Baseball is still in season with the last home game happening Sept 25th. In case you missed it, the Downtown Houston event calendar was filled with Sunday Family Day games this year and I’m here to share our first experience. I’ve been in Houston now for 2 years and my son is 4 ½. We’ve just wrapped his first soccer team playing experience and baseball is up next! It was the perfect opportunity to take him to his very first baseball game. Have you and your family had a chance to catch a game yet?
Since moving here, I’ve appreciated the correlation between Houston being known as Space City (I totally learned that when I arrived) and Chicago, where we’re from, regarded as the Windy City. Chicago has its own flag that is all over town, same as the Texas flag waves high everywhere. It’s those little prideful nods that I appreciate about my hometown and my new home state. Not to mention, Chicago is such a big sports town and is foundational in the establishment of professional leagues. Truth be told, I’m still sad about the last time we went to Chicago in May, where we missed the Astros play at Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs) by a few days. So I intentionally decided that we’d wait until this late in the season to finally head to Minute Maid Park (aka the "Juice Box") to catch the Chicago White Sox go against the ‘stros and see what this Family Sunday is all about.
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First, I think it’s a great deal to pay as low as $89 for a 4 pack that includes your seats, hot dogs, and sodas. In the purchasing process online just know you have to buy a minimum 4 tickets for this offer. The con is, the $89 pack seats are limited in terms of section and the seats were so far high in View Deck that we made a last minute decision and opted for an upgrade of seats. It’s convenient that we literally did the upgrade from the phone during the first inning. I’ll say this, it's one thing to see the view from an online perspective, and a whole other being there in person. One of our family members was very uncomfortable with the heights we reached in the 400’s. Understandable, and I did not anticipate that. The only catch was, we had to cash in and “purchase” all of our food and drink prior to doing the ticket upgrade.
Note: When you upgrade seats during a game, you will pay the full price upfront, then receive a credit in the amount paid for your original tickets.
The ladies at Fan Accommodations were great and while we were there, we made sure to get my son’s first game certificate. I love that the Astros certificates show the team they played against that day, because why wouldn't I want him to know his first game was against a Chicago team, right?
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The process to cash in on the food and drink was tricky at first, but then made sense. You redeem the offer by submitting your order at a self checkout kiosk. You select a quantity of 4, or however many you’re cashing in at the time, then scan one of the tickets underneath the monitor. You get an order number and voila. I initially made the mistake of selecting the option, but only in a quantity of one and not four. Don’t make that mistake like me or it’s back in the line you go.
A big bonus for a Family Day ball game is Kids Run the Bases takes place on all Sunday afternoon home games. I'm here to warn you that it’s an ordeal. It sounds beyond awesome and it is, but here’s the thing… Families start lining up before the top of the 8th inning. And these lines are so long. They start at like Section 131 and will go well past 154 or in opposite direction because there’s a separate line for Astros Buddies members. The mayhem that ensues when the game ends is obviously crazy and crowded and will take a while to get moving. My take on this is it’s best to stay in your seats and take your time getting to the Kids run line if you’re not trying to be the first, or miss any of the game, or for that matter totally avoid being sandwiched between people taking forever to move! We took that opportunity of waiting to get family pics with the field as our backdrop.
Astros Buddies members get first access to field for Kids Run the Bases
And be prepared once it’s your kids turn. They have to head down to bottom of section and hit the field on their own. You then have to rush down a few sections to pick them up and get your little video of them running. That part, I feel can be improved as it’s hard to find your kid running so it’s best you parents tag team if you can for the photo or video op of them running bases. They suggest kids be at least 5 years old and we tried it with no expectations. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the pick up section and didn’t see our son running, I looked over the kids entrance and sure enough he was there with security not wanting to run the field alone. We’ll try again next year!
Overall the seats upgrades were splendid, but it was a pricey last minute decision and the point was to save. So note to self, next time get the $169 family pack and go for the Field Box tickets right off the bat (no pun intended). There are ticket options in the very section where the Kids Run the Bases takes place. You’ll save the $35 on dogs and sodas and that can go to a little dippin’ dots treat, souvenir or drink for Mom and Dad.
Last but not least, a bonus to our experience was running into Orbit at the elevator. My son had a chance to have an exchange with him, get some pics and an autograph. We had seen him earlier and he would not stop among the crowd to greet. We got lucky and had him cornered!
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If you did not already know, fans age 2 and under may be admitted to Astros games without an admission ticket, but they must sit in the lap of an accompanying adult. If you've never attended a Family Day or thought about going, I hope this was helpful. There’s still a few Family Day games left in the season!
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p.s. The ASTROS WON 2-0!
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