided tour, which includes an audio-visual show. An adult ticket costs €8, and the site asks you to allow 90 minutes.

Trubetskoy Bastion prison, St Petersburg

The political prison inside the Peter and Paul Fortress costs 500 roubles as a single exhibition. The fortress's single ticket, which covers several exhibitions, costs 1,500 roubles.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh

The former S-21 prison of the Khmer Rouge charges $5 for adults. The audio guide costs another $5 for visitors who are not Cambodian citizens. It is open every day from 08:00 to 17:00.

Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi

The ticket costs 50,000 dong per person. An audio guide is offered, but the official page gives no price for it. The prison is open every day from 08:00 to 17:00, holidays included.

Where Robben Island fits

Robben Island sits in the top third on price, close to Port Arthur and the Doge's Palace. The reason is the sea: the ticket pays for two crossings of Table Bay, and the museum runs the whole visit as a guided tour, from the harbour to the cell block.

Compared with Alcatraz, its closest match, Robben Island costs about €10 less and includes more guiding: a live guide on the bus and, in the prison, often a man who was held there. The Alcatraz ticket includes an audio tour instead.

On Robben Island the time is set by the tour, about 3.5 hours from departure to return. Our guide to the Robben Island tour describes the visit, and our page on Robben Island Prison explains what the prison was like.

How we compared

We chose 13 former prisons that are among the best known and most visited in the world and that sell tickets today. Every price comes from the official website or official ticket page of the site. We did not use resellers, travel blogs or past prices.

For each site we took the full price for one adult at the ticket office. Where several tickets exist, we used the standard one that gets you into the prison: the Highlights tour at Constitution Hill, the Convict Prison Tour at Fremantle, the prison exhibition at the Trubetskoy Bastion. Robben Island is the museum's price for international visitors.

Prices are converted at the European Central Bank reference rates: 1 euro = 1.1181 US dollars, 0.84478 pounds, 1.6032 Australian dollars and 18.4945 rand. The ECB does not publish the Vietnamese dong or the rouble, so for those we used the Vietcombank transfer rate (28,563.49 dong) and the Bank of Russia official rate (94.9745 roubles). Euro amounts are rounded to the cent.

Visit lengths are the ones each site states. The price per hour is our calculation and covers only the six sites that give a length. Two sites we looked at are not in the list: Patarei in Tallinn, closed for renovation until 2027, and Spandau in Berlin, demolished in 1987.

Sources: nps.gov, palazzoducale.visitmuve.it, portarthur.org.au, robben-island.org.za, oldmelbournegaol.com.au, crumlinroadgaol.com, easternstate.org, fremantleprison.com.au, constitutionhill.org.za, heritageireland.ie, spbmuseum.ru, tuolsleng.gov.kh and hoalo.vn; rates from ecb.europa.eu, vietcombank.com.vn and cbr.ru. Prices change: if you spot a new one, tell us and we will update the table.

You can cite this comparison with a link to this page.