Last Updated: September 6th, 2023 by Kristen Douglas
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Oriole Park, officially called Oriole Park at Camden Yards for its surrounding neighborhood, is the marquee “retro-park” in the major league. It was one of the first parks to go back to old school style design for a new park and fans still get goosebumps when they walk into Camden Yards for the first time. Orioles Park is also in an amazing location in Baltimore right at the Inner Harbor. It might get crowded here but there is no shortage of stuff to see and do when in town for an Orioles home game.
A Beautiful Ballpark that Pays Homage to Its City – via Flickr user Keith Allison
Things You Shouldn’t Miss
- Everyone stops off at Eutaw Street, the fun-filled pedestrian zone between the B&O Warehouse that the park. Check out the Wall of Fame, the Brass HR balls , and the giant honored numbers.
- The Baltimore Sun sign on the scoreboard is a hidden gem. When a player records a hit, the “H” lights up. And just in case a player making an error doesn’t feel bad enough, the “E” lights up when his mistake is put in the books.
- Below are listed a lot of Oriole/baseball sights, but you’d be remiss not to take some time before your game to check out the world-famous National Aquarium, within walking distance of the park. There are some pretty incredible tours you can take here but they do require reservations at an additional cost. On Fridays and Saturdays, you can even have a sleepover at the Aquarium! Make it a full weekend in Baltimore. Sleep with the fish one night and cheer on the birds another.
Ways To Save Money
- Take Uber instead of parking. Click here to get a free ride
- Take a soft cooler of food & drinks with you
- Stay close by and walk to the stadium. Click here to see our favorite hotel near Oriole Park.
- Click here to reserve a cheap parking spot in advance.
There are a number of parking options around the park, but the best way to manage your parking needs is to check out SpotHero. If you aren’t staying close enough to walk or use public transportation, Uber is a safe way to get around Baltimore.
The Orioles do a number of promotions, which allow you to save on tickets. Prices vary on the second-hand market a great deal, but expect Red Sox and Yankees tickets to always carry a premium.
You can bring in food and drink, and lots of options are available right outside the park. However, the park houses a number of great food choices.
Oriole Park was built in 1992, it paid homage to Baltimore’s long history of baseball, as well as the history of the sport at large through monuments and visual styling. The retro-park craze followed, but many consider Oriole Park at Camden Yards to be the best example of the style, laden with little easter eggs and buttressed by the beautiful B&O factory.
Enjoy All the Little Details – via Flickr user Jim, the Photographer and Doug Kerr
Paying Homage to Baseball History
Three blocks from Oriole Park is the childhood home of Babe Ruth, which now hosts the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. Visit the museum first, then follow the painted baseballs on the street from the house to the stadium – representing the 60 home runs Ruth hit in ’27. Inside the house, learn about Ruth’s family and childhood, see priceless memorabilia, and walk through the rooms he lived in for years.
For Die Hards, This Museum is a Must
When you get to the park, tip your hat to Babe with a photo by the giant statue.
Arriving at Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Alternative/Public Transportation to an Orioles Game
Baltimore has plenty of options for transportation so you shouldn’t have to drive your own car. Bus, train, Metro, and lightrail all go near Orioles Park!
There is a light rail stop directly next to the park (Camden Yards) and one just down the street (Convention Center). All three connect to the Yellow and Blue light rail lines, as well as the Penn-Camden shuttle.
The Light Rail Drops You Off Right in Front of the Stadium
You can also take the MARC train on the weekend, which connects Washington-Union station in DC with the Baltimore-Penn station hourly. Then take the quick Penn-Camden light rail shuttle. You can do this on weekdays too, but it’s not recommended because of all the commuter traffic between the two cities.
But if you are doing a weekend of baseball, the MARC is a way to do two parks in one day. It’s fairly easy to get to Nationals Park from Union station via subway. So you can manage a 1 pm game at one park and a 7/8pm game at the other. It will be tight, and not for the faint of heart, but for those coming from the West Coast, you can walk away with one heck of a story to tell.
There are a number of buses which pass by the park. I typically don’t recommend buses, especially if there is a subway/light rail option, but many of these buses connect parts of Baltimore not serviced by the light rail. But if you are staying in an AirBnB in a neighborhood serviced by bus, this can be an option that saves you a lot of money. Again, check the list on the MTA website.
Now, if you’re looking for a party bus, Rally Bus offers a great choice. You ride the same bus back and forth, so can leave stuff on the bus, and it’s a great way to travel with friends for cheap. It’s easy to book a trip with Rally Bus and since this company is all over, you can use them over and over and save up their rally points for money off future rides.
