July 31, 2021, Atlanta, GA - A clean, organized, and efficient way to separate you from your money: The Battery contains Atlanta's latest baseball stadium Truist Park. Located far from downtown, The Battery is a suburb based office, hotel and entertainment complex owned by the Braves organization. We think it took some lessons from Disney. The restaurants in the complex are leased to the vendors and all things are in tune with the ballpark main event.
That's not to say it is a bad thing. We attended both Friday and Saturday games having arrived early enough to make a "game" time decision on Friday. There is a carnival atmosphere outside of the ballpark gates. Beers can be purchased and consumed in the ballpark square, and can even be brought into the ballpark if you let the ticket taker know you bought them from a ballpark vendor.
We stayed in the Hampton Inn located on the edge of The Battery and it was an easy walk to the stadium. Parking is plentiful, but all located in parking decks and pretty pricey. We would advise staying in one of the hotels within walking distance as traffic congestion before and after the game looked like a horror show.
We showed up Saturday around 3:30 (for a 7:20 game) to eat at one of the stadium square restaurants. We were 80th on the wait list. Needless to say, we ended up eating in the park. Plan accordingly.
The stadium has a section dedicated to Hank Aaron, and the Friday game was the anniversary of the his record breaking 715 home run. Throughout the game they played biographical videos which reminded me that the independent station in Charlotte broke into the programming to show the at-bat which broke the record. (I guess it was owned by Ted Turner.) I bored the guys next to me letting them know that I was old enough to remember the event.
The stadium is reported to have no bad seats, but I might dispute that. Since we bought the Friday tickets at the box office, we were on the lower level but it was covered by the level above us. The result is we could not see the big screen. We did have a monitor, but the lack of the big screen surprisingly diminished our experience. However, it rained steadily for 5 innings so having the cover turned out OK for that reason. The rain stopped by the 9th inning and we sneaked down a few rows which made a huge difference.
Friday night there were fireworks which were launched from the left field section after it was cleared of fans. Really close fireworks. Just say'n.
The racers were Home Depot tools of paint brush, hammer, drill, and bucket. They circulated in The Battery square before the Saturday game, and they were interactive and fun. The Drill won with the Hammer coming in second but only because he assaulted the paint brush during the race by hammering him. What a tool.
Friday night also had a race with Mr. Freeze against a fan. Mr Freeze gave the fan a large head start, then smoked him. We hoped to see that again on Saturday, but he must have had the night off.
Seats for Friday (no big screen view, but in a covered area) - Section 141, Row 16
Seats for Saturday (completely open, great seats) - Section 116, Row 13
Note: Since all entertainment and restaurant venues have been affected by Covid Pandemic restart issues, we recognize that the stadium likely did not offer an optimal experience. However, it is what it is. We'll update the ratings when we visit again.
Stadium Ratings are exciting, good, meh, bad, disastrous.
Facility - No view of the city. Clean and well organized. Staff were helpful and friendly. Rating: Good
Food - Hot dog was the best - Christine liked the grill marks. Condiments were lacking. Nachos were bad. Beer cups did not have the Braves logo. Sam liked the pizza. Hope you like Terrapin beer (I do) as they pretty much owned the beer taps. Rating: Meh
Mascot - Was there a mascot? Oh yeah, Blooper. He danced. Nuff said. Rating: Disastrous
