Same boat. Gave them an earful on the post soft opening survey but still no evidence of traffic control .
We sat in the club seats this time (last time we were in an upper deck). Completely different experience. My husband said in awe "we can yell at the players and they will hear us." A real plus to have the sofas for hanging out before the game vs broiling in the March sun. But, as many predicted, our section includes some diehard fans, notably The Don, but also a lot of posers. People who showed up late and then spent the game trying to impress each other instead of focusing on the action, don't even think about cheering for the team, they could have been hanging out at Borrone with Dave Franco (my son picked up this bit) and offered their seats to someone who cared. I love my padded chair. I love that I don't have to keep moving my legs around to keep from getting butt-bombed by the person in front of me. Each seat has a cupholder -- much better designed than the ones in the upper deck--perfect for my cell phone. I felt like a princess, and once we got out of the lot, the ride was relatively fast. 880 is definitely the way to access Avaya. I saw many people post-game doing the bleak walk over 880, so apparently there is a lot of free parking there. The problem with all public transit, other than train, is that you are still stuck in traffic. If I weren't such an important person, I'd be on the hike too.
Nope, no traffic stuck here. We walked out of the stadium around 6:30 and walked straight to the #231 buses, jumped on within 2-3 minutes of waiting, waited another 8 minutes to pack the bus up, and was back in Downtown (St. John/Market) in 12 minutes. Was home right around 7:05pm (South San Jose). It went very smoothly.
Yeah, it took me 25 minutes from the time I got in my car (Gold Lot) to the time I was out on Coleman. At Buck Shaw I was home in 25 minutes from walking out of the stadium.
I thought the Bradley Fighting Vehicle at the main entrance was a nice touch. It's nice to recognize the history of the property. This may be a one-time thing, since it was surrounded by security and BAE people (so I doubt it will stay).
this is very true. People have to realize that there are 8,000 more fans then there was a Buck Shaw so of course there will be some delays in the parking lot. At least we're not waiting in the parking lot for an hour like at Levi's
Again, we were pretty unhappy with the less than VIP experience. Arrival: we got there at 2:30, so traffic was no issue. It was sad to see tho, that as you guys noted from the beta test, 90% of the cars turning left onto newhall ended up doing a u-turn in front of the VIP lot. No EV charging in that lot. The VIP Security line took 15'. Pre-game: The club area was pretty much vacant until about 15' before kickoff. The ordering system didn't work very well, and it took about 25' to get 2 veggie wraps, a salad, and 2 sodas for $50 plus tip. The wait staff made sure we entered a tip, but the food is brought by some poor lackey, who we should have tipped, but I was upset about the $50. The grilled veggie wraps were ice cold and mostly tortilla. Mine had one slice of eggplant that was so undercooked I couldn't bite through it, plus a few mushrooms. sodas are $5.50. We always buy Kettle corn,which is now $7. We were pretty underwhelmed with the club food and don't plan to eat that again. Game: we sat on the side where there were no sign boards in front of the club seats. The ball only entered 5 times near us, and our seat mate was happy he got to throw the ball back twice. It feels funny to sit without that protection in front of you, but the big plus is that I can see the touchline now. So a better view of the action near the line. We are at the 18-yd line, and basically, we could barely hear the ultras at all. We couldn't hear airplanes either. Nice things about the club area: the view is better than our seats, cuz otherwise we have to watch the opposite goal action on the big screen, and secondly, we could get up and move around when the game got so incredibly boring. May be a nice refuge when it is raining, altho a lot of wind rips thru that area, and it was pretty cold by 5:30 pm Exiting: We are on the wrong side of the player exit, so rather than get blocked in the concourse, we walked outside the stadium to get back to the VIP lot. There was no traffic control driving out of the VIP lot, so we sat for 15 mins to get out, despite being only about 6 cars back, having parked near the exit. Then, there was no traffic control on Newhall for the people driving from Coleman and trying to turn left into Lowes. At least there were 2 lanes exiting newhall, but I think they could only turn right.
Congratulation's on the opening of Avaya Stadium and your win. It looked great on TV. New Stadium: Avaya Stadium officially opened http://stadiumdb.com/news/2015/03/new_stadium_avaya_stadium_officially_opened
I was trying to figure out if that was planned because he had the flag that could have made the entrance into the stadium a problem. As far as the in and out...Had -0- problems. Got to the pitch at 3 and did the food truck for lunch....Outstanding food, chilled on the grass....my kid actually pretended to be having a great time with Dad... Ticket partner couldn't get down till game time, but had a great time as well...LOBINA was a great place to escape to aside from the $13 beers
the stadium needs a gameclock. seems odd that the only running clock was on the giant scoreboard, but in a rather small size. Just a minor quibble
What was the longest anybody had to wait in the silver lot before getting out onto Coleman? We had dinner guests and my wife cooked a nice meal so my son and I left at min 88 and ran to the car in silver lot and drove out immediately. I'm just trying to figure out what the pain level will be when we lollygag after a match.
We left the house in Almaden at 2:15ish and were inside the stadium by 2:45ish (VIP lot). That was much faster than anticipated. For what it's worth, the parking slots are too narrow. As soon as I entered the stadium I hooked a quick right and visited beers of the world. Still no beer menu, but I saw they had Guiness on tap which is fine by me (any beer you can drop a coin in, and the coin sinks, is too light). Something was majorly wrong with it... not sure if they had the nitrogen balance off but it wasn't good. I tested the wifi just before the game... 15 megabits down, 5 megabits up according to speedtest Most excellent. The wife got a free margarita at half-time, in our VIP Club section, after they couldn't get the system to process her card. It took around 20 min to get the manager to make that call When the game was called, we hustled to the right and out the main entrance so we could avoid the player crossing (we're on the wrong side of that). That worked much better than waiting which we did at the LA game. Leaving the VIP lot kinda sucked but I imagine it's still far better than the other lots. There was a traffic control employee at the entrance to Lowes who had no idea what he was doing. A cop showed up, blocked the left lane and then started really directing traffic, but it didn't help much. Then some chick stopped in the right lane before the entrance more toward in-and-out, blocking all traffic. I have to assume she was waiting to pick someone up and it really pissed me off (she needed to be blown up). We got to our home in Almaden around 6:45ish (not sure when the game let out). One odd thing was there were many people driving on Newhall, past the stores and the VIP entrance, while we were waiting to leave. There isn't anything back there so I'm surprised they let people do that.
I was very unhappy to find out today that my season ticket seat has a partially obstructed view thanks to the high railings at the top of the vomitorium. I'm going to need to have a word with my ticket rep about this. Anyone else having this problem? (For those who are not familiar with the word "vomitorium" it has nothing to do with bodily functions... google it)
Stayed to full time....left out the main gate....my daughter stopped in a Porta Crapper...we were in the end of silver... got out in less than 10 minutes
Yes, I did. I think the skydiver with the big flag waived off doing a risky entry into the stadium and chose a safer landing option outside the stadium. I'm sure that skydiver wanted to land inside the stadium just a much as we wanted to see them to land inside the stadium, but the conditions (i.e. wind direction and speed in combination with stadium roof configuration) didn't seem right. The first three skydivers were testing the conditions for the skydiver with the flag. At the time, they were trying to land it looked like a cross wind, to enter the top of "U" straight from the east. The "Avaya sign and the two light posts" also were a bit high making entry difficult, so they had to come in from a steep angle between the roof and the light post. When the first two skydivers had a sliding landing, instead of a stand-up landing that to me was an indication that the conditions would be difficult for the person following with the flag. In addition that flag was big and the roof beam they would have to fly past looked really dangerous, it would have been difficult to get the big flag between the roof and light post at the time. I think on a different day with different winds they land the flag inside the stadium.
I got to southern Coleman Ave. area near Target about 2:50, parked on the street, and then rode my bike up towards the stadium. lots of free parking in that area. Entered through the VIP lot and found the bike parking area in the back. the FO had said bike valet area, so was it stupid of me to expect a person there watching/attending to the bikes? perhaps. but in reality its just an area off to the left of the parking lot with bike racks. Ayava is nice to say the least. Well worth the wait. Just have one complaint. My front row seats up top, on the edge of the row, is off the entry way, so the rail there is higher than the rest of the row. it blocks my view and i have to bob my head to see the goal near the LOBINA. disappointing. Just so, some drunk won't fall over as he comes up the stairs. Leaving on a bike was easy. I passed cars waiting to exit the VIP lot, and got a couple of hoorays. Also heard many folks say that they would ride their bikes next time. For a day game its cool. But not sure i want traverse the 880 overpass at night with cars flying by trying to leave the area. Scary. p.s. what doppelganer said up top is true. Kaval, FO, put in a few more game clocks.
Every stadium has this. It's also like me and my dad complaining that people walk up and down the stairs/aisles blocking our view.
Well, Wade Boggs once drank 64 beers on a cross-country flight, so some intrepid fan might be able to do it.