With the current Southwest Companion Pass promotional period in effect, we decided to make a quick trip to New York to see the Padres play the Mets and revisit Citi Field since I personally hadn’t been there in 14 years.

Back when I went back in 2011, I remember liking the design of the ballpark and overall the ballpark experience so was looking forward to seeing it again.

First thing is the ballpark is pretty easy to get to on the subway as the 7 train has a stop (Mets-Willets Point station) that literally is in front of Citi Field’s main entrance. This station is also where you would get off if you were going to the tennis US Open.

The US Open grounds are on one side, Citi Field is on the other side and construction is currently underway to build Etihad Park, the new home of New York FC of MLS, across the street from Citi Field. So this area is becoming a sports complex area, which kind of reminds me of Philadelphia where they have their two stadiums and arena in an area a little outside of Downtown with the downtown Philadelphia skyline off in the background.

In this case, you have the Manhattan skyline in the background but you do have Flushing Chinatown which is a 20-minute walk (or one subway stop away) from the ballpark and where we stayed at.

From our hotel in Flushing Chinatown, you can see Citi Field and Etihad Park being built (in the bottom left corner of the picture) and the Manhattan skyline in the background:

Arriving at the main entrance from the subway station, you’re greeted with the main entrance with the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which was inspired by Ebbets Field. The building itself has a good mix of bricks and green coloring which makes it have a nice natural look and makes it belong in the area.

Once you enter the Rotunda, you have to go up stairs/escalator to get to the field level and other levels of the ballpark. The one thing of note is once you get to the field level you can walk around the entire ballpark without having to go up/down stairs again like some ballparks (i.e. Petco Park).

Walking around the field level, it does feel tight with the large crowds the Mets are drawing and considering that it’s enclosed on top by the upper level.

They do have a good amount of standing room only around the ballpark, though there are suites behind home plate so as you walk behind home plate, your view of the field is blocked and you instead see team store stands. For places where you have standing room, they don’t have rails to hold your food but they do have cup holders:

And as you walk in the outfield, the Shea Bridge as an ode to Shea Stadium is a nice touch.

As you continue on Shea Bridge (going from right field to center field), you see their humongous video screen that stands out anywhere you go in the ballpark.

The video screen is a plus for me as I’m big on having these technology advances at a ballpark and super big video screens are a part of it. It proved pretty useful in the two games we went to, as everyone in the ballpark could clearly see that two balls hit down the left field line by Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr were both foul.

What I thought was also pretty cool was behind the big video board is a social and kids area and even on the backside of the big video screen is a pretty big video screen for you to watch the game and stay up on the action as your kids are playing and/or you’re hanging out and socializing with family and friends.

Overall the ballpark has good sightlines from anywhere you sit. The upper deck can feel high and a little away from the game, especially when you’re in the upper level seats in left field.

Because of the seats in left field, the big video screen in center, there really isn’t much of a skyline for the ballpark beyond the outfield like you see with other ballparks. Right behind the ballpark in the outfield is an expressway and the Flushing Bay and then you have LaGuardia Airport to the northwest so planes are flying in the background, which probably limited what they could do here. So if you wanted to pick something that could be better compared to other ballparks, that would be one thing to nitpick at.

Foodwise, the Mets have a mixture of local NY institutions that include the big name food vendors like Shake Shack and Nathan’s Hot Dogs as well as other known NY places like Prince Street Pizza, Pat LaFrieda and Fuku. They also have food such as the Pastrami on Rye, Zeppole, lobster rolls, Goya nachos that are developed in house and pretty good in quality. Overall, they have a good selection of food with many different options that everyone should be able to find something good to eat.

Watching the game, it’s interesting that like Petco, they have a large screen (even bigger) but what’s normally on the screen when a batter is up is pretty static, maybe so as to not distract the hitters. Because they show the advanced pitching and hitting metrics (pitch horizontal break, pitch vertical break, etc) on the ribbon boards but temporarily i.e. they flash it after the pitch and then change it back to the regular information they show.

I find it interesting that ballparks like Citi Field and Petco Park don’t keep it on all the time like other ballparks (Rogers Centre comes to mind) since they have so many different LED boards they can show it on or display it on the main board itself. But obviously, the answer is they want to display ads instead.

The in-game entertainment is good, they do things to hype up the crowd like the “Make Noise” display and I like how they dim the lights during the game to get the crowd going, not strictly saving this for the closer’s entrance. In between innings, they usually do something like the cap shuffle, mascot race, different cams, karaoke, etc. to keep the fans engaged.

Overall, the Mets know that not all fans coming to games are going to be hardcore fans that watch every pitch intently. They make the game and the ballpark itself an attraction so it’s a fun place to watch a game and have a night out. I would definitely recommend checking out Citi Field as it is a nice ballpark to go to and watch a game at.