Bernie's Slide Tour

[JimH5]

The Brewers are selling the pregame experience of a private pregame tour of some the stadium, including player areas & a slide down Bernie's slide.

 

Has anyone on BF.net done that yet? Anything to report?

 

I'm booked for September 15th with my wife and daughter and I'm not sure exactly what to expect. . .Hope it's fun for them (and me).

[TracyThom]

My wife took a tour of Miller Park as part of a work outing yesterday. She had a good tour guide and really enjoyed it. If she wanted to go down Bernie's slide, it was an extra $100. She made it out onto the warning track, but was not allowed to walk on the grass. She got to see the visitor's clubhouse and dugout, but not the Brewers. Also included in the tour was a walk-through of the press box, press conference area, and radio broadcast booth.

[hawing]

tristarscoop (who may not have continued with bf.net since the migration in February) did the All-Access for Women thing a couple of weeks ago and that included a trip down the slide. I am pretty sure she enjoyed it. That group also got to visit the Brewers' clubhouse. Her experience might be enough to motivate me to finally go one of these years.

[TURBO]

$100 to go down the slide?

 

wow.

[mtrebs]

$100 to go down the slide?

 

wow.

 

I can't tell if you think this is expensive or a good deal...I assume you intended this to mean it's expensive. Sure $100 sounds like a lot, but in relation to the prices of beer, food, memorabilia at the stadium, etc., it really isn't that bad.

[JimH5]

Indeed $100 sounds expensive and there will be three of us, so I'm in for $300.

 

But, my understanding is that it's a pretty exclusive tour of 2-6 people total, with a behind the scenes walk through of media areas, clubhouse spaces, batting cage (not sure if its on the field or in the bowels), Bernie's chalet and up to 5 trips down the slide. The info says we'll be milling around player areas, but to not interact.

 

Good photo ops, fun way to get my daughter into liking baseball.

 

I'll post some pics afterward, hopefully not of me with a broken hip.

[1992casey]

For a "private" tour, $100 per person doesn't sound unreasonable at all.

[bullox]

For reference, it's $159 to drive three laps in a NASCAR around Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

[brains and braun]

That's way cooler than going down a slide.

[BradWI]

I believe the slide thing cost $200 when they introduced it last year. Probably didn't get many takers at that price so they lowered it.

[BCZF]

Is this the same MP tour as always? Still kills me, during the winter in 2004 Chicago people stuffed little packs of "David" sunflower seed into their coats when we went through the bullpen..

[JimH5]

We went on the tour this afternoon, and I would say in general, it was pretty mixed.

 

Our tour guide was a nice guy, very pleasant, and he led 9 of us together into an elevator in the right field corner offices down to the field level, back of the house area. There is a single tunnel that wraps around from that corner, down to the homeplate area and up the 3rd base line to the left field corner. It's not unlike an airport concourse, with delivery vehicles taking beer kegs and other stuff around the building.

 

Along the way, you get to go out onto the warning track in the RF corner. My daughter really got a kick out of that. We were there for a few minutes during BP and one of the coaches tossed her a ball, which she loved. They're pretty clear on not being able to touch the grass.

 

After that, it was pretty dull until the slide.

 

They walked us into the media room, which is a theater style room for post game press conferences and the like. There's nothing remarkable about that.

 

They walk you past the doors to the clubhouses & past a hitting cage area (someone was hitting in there, but we couldn't see who), past some storage rooms and past the staff getting ready for work. It's all cinderblock & concrete, and then back into an elevator and up to the NYCE club area, out to the stairs to Bernie's house.

 

You climb the ladderlike stairs up to the Bernie area and he's there silently greeting folks. They give you a big piece of burlap and you go down the slide and land at the bottom on a pretty rough piece of astroturf (nice rug burn on my right shin).

 

We went down a few times and then that was about it. I don't know how long it was--maybe an hour. My daughter had fun, which was what I was going for.

 

I can't imagine going more than once--certainly not more than once a year. It might be a better tour when there isn't a game and you can go into the press box or the clubhouses, dugouts, or on the field and not risk getting in the way of someone working. We didn't encounter players or media on this tour, though I can see how you might.

 

The slide itself is pretty quick, and the climb up the stairs is pretty significant. Hard to see how a guy would do it in costume.