So I went to Alcotraz last night for a mate's birthday and as I'm not drinking at the moment, I'm in a good position to remember the experience 😂
Entry is timed, so you arrive and wait outside from 7 for a 7:15 start. When you're allowed in (4-6 at a time) you're greeted by two 'American' prison guards who bark orders at you, make a few digs at your appearance (the birthday boy was in fancy dress), chuck you an orange overall to put on and take the opportunity to find your contraband. But don't worry, the guards are in on it, and quickly explain that the person to hide your booze from is the Warden.
The warden gives you a little speech about the place in character and your group is taken through to your designated seats, either at the bar (which is decked out with plexiglass barriers and phones to mimic a visitors room) or the small cells, suitable for 4-5. One of us ended up seated on a toilet.
The bar team are dressed as prisoners, and come to your cell to grab your booze and take your order. We managed to get three rounds of drinks in the time we were there.
The actors come over and make chit chat, the Warden does a little bit chewing out one of the guards for drinking on duty, a guest from each cell is frogmarched off to 'solitary' which turns out to be a round of shots in a neighbouring room.
When your time is up, you're released ready for the next group.
So you have to really engage with the actors to get the most out of it, we were definitely not drunk enough as a group for this, although the hen do in the cell next door definitely were! Another group that seemed to really enjoy it were the Instagram couple at the bar, who did nothing but take photos of themselves all night (to be fair, I bet the photos looked fab as the decor is great).
As for the cost, we got entry, three cocktails each and table service for £30, so even when you factor in the cost of a bottle of booze, it's not that bad. The cocktails were all bespoke and the bar staff really great, my bf's not a fan of sickly drinks for example so all his were quite sharp tasting and exactly what he asked for.
Is the whole thing offensive? There were points at which I thought so. For example when the group were in 'solitary', the Warden was shouting and asking if they were being punished enough, and a few of us exchanged looks, it came across a bit sexual assaulty. Generally the most offensive bit was the American theme - the laboured accents and the weird stereotyping of Americans (one of the guards claimed to have 10 mouths to feed and 5 babymamas).
Generally our group's opinion was that it was something a bit different, abeit very very cheesy. The perception I've seen in various articles about Alcotraz is that it's very 'hipster' when in fact it's the opposite - think more like themed school disco night for hen and stag dos. Lets face it, Shoreditch is no longer very cool.
At the end of the night, one of our group summed up the experience by remarking that at least we'd managed to get a table for 2 hours in a Shoreditch bar on a Saturday night, which is not always a given.