Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Accessibility Review: Angel Stadium



Parking at Angel Stadium was nice and close like at Dodger Stadium. The parking is not smack dab next to the entrance, but only because the home plate entrance has a large sidewalk plaza. Leaving the parking lot after the game from here also worked out really fast since the area we parked only had handicap and suite type reserved spaces and not just the general parking traffic, which by the way was not much since most left early due to the 17-3 loss or stayed late to watch the Memorial Day fireworks.

The seats at Angel Stadium were way better than Dodger Stadium, but they have their problems as well. Again we ran into the problem of a bar being in the line of site. That was it for the bad at our seats. The only other accessibility bad was the team store was very cluttered with merchandise and the aisles were barely big enough to navigate through. What made it frustrating, though, was that there were way too many people that worked there getting in the way.

So far the seats we had in section 259 at Angel Stadium are the best seats we have had on the trip. First off we could clearly see the entire scoreboard from our seats and could even easily see the one up behind us if we turned around. We also could see the whole field and even got a great look down into the tiered bullpens below our section. The section was also very clearly a standing section, however, the situation was actually handled very well by a red line a good distance behind our seats. Fans seemed to entirely respect that line and stood behind it and there was also a good usher presence to enforce it and just keep a better atmosphere compared to Dodger Stadium where ushers seemed entirely missing from our area of the stadium.

Mik liked that we actually had cup holders, which were annoyingly missing from Dodger Stadium's handicap seating. However, the cup holder situation was not that great. First off, they did not actually have a cup holder for every seat/space in the handicap section. It worked fine for us as we had two cup holders for our three seats/spaces, but it sure would not work ideally if we each had had a drink. Also, the cup holders were up on the high bar that was in the line of sight and caused even further blockage of the line of sight, especially when you put a drink in the cup holder. I had no idea that cup holders would turn out to be such a hot point related to the accessibility reviews, but it certainly has been an issue at the last two games.

Overall a great accessible experience. The bar and cup holder in the line of sight is annoying, but typical. The fact that there is a cup holder and the otherwise clear view of the whole field and scoreboard make up for that minor inconvenience. The elevators are not exactly that easy to find, but there are plenty of ushers around that are helpful.

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