Date of Visit: July 14, 2017
Since a new ballpark opened, we had to go to the ballpark for a family vacation this year. We choose the game based on when the Dbacks were in town. Interestingly, the Dbacks ended up in town for Mom’s birthday, which was the same time we did Atlanta on our 2009 ballpark trip and we had even gotten her a ticket to join us that game, but she didn’t due to work and joined us in St. Louis for a game instead.
We ended up parking in Lot 29, which is what I repurchased for parking when I bought the tickets. When I was buying tickets I couldn’t find any parking map that had the same labels as the online ticket system so I kind of had to guess what seemed the closest. This isn’t the closest, but it wasn’t too bad of a walk up the hill and over the bridge to the ballpark. Also, when we were walking out of the parking lot they asked if we wanted the shuttle, so it doesn’t seem difficult to utilize that service if needed at least to get to the park (not at all sure about the after game logistics of that).
The gates were open when we got there and we tried to go in like everybody else in the middle ones and they told us we had to go over to the media entrance with the wheelchair. That’s fine, but the real problem is we get there and only one person gets to go in with him. So I then had to go back to where there was now lines of five to ten people at every gate. Nats park sometimes does it like that, too, but they specifically only send one person with the wheelchair. Also, I know for a fact a person in a wheelchair had just been allowed through the metal detector entrance instead of going around, so it’s certainly not a consistent or fair process and they are way too far into the season for any excuse to the total confusion for the entrance experience.
Once inside the way we came in there are steps down to the concourse. There is also a ramp to the left, which we used to get down, as well as elevators, but the elevator lobby is before they scan your tickets and when you come in it looks like it’s only for those going to suites, although we used them later to get to our seats and they really seem to be for general use.
We walked all the way around the main concourse before heading up to our seats. Overall we found it felt too small and crowded. That may partially have been because it was a Friday fireworks and bobblehead game, so a lot of people were there and there early. However, it really is nowhere near as wide a concourse as say like Nationals Park, which also can be crowded at times but it takes many more people to do it. Also, there are a lot of lines for team stores taking up space, which were almost Opening Day type bad that we never even went into the big team store and just got our bat and ball at the little shop by our seats in Section 339.
The one thing that we liked about the main concourse was the monument area, which seems to basically be some of the stuff from the museum that was a separate admission thing in Turner Field. It is kind of nice that it is now accessed as really a feature of the ballpark, but then it ends up more crowded and it’s kind of more like walking through the numbers at Yankee Stadium except it isn’t manned (or even have signs) to make it so that traffic flows in just one direction, which it appears is how it is designed to be done.
Overall our impressions of SunTrust Park were that it’s not a better ballpark and in fact worse. However, the actual view and seats were as good if not better, so at least the actual game experience is still good. Of course, it would’ve been better if the Dbacks won, but at least it was a close game the whole time.
Of course, Mik was happy they had cupholders for each spot in the wheelchair row. It even gets a bonus on the cupholder rating because the folding chairs in the wheelchair row also have one on them.
Destination Info:
SunTrust Park
755 Battery Avenue Southeast
Atlanta, GA 30339
