I’m starting to really like sitting in the upper deck at MLB stadiums.
For one, it’s much cheaper. For two, you get a good view of the stadium. Is it perfect for photos? Not a chance. But you can get wonderful views for wide-angle photos.
On top of that, you can often get some shade on hot days!
The upper deck is a good spot to watch a game.
That brings me to one of the latest MLB stadiums I’ve visited – Nationals Park in Washington D.C. I had the chance to visit the park a couple of weeks ago for an afternoon game.
Note – it gets hot in D.C.!
Anyway, we got there a tad early and had the chance to walk around the park. It’s really a unique and cool little park. It’s compact, which is nice as it didn’t seem like there were many bad seats in the stadium. We were in the upper deck behind the plate, and it was really nice.
The lower concourse is nice and there are plenty of options when it comes to food and other concessions. I liked the outfield concourse as it had a neat little setup where you get to explore a little bit. We came in via center field and it’s really cool as it opens up a little bit so you can get a view of the field.
The team store is nice and has a lot of options at decent prices. The Passport stamp was easy to locate and use, which was nice. I will say that the shirts and hats they offered were good and, if I was a Nationals Fan, I would have walked away with something. Instead, I just decided to do a baseball grab bag and took a chance – though I only got two game-used balls, no autographs. Story of my life!
Sight lines are solid, which is good. One thing, though. If you are there for an afternoon game, there are not a ton of shade areas, so be ready to fight the sun. The day we were there had more than 35,000 people there, so a lot of people came to watch. Thankfully, we had shade.
Prices for food and drinks seemed on par with other MLB stadiums. I, of course, grabbed a hot dog and it was pretty solid. I enjoyed it. The only other thing I had that day was a gelato, which was fully excellent. There were plenty of options, though. As we walked around before the game, you could see the choices were plentiful and, as noted earlier, the prices were on par to other MLB stadiums.
The ambiance was very friendly. Despite me wearing a Phillies hat, I didn’t feel like there was any hostility (in fact, one of the vendors had fun taking a few jabs toward me, all in good fun), which is always a good thing. The people I talked to were accommodating, which is a good thing. Lines to get in (when we went in) weren’t bad, so that was nice, too.
One of the baseball-themed outside the ballpark.
As for parking, we opted to go south of D.C. and park at a metro station (free on weekends) and take a train up. The train let us off about a block away, which was fully fine. It was perfect and the round trip cost us about 8 bucks or so. It was really nice to do this (as did in Pittsburgh last year) and makes life a whole lot easier and cheaper.
Ticket prices weren’t bad, and with not many bad seats, it’s worth getting a cheaper seat and enjoying the game.
This is definitely one of the better MLB stadiums I’ve been to. Though, to be fair, I haven’t been to too many bad MLB stadiums. That being said, I’d like to hit another Nationals game, especially if it’s at night. It’s not a bad trip to get to for me, so I can see a trip down again this summer, if all goes well that is.
Park Notes:
Nationals Park
Washington D.C.
Home of the Washington Nationals
Visited on: June 11, 2016
Opponent: Philadelphia Phillies
Ratings (out of 10)
- Stadium: 9.5/10
- Concessions: 8/10
- Parking: N/A
- Ambiance: 8/10
- Friendliness: 9/10
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