Overview: We visited Citizens Bank Ballpark (CBP) in 2019. CBP is a 15 year old ballpark, and is a car ride or uber ride south of the historic parts of downtown Philly. It felt like it was pretty removed from the downtown area. The outfield area is known as Ashburn Alley, and it opens exclusively 1 hour before gate open, which is 2.5 hrs prior to gametime (more on this below).
When looking forward to buying tickets for our game, we realized that is was actually more economical to purchase the Kids Club Memberships. Those memberships were $20, and included 2 game tickets and a swag bag of Philly Phanatic merch. The cheapest seats that we could find on StubHub were $16.90/ticket after fees. We took our vouchers to the box office the day we arrived and were given 4 tickets without issue. I asked the box office attendant for seats out of the sun, and unfortunately, he put us directly in the sun, in the right field/third base corner in the lower bowl. We were on the move for most of the game anyway.
Parking: We spent the day in downtown Philly doing the typical history stuff (Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, etc.) . We opted not to drive into downtown Philly because we were worried about parking a van downtown and dealing with traffic. We took an Uber into the city in the morning and took an Uber to CBP that evening. It was around a $15 Uber ride for the 4 of us, but we felt that it was worth it. There was plenty of parking. CBP shares a parking lot with other sports complexes. I did not catch the parking prices, but there were more than enough spaces to park.
Kid Activities: As I stated above, Ashburn Alley is the outfield area of CBP and it opens 2.5 hours prior to gametime. For one hour, you can walk the area between the foul poles. There are restaurants and an area where you can see plaques of the retired numbers and hall of famers, statues, and restaurants.
The most awesome part of Ashburn Alley (something we did not know beforehand) is that you can watch batting practice and actually attempt to catch home runs. Once we noticed this, we spend the remaining hour at the left center field wall trying to catch homers. We came very close, but didn’t get any. If we ever make it back, we will bring gloves.
CBP housed the Phanatic Zone in the right field corner of the park. It is VERY well done. They had a Philly Phanatic themed rock climbing wall, radar gun, a fully pneumatic powered hot dog shooter game, and a mini ballpark to play whiffle ball on. The best part, it was ALL FREE. The kids loved it.
There was also a second kid area for smaller kids that had a large playground on the third base plaza.
Player Accessibility: At the time we went, there was netting only to the end of the dugout, so there was an opportunity to get player autographs. Nolan and Chris waited for the gates to the whole park to open (1.5 hours prior to first pitch) and ran to position near the end of the third base side of the Phillies dugout. We found ourselves in an enviable position for autographs. We held out hope for Bryce Harper, but were really hoping for anybody. Unfortunately, nobody signed except for Bryce Harper, but a very pushy mob developed quickly and we didn’t get it. He signed 2 or 3 and went back to the dugout.
Atmosphere: Philly fans have a bad reputation in the sports world. They are famous for booing Santa Claus. They were playing the New York Mets on the day we went, so we expected to see some bad behavior, but everyone was pleasant. I didn’t sense anything bad about the fans. While the fans didn’t live up to my expectations of being jerks, the staff definitely overcompensated for them.
First, as I mentioned above, the box office attendant put us directly in the sun after I asked that we get a seat in the shade. Our second incident happened when we tried to take our seats for the first time. The two attendants at the top of the section yelled at Nolan and Chris for trying to walk down to the seats while an at-bat was happening. We weren’t allowed into our seats until there was an out. We apologized for never hearing of that rule before, and they were total jerks about it. Our 3rd incident happened when we went to the upper deck of the stadium, left field corner to get out of the sun. After sitting in our seats (in the nosebleeds) for 2 innings, we asked a couple to take our photo. As that photo was being taken, the usher came down and asked for our tickets. When we said that we moved up to get out of the sun from the lower bowl, he basically told us to get lost. We couldn’t believe it. The game was far from being sold out and there were plenty of open seats that far up.
Conclusion: The stadium itself is very nice. They did do some very nice things here. In this day and age, being able to see batting practice is a rare event. Nolan and Sammy very much enjoyed seeing it. Also, kudos to the design team for angling all of the seats in the park towards home plate. It’s a subtle thing that makes a huge difference. After being in the lower and upper bowls of the park, I think the second deck is actually better than the lower bowl. I wouldn’t splurge on the lower bowl after seeing the upper bowl.
The Phanatic Zone was fantastic. The kids spent several innings there. Between the Phanatic Zone and the little kids playground area, there’s something to do with kids of all ages at CBP.
Minus the ushers, we found the crowd to be easy going and pleasant.
Ratings:
Parking: N/A. There was plenty of parking, but we Ubered.
Kid Activities: *********9/10
Player Accessibility: ****4/10
Atmosphere: 6/10. ******Ushers bring it down.
#Baseballfamily: A Guide to Visiting Professional Ballparks with Kids 