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| - When Stevey P asked me if I wanted to go to the first game at Camelback Ranch I jumped at the chance. Its been a long winter and I need some baseball!
The stadium itself is beautiful, the natural rock walls give it a very "Arizona" feel. The sight lines from our lawn seats were pretty good and they have a decent amount of seating in several different lawn sections. The complex is large, with multiple practice fields, manicured lawns, walkways and waterways. The replica stadium fields are a nice touch.
There were some aspects of my experience here that really detracted from the day. First of all, the parking situation is ridiculous. One would imagine that having a large open space to build this complex would allow for a better design for the parking lot but its just a huge mess. Also, the parking lot is really far from the stadium itself, you have to cross the entire complex to get there.
The concessions also left much to be desired, it was pretty much your standard stadium fare. The service at the concession stands really needs work. It wasn't that they didn't have enough people, they were certainly well staffed, but they really need to figure out a system to speed up the process. I'm sure it will come with time. Also, my hot dog was pretty lackluster and my hot pretzel was as hard as a rock. If you have ever been to a game with me you know that I love stadium food. LOVE IT. So this bummed me out.
Two other notes. First, the music they play is incredibly loud. It needs to be lowered a few notches. Second, while the prices of lawn seats are what you would expect to pay, they do have seats that approach the $100 range. For spring training?!
All in all it was a fun afternoon. Given its location it wouldn't be a stadium I would go to often but I can see myself going once a season.
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