I brought my g/f that had never been to Pittsburgh before into town over the weekend and we decided to go to the Pirate game despite the less than ideal weather on Friday night. We were staying at a hotel on Grant Street and I wanted to walk over the Roberto Clemente Bridge, which I had never done before despite going to many games at PNC in the early 2000s. I used to love attending and was excited to show off the gorgeous ballpark and skyline, but unfortunately, it was just a bad experience.
1) Interesting that the online ticket brokers must not be allowed to sell tickets an hour after the scheduled first pitch. I was all ready to order some tickets a few rows up from the 3rd base dugout for the unheard deal of $30, but unfortunately, I waited too long while deciding on the weather, so we had to utilize the stadium ticket window. I thought maybe the time limit would start AFTER first pitch, not AFTER the scheduled start since there was a delayed start.
2) I asked for the best available at a reasonable price on the 3B side. They were $30 each, which is more I wanted to pay for that product given the weather, but we went with it. Like I said, no one was there, maybe 200 people within the surrounding sections. The ticket guy gave us seats in the 320's where we would had to look directly through an area of protective glass near the stairwell to see the batter. Ridiculous. We moved over of course, but do these people not use any discretion?
3) Props to the 5K or so fans that were at the game despite the rain delay. Although, it seemed like half of them were from San Diego.
4) The, I presume, homeless POS that 'plays' the saxophone on the RCB after games should be removed, by force, if necessary. He was verbally insulting to everyone that passed who didn't GIVE HIM MONEY. He wasn't even playing music, he just demanded money. And I'm talking insulting in a very personal manner to every group. Screaming obscenities every other word, including to an 8 year old. I thought his dad was going to toss him off the bridge.
5) Wow is downtown shady after dark. This was at like 10PM on a Friday so I wasn't too worried about it. I've lived in many cities across my lifetime and thought the short walk back to Grant would be easy and typical enough for a city, but boy was I wrong. There were some scary and aggressive individuals out and about. What is going on there? I know opioids are a problem in lots of places, but is it hitting Pittsburgh particularly hard? It seemed like lots of meth heads out and about. It was sad.
6) Getting a car rental was impossible, I guess because of graduation, the storms and the marathon. We had a rental reservation for Saturday morning pickup, which they couldn't fulfill, so we had to make our way to the airport after lots of phone calls to find a vehicle.
7) Could they make the Duquesne incline more confusing of a tourist spot? I had never done it, but how about some preemptive parking signs (across the street). It was a pain to loop back around when you aren't familiar with the area. Parking was an outrageous $15. There were no signs to tell you that you have to walk all the way around the fence to the main street in the opposite direction of the stairwell in order to get to the incline booth. Lots of us in the parking lot were walking the wrong way at first and annoyed.
8) What is up with the two old ladies collecting money for the incline? I understand that they may be historic holdovers from the 1960s, but I've never met more miserable and unhelpful people in such a role that will be interacting with tourists. Luckily, their behavior was so poor that it was a great memory and we just laughed about it.
9) We loved the view from the top and the highlight of our day were the drinks and people watching from the bar at the summit. They have some interesting staff and patronage going on there.
I need to plan better next time and bring her in for a football game in the Fall. The weather sucked this time and I didn't realize the marathon and graduation were also this weekend, so traffic was brutal on Saturday trying to find our rental to leave. Overall, it wasn't a good first impression despite her unexpected realization that the city is so historic and the confluence and architecture is so gorgeous.
Onward and upward.
1) Interesting that the online ticket brokers must not be allowed to sell tickets an hour after the scheduled first pitch. I was all ready to order some tickets a few rows up from the 3rd base dugout for the unheard deal of $30, but unfortunately, I waited too long while deciding on the weather, so we had to utilize the stadium ticket window. I thought maybe the time limit would start AFTER first pitch, not AFTER the scheduled start since there was a delayed start.
2) I asked for the best available at a reasonable price on the 3B side. They were $30 each, which is more I wanted to pay for that product given the weather, but we went with it. Like I said, no one was there, maybe 200 people within the surrounding sections. The ticket guy gave us seats in the 320's where we would had to look directly through an area of protective glass near the stairwell to see the batter. Ridiculous. We moved over of course, but do these people not use any discretion?
3) Props to the 5K or so fans that were at the game despite the rain delay. Although, it seemed like half of them were from San Diego.
4) The, I presume, homeless POS that 'plays' the saxophone on the RCB after games should be removed, by force, if necessary. He was verbally insulting to everyone that passed who didn't GIVE HIM MONEY. He wasn't even playing music, he just demanded money. And I'm talking insulting in a very personal manner to every group. Screaming obscenities every other word, including to an 8 year old. I thought his dad was going to toss him off the bridge.
5) Wow is downtown shady after dark. This was at like 10PM on a Friday so I wasn't too worried about it. I've lived in many cities across my lifetime and thought the short walk back to Grant would be easy and typical enough for a city, but boy was I wrong. There were some scary and aggressive individuals out and about. What is going on there? I know opioids are a problem in lots of places, but is it hitting Pittsburgh particularly hard? It seemed like lots of meth heads out and about. It was sad.
6) Getting a car rental was impossible, I guess because of graduation, the storms and the marathon. We had a rental reservation for Saturday morning pickup, which they couldn't fulfill, so we had to make our way to the airport after lots of phone calls to find a vehicle.
7) Could they make the Duquesne incline more confusing of a tourist spot? I had never done it, but how about some preemptive parking signs (across the street). It was a pain to loop back around when you aren't familiar with the area. Parking was an outrageous $15. There were no signs to tell you that you have to walk all the way around the fence to the main street in the opposite direction of the stairwell in order to get to the incline booth. Lots of us in the parking lot were walking the wrong way at first and annoyed.
8) What is up with the two old ladies collecting money for the incline? I understand that they may be historic holdovers from the 1960s, but I've never met more miserable and unhelpful people in such a role that will be interacting with tourists. Luckily, their behavior was so poor that it was a great memory and we just laughed about it.
9) We loved the view from the top and the highlight of our day were the drinks and people watching from the bar at the summit. They have some interesting staff and patronage going on there.
I need to plan better next time and bring her in for a football game in the Fall. The weather sucked this time and I didn't realize the marathon and graduation were also this weekend, so traffic was brutal on Saturday trying to find our rental to leave. Overall, it wasn't a good first impression despite her unexpected realization that the city is so historic and the confluence and architecture is so gorgeous.
Onward and upward.
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