So you have decided to heed the call to adventure. Good for you.
If you need to recall what the Guide is or who I am, please refer to the included links.
Poutine on the Ritz for breakfast
The Guide has the following to say about going to a game
at Rogers Centre:
What if America…but French and cold?
Under no circumstances should you let anyone discuss Toronto Maple Leafs hockey with you unless you want to get trapped in a conversation where gnawing your own limbs off would seem like a pleasant alternative.
If you do get trapped in such a conversation, say with absolute confidence: “Brad Marchand (pronounced Mar-chawn) is your Mayor!” and walk away. Then run.
Rogers Centre is middling. In many ways, this Guide entry can end right here.
As I have written many times elsewhere, the cost of experience is wonder. Rogers Centre suffers from many of the critical flaws that plague Chase Field in Phoenix, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, and loanDepot Park in Miami: it feels simultaneously cavernous and shabby. Moreover, like loanDepot Park, Rogers Centre “upgraded” its lighting system in 2022, and now there is lighting that is actively irritating for those who happen to be neurodivergent.
If I had visited Rogers Centre earlier in my travels, I would likely have a more nostalgic view of the stadium and its environs. The SkyDome, as it was initially known in 1989, is a retractable-roof stadium that performs markedly better when the roof is open.
The stadium was originally a multi-purpose facility, and it shows. Rogers Centre underwent stadium renovations to accommodate its now sole tenant, the Toronto Blue Jays. These renovations were completed in the 2024 season, adding more social areas in the outfield area and retrofitting the seating for baseball. It was a less-than-perfect process as the concourses feel both cavernous and too narrow all at the same time.
I would argue that the renovations are a mixed bag. Adding social areas that are a poor man’s sports bar reinforces the idea that one should just go to a sports bar. One can only upscale a ham sandwich so much. Now, I love a ham sandwich as much as the next person, but short of adding bechamel sauce and an egg, there’s only so much you can do before the sandwich is something else entirely.
Rogers Centre is fine, but it needs outside pop to make the trip worth it. Depending on when you see this Guide entry, there may be plenty of pop when the Dodgers visit Canada. Here is all you need to know about attending a Dodgers/Blue Jays game in Toronto.
The Five Questions of the Guide
1. Is it worth going here?
Yes, but for serious completionists only.
Domed stadiums, even retractable ones, are hard to do right. Make it too cramped and you have the Tokyo Dome. Make it too cavernous and you have Globe Life Field or Chase Field. Rogers Centre gets close but is ultimately confined (pun intended) by the nature of enclosed stadiums.
Blue Jays fans are passionate, especially when riled. I visited in April 2024, shortly after the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani. If one wants to re-live sports journalism at its echo chamber worst, one could and should revisit a timeline of everyone fumbling for information before Ohtani chose to sign with the Dodgers.
Scotiabank Arena, home of the Toronto Raptors of the NBA and the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL, is down the street from Rogers Centre. Traditionally, the Leafs fanbase has been unjustifiably chirpy towards other fanbases, considering that the club has not won the Stanley Cup since 1967. But certainly the Blue Jays would not share the same trait, right?
Chanting “We want Shohei” after barely squeaking past the Seattle Mariners is a choice. I generally try to act like the divine is watching, to paraphrase the Kendrick Lamar song.
I visited Rogers Centre in April 2024, almost immediately after the Ohtani signing. I made my share of Ohtani is on a plane to Toronto jokes, and the fans let him have it. Ohtani used his bat to shut the locals up…for five minutes, before they kept up the jeering for the rest of the series. What followed was three games of varying quality as the Dodgers made their jaunt through Canada.
Something to keep in mind while visiting Canada is the strength of the U.S. dollar. When the dollar is strong, be prepared to pay a significant discount for the same items and amenities that one would pay for in the United States. When the dollar is weaker, the discount is negligible.
The food at Rogers Centre was fine, if unspectacular. The perfect Canadian accompaniment for food is poutine: a combination of fries, cheese curds, and gravy. It sounds disgusting, but it is actually amazing.
Now I bought this poutine immediately outside Rogers Centre from BeaverTails, a maker of pastries and other snacks. The Blue Jays do offer a Poutine Dog, which combines all that messy goodness with a hot dog…and it just does not work.
If you sell me a hot dog that requires a knife and fork to properly eat, and you don’t provide them, I am going to get annoyed. Also, why on earth are you providing me a stale bun?!? Furthermore, if you sell a product where the frank does not mesh with a combination of gravy, cheese curds, and French fries, you have screwed up in a way that defies culinary logic.
You can buy straight poutine at Rogers Centre and other standard ballpark fare, which you should do if you go. While visiting Rogers Centre, it’s essential to keep in mind that the dome can get quite humid, so proper hydration is crucial. When the Dodgers last visited Toronto, Tyler Glasnow had to be pulled from a start because of cramps, which affected me as the series went on. As always, bananas are your friend, provided you can find them at the markets that dot the area around the ballpark.
As an American League park, the Dodgers visit every other year, so proper planning is essential, including squaring away the validity of your passport. The immigration process was far less cumbersome than in other countries I have visited. Having international data available, using a credit card that does not charge foreign transaction fees, obtaining Canadian dollars at the airport, and preparing to see more French than usual are challenges the visiting Dodger fan will need to navigate when visiting Toronto.
When I visited, the Blue Jays were not offering tours of Rogers Centre as the renovations were not fully complete. Tours were offered throughout the regular season and the American League Championship Series, but they ceased in 2025 with the onset of the World Series.
The Blue Jays used to offer digital first-game certificates. However, this practice has been discontinued for reasons unknown. No replacement service is currently being offered as of this Guide entry. However, the creative amongst you can use MSPaint and Photoshop to make something approximating the following, using the old template.
2. How should I get there?
One does not walk into Canada. I suppose that one technically could, but it makes no sense to do so. The average Dodgers fan is either going to make a multi-hour drive from the East Coast or, far more likely, fly into Toronto Pearson International Airport.
From the airport, one can take a train into the city, but I just took a rideshare to speed things along. I cannot fathom a good reason to rent a car in Toronto, unless one was going elsewhere in the Great White North. Generally, one can take public transit right near the ballpark or walk from any number of nearby hotels.
The biggest concern weather-wise is the cold. Inside the stadium, the conditions will be climate-controlled, but no one likes walking to the ballpark in the rain or cold. Honestly, I would wear the same clothes I generally wear when visiting Oracle Park in San Francisco: layers that can be easily shed. Focus on movement to keep you warm and plan smartly.
One could take a rideshare to Rogers Centre, but unless one was staying far enough away that public transit becomes cumbersome, there is no reason to. Foot traffic around the ballpark is quite significant based on the urban placement of the stadium. There are multiple entrances and usually plenty of foot traffic heading into and out of the stadium.
3. Where should I stay?
There are many hotels near Rogers Centre within walking distance, assuming that there is no snowy weather. The general rule is that hotels get more expensive the closer you get to the CN Tower and Rogers Centre. Trust me, you cannot miss these landmarks.
Going to a game at Rogers Centre offers the opportunity for one of the most unique gimmicks in sports: staying at the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel, which is literally jutting into Rogers Centre. It feels odd to call staying at a Marriott a gimmick, but there is no other way to describe it.
Imagine watching a game from a sky box but with one hell of a blind spot. Think a Green Monster seat at Fenway Park, but worse as to baseball, but better as to the travel experience. My extemporaneous thoughts from April 28th best describe the experience.
When I first visited Toronto, I stayed two nights at the Radisson Blu, which was about a seven-minute walk away. It was a perfectly adequate hotel. If I had to do it over again, I would probably pick a slightly cheaper hotel and trust in the mass transit system.
I stayed at Marriott City Centre for one night — the finale of the three-game set. Staying at City Centre defied my expectations