Hey all!
Just getting home from the 2019 Preakness, and once again, it was an adventure!
By now, I am sure you all remember last years full rundown, with photos, still available here:
http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/s...d.php?t=145007
So, the old girl Pimlico was all dressed up and ready for the 2019 Preakness!
For the first time in recent memory, the weather was FANTASTIC!
Racing was great, full fields, and the product "on track" was pretty solid!
And, as always, the "front line" folks at Pimlico were first rate, and doing their level best to be at 100% for the biggest day of the year! (Hats off to the folks who work at Pimlico!)
However, as normal, all was not well with the infrastructure, or management.
(I will try to be brief, as I don't mean this to be all negative)
As I may have mentioned before, our grandstand seats now sell at $135.00 each, and we have a nice block of 10 seats together.
What does that get us? A pretty decent seat a few gallops shy of the finish line , some decent air conditioning, and a few minutes in the infield staring at the sundresses and substandard concerts meant for frat boys. What doesn't it get us? Oh... that list is much longer.
Let's start with the big one: It doesn't get us a working bathroom. Well, at least not those of us of the fairer sex. As has been widely reported, most women's rooms were out of commission by 11:00 AM resulting in nearly every female in the entire grandstand using
one set of restrooms. Every woman that needed to take a bathroom break between noon and 7:00 PM waited in line for an hour to do so. It should be noted that these are not new problems, but ones they continue to ignore year after year. It's embarrassing and unacceptable.
Our cost of admission also doesn't get us food, As you remember from my post last week, Stronach took away all outside food and beverage privileges. Okay, fine. We'll play by the rules. It seemed okay because even in their own email from Thursday afternoon they included the following line: "We have added high end concessions throughout Pimlico to enhance the event experience." Let's evaluate that. we saw a stand selling pre-made Boar's Head sandwiches on level 3. There were about 200 of them and they were GONE by 3:00. Sandwiches were priced at $10, beers were $11, mixed drinks around $14. - In fairness, there was another area selling Boar's Head hot dogs on level 2. They had lines 30 people deep and sold out by around 2:00. Even when we finally found an area that did have a hot dog, folks from our group received our hot dog on a HAMBURGER BUN
In short, if they not going to allow us to bring in food, the absolute least they could do is have enough on hand to feed the attendees.
I could go on, and on,
The speakers in the grandstand do not work. The old televisions still look like 1964. I was "wanded" with a metal detector three times coming in the venue. Lines at the windows were excessive at times. People standing in the isles can be dangerous.
All in all, the customer experience at Pimlico gets worse every single year. The roof wasn't leaking this year, though I have no doubt it would if the skies had opened up again.
For the love of god, when you invite 130,000 people to your party and charge them good money, you have a basic human obligation to provide life sustaining food, and a place to go to the bathroom. 
After a long discussion last evening, I think our group has decided (finally) that next year we will take our $1,350 and throw a bash at home.
Maybe this was just our bad luck...
Hopefully your experience was better...
The "fun meter" was still about 6.5 out of 10.
I did truly feel horrible for the 4 young ladies in our group.
Peace out