As I’ll discuss below, the area around Camden Yards is safe and easy to walk through, but that’s not the case for much of the rest of Baltimore. If public transportation options don’t appeal to you, you can always take the safe route of using Uber, which will drop you right at your hotel lobby or AirBnB door. If you haven’t used Uber before, click here for a free ride.
Driving to an Orioles Game
This area of Baltimore is packed full of popular places that draw crowds. Free Parking near Orioles Park is practically non-existent. There are parking garages for the many hotels are businesses in the Inner Harbor and none of them are free and all of them can fill up on busy evening.
You can sometimes find a free spot on the street in the neighborhood to the west of the stadium, but you’re going to have to hoof it around 15 minutes. Start on Hamburg Street, pay attention to the street signs, and be aware of your surroundings. Signposting isn’t great – make sure your phone’s Google Maps is charged. I really don’t recommend this though. It is so hit or miss and most likely it’s a miss.
WARNING: if you are a woman/group of ladies, a family, or planning to be very intoxicated after the game, maybe this isn’t the choice for you. The area around Camden Yards is safe and well lit, but once you leave the area, that changes. Baltimore is one of America’s most dangerous cities. If all this makes you too nervous, there are lots of options that are close, safe, and cheap.
If you’re really trying to game the system and save a buck or two there are a couple of options for you. First, there is the occasional business in the area that will be offering a spot in their lot for five bucks or so. A few laps around the surrounding neighborhoods should bring you quick success if you arrive well before the game starts.
The neighborhood to the east of Camden Yards, Federal Hill, is good for a bite to eat before the game and has cheap metered parking if you can snag a spot on Charles Street. Meters run until 8:00pm, you can feed them for a few hours and take off. The Maryland Science Center nearby offers game night parking.
Federal Hill Neighborhood, with the Maryland Science Center on the Right
Most of the parking lots in the area immediately surrounding Camden yards, are reserved, and not open to those without passes. You can purchase passes online from the Orioles with a mark-up.
The best deal that you’re going to find for parking around the stadium is in official lots F, G, and H. They all cost less than $10 cash on game day and there is plenty of space available. Lots open 2 hours before the first pitch. These lots are first-come, first-served so purchase a spot in advance! This takes away the stress of wondering where you will find a spot. With reservation in hand, you can just arrive. These lots are situated at the base of the Ravens stadium, with lot F being a quick 5-minute walk to the stadium. Lot F can be accessed on the east side of the Hamburg Street bridge.
A Number of Official Lots Support the Orioles and the Ravens
Another great option for parking is a service called SpotHero. They allow you to search for and purchase guaranteed parking spots in Baltimore ahead of time. You can compare prices and locations and select an option that works for you. They’ll email you the parking pass and you can drive to the stadium without worrying about where you’re going to park.
Best Food At & Near Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Save Money on Food
To really save money, you can bring in snacks and a drink. However, don’t pack a whole family picnic. There are some restrictions. No outside alcohol. You can bring in one unopened nonalcoholic beverage no bigger than 20 ounces. Any food you bring must be inside a clear one-gallon plastic bag like a Ziploc.
You can take in unopened plastic bottles of pop or water. Again this will save you several bucks per drink when compared to ballpark prices. There are tons of people selling $1 waters and sodas outside the park on your walk in.
If you are looking for a cheap/dive-type place to eat before the game, check out Nick‘s Rotisserie, about a half mile from the stadium. Fall off the bone chicken with street parking typically available – you could do much worse.
Right across the street from the park you can grab a bite or a beer at Pickle’s Pub or Slider’s Bar and Grill. Both are little local sports bars you can stop off at before or after a game. Pickle’s is famous for its crab pretzel and Slider’s has the best wings. Get the wings with Old Bay on them for a Maryland twist to a classic sports bar app!
Food at Oriole Park that You Shouldn’t Miss
Oriole Park has an outstanding selection of food choices, well-arranged and distributed around the park, making it easy to avoid lines. There are also various price points, so whether you want a small local bite or plan to splurge on many flavors, this ballpark will satisfy your tastes. Since the pandemic, most parks have gone cashless and Oriole Park is no different. Plan on paying with a card or your phone. If you do bring cash, there is a “reverse ATM” available that will exchange your cash for a card you can use at the concession stands. This is found near Gate D on the Lower Level Concourse.
1. Boog’s BBQ – First-timers shouldn’t miss Boog’s Barbecue, which is located on Eutaw St. behind the center field bleachers at Oriole Park. Boog Powell, former Oriole great, is a regular at his own booth greeting and selling food to fans. If you are coming from out of town I would say it’s worth the money to try it once.
Boog’s BBQ is the Center of Eutaw Street – via Flickr user Gavin St. Ours
2. The Chipper – Great for kids, this chips joint near section 68 offers kettle cooked chips topped with delicious options. Their crab chipper seems an obvious Baltimore choice, but I found the pulled pork chips to be a tasty option with a large enough portion to share (good since this isn’t the cheapest option).
3. CRAAAAAAAAAAAAB! – you can find it all over. There’s a station on field level dedicated to crab, but a lot of other food locations offer crab related options. Crab pretzels, crab dip with pita chips, Old Bay fries with crab dip, crab mac and cheese, hot dogs topped with crab, crab nachos… You get the point. Other parks offer crab, but this is the best. NOTE: you WILL be paying for the privilege of crab, so plan to share if you are tight on budget.
Crab Dip Waffle Fries – via Flickr user Navan Rajagopalan
4. Charm City Chicken Shack – Get the chicken tenders and waffle fries here for an easy pick that anyone will love. There is enough to share and your food is served in an Orioles souvenir cup!
Oriole Park Seating Chart
We’ve created the seating chart of Oriole Park above to help you better understand some of our recommendations below. Feel free to download this image and use it, we just ask that you credit Ballpark Savvy and link back to the page where you found the image.
Cheap Orioles Tickets
Support science in Baltimore and get cheaper tickets!
The Maryland Science Center has a discount program where members can get a discount on Orioles tickets.
The cool thing is that most discount programs only apply to the cheapest of tickets; this program applies the discount to tickets from any section.
At this point, nearly every Major League team has some kind of variable pricing model where depending on how in-demand a game is, the ticket prices you’ll pay at the gate may go up or down.
Sometimes pricing varies from day to day, other times it is a more formal “tiered” structure where when they are playing a big draw team like the Yankees, you’ll pay a premium price compared to a perennial bottom-dweller who might be in the “budget tier.”
So rather than focusing on specific prices and sections which tend to change fairly often, I want to talk about general rules and strategies for getting the best deals on tickets.
1. Compare 3rd Party Sites
SeatGeek is a big time ticket comparison site that lets you compare a bunch of different ticket brokers, marketplaces, etc. and find the best price for the game you want to go to. They also have a tool that projects whether ticket prices will go up or down – AKA whether you should buy now or wait.
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Click here to view Oriole tickets on SeatGeek.
It’s Pretty Hard to Find a Bad Seat in This House… – via Flickr user Daniel Betts
2. Buy Last Minute
Usually tickets can be purchased for under face value in the Scalp Free Zone which is something that the Orioles facilitate outside of Lot F at Orioles Park; which is across from Russell St. behind the LF area. It is illegal to sell tickets above face value here, so you know you are getting at least as good of a deal as you would at the ticket office.
Save $5 On Last Minute Tickets: I recently learned about the Gametime app and it’s legit. Save BIG on last minute tickets. Click here to get the app and you’ll get $5 off your first order.
A good strategy to employ in this area is to buy late. Mostly these are regulars just trying to get something for their unused extras. They tend to be more flexible as the first pitch draws nigh. If you go there and buy 2 hours before the game, the seller is less likely to give a big discount because they expect many people to come by after you.
If you’ve bought tickets online before, you’ve heard of StubHub. What you may not know however is that with the rise of print-at-home and tickets on your mobile phone via the Ballpark App that you can usually buy tickets right up to a couple of hours before game time.
As someone who has sold a fair share of tickets on StubHub, I also know that sellers are encouraged to set a declining price for their tickets. This means they’ll set a starting price and then their lowest acceptable price, and StubHub will auto-magically lower the price of those tickets as the event date gets closer.
So in many cases, a game that isn’t sold out will have plenty of below face value deals on StubHub that you can snatch at the last minute and then either print at home, or just use the App on your phone to get scanned into the game.
3. Avoid Craigslist
It’s not to say that you can’t find ticket deals on Craigslist, you can. It is just more of a peace of mind, safety issue. I’m a Craigslist kind of guy, but I also know it’s easy to get screwed buying baseball tickets there.
Remember when I mentioned selling on StubHub? When you list tickets there, all you need to know is the barcode number from that ticket along with the other details on section, row, etc. – So when I sell tickets I never mail them to the buyer, they just print them at home and my actual tickets become void.
If I was a shady character, I could go sell those void tickets to an unsuspecting buyer on Craigslist for cash. The tickets look real, they are “real” in a sense – but what that buyer will find out is when they go to enter the stadium, the ticket scanner will say “thou shalt not enter thy game.”
Don’t be that buyer.
Stick to buying tickets from SeatGeek, StubHub, or directly from the team. You can still get deals and you never have to worry about being scammed.
Best Value Seats at Oriole Park
Some of the best value seats in Oriole Park on a night in and night out basis are lower reserved sections 55 – 65 and 7 – 17. They go for less than $20 for a standard game, which is significantly less than the seats directly in front of you. You should try to sit in section 55 if you can, as you are practically in what would be considered an infield box seat in other stadiums.
The Lower Reserve Sections are Practically a Steal – via Flickr user Keith Allison
There’s a fantastic deal on Eutaw Street Bleacher seats for Monday through Thursday games at Oriole Park. These seats are only $10 and the view isn’t bad from this spot in the center field!
Lower Reserved 17 gives a similar view from the third-base side and it is again a good deal at around $20.
Another benefit of these seats (depending on the time of year) is that they are in the shade. If it’s a mid-summer game with a high temperature, there is nothing like enjoying the game from the shade.
Seats with Benefits at Orioles Park
Orioles Park absolutely has some great deals on seats all around the park. However, if you are looking for perks and not necessarily a low-cost ticket, there are two luxury options I recommend: Club level seats or Single Game Suite Rentals. Club level seats in Orioles Park include a private concourse that is climate controlled.
There are bars, lounges, and specialty concessions only available to club seat holders and some of the club sections include in-seat wait service. Sections 230 and 242 will get you near home plate with great views. Private Orioles suites are for groups who want to enjoy the game together with a little privacy while pretending they own the team for the day. You get a private restroom, catering brought to you, and indoor and outdoor seating. You can purchase suite rentals through Orioles Park but you may get a better deal renting from a season-long suite owner through SuiteHop.
Where to Stay While Visiting Oriole Park
My favorite way to travel to a baseball game is to stay as close to the stadium as possible and walk or take an Uber so I don’t have to fool with parking in a strange place. So many ballparks have great hotels within walking distance making it easy to stay nearby.
I use Tripadvisor to find a hotel with good reviews near any ballpark. I prefer this option over any other because I actually search for the park I am visiting and Tripadvisor gives me hotels, restaurants, and other attractions near there. Oriole Park is located in Baltimore and the city is packed with stuff to do and see.
Obviously, there are a lot of hotels in Baltimore, but I can search for Oriole Park here and get the 10 Closest hotels to Oriole Park and then pick what I want based on ratings and prices. This saved me a lot of time and I didn’t end up getting ripped off on the price or end up in a sketchy place where I didn’t feel safe.
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor – image via Hilton.com
The closest hotels do not always come with the lowest cost but you get what you pay for when it comes to accommodations. Remember that you aren’t paying for parking or transportation.
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor overlooks Oriole Park from one side. Like you can actually see onto the field from the outfield. This hotel is fancy with amazing dining options, including room service. So if you don’t have a tight budget stay here and live like a rockstar in Baltimore.
Days Inn Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor is more friendly on the wallet but still right next to the park. Really anything Inner Harbor you are going to be able to walk to Camden Yards.
Free Stuff at Oriole Park at Camden Yards
1. You can see the entire stadium and Eutaw Street from high above on the Roof Deck. Not everyone realizes that the Roof Deck is open to everyone. The seats up there are reserved but you can go stand up there and see everything from a bird’s eye view. Back down on the ground, as you explore the grounds around the park, be sure to get photos of the Birdland Murals. The mural project started in 2019 to celebrate the vibrant community around Camden Yards in Baltimore and new art continues to be added.
2. Bring your kid for free! The Kids Cheer for Free promotion gives kids 9 and under a free ticket. You just have to purchase your adult ticket here to get this freebie. If you attend a Sunday Orioles home game, kids get to run the bases after the game is over!
A Beautiful Day in the Ballpark for All! – via Flickr user Keith Allison
3. Look at the little pieces of history around the park. The massive 9-foot statue of Babe Ruth is hard to miss, but also check out the other statues around the edge of the park. Along Eutaw Street, look for the brass ball plaques along the ground where balls have landed after being launched out the park (the Oriole website for this is outstanding and fun) The foul poles are actually the originals from Memorial Field. Aisle seats include the emblems from the original Baltimore Baseball Club. Find the wall display of the evolution of the mascot, fronted by statues of the earliest versions of the bird.
4. Take part in the “Birdland” traditions! Find the orange seats. There are two orange seats in Oriole Park commemorating famous home runs. The first seat is in section 86, row 4, seat 10 in the left center field bleachers. This seat is where Cal Ripken Jr.’s 278th career home run landed. The second orange seat to find is in section 96, row 7, seat 23 in right center field. Eddie Murray’s 500th home run flew out here when he became only the third player in major league history to have 500 home runs and 3,000 hits! Sing the National ANthem like an Orioles fan. During the very first line of the song, fans let out an extra loud “O!” and there is no reason you can’t join in.
The Emblem of the 1890s Baltimore Baseball Club – via Flickr user kristin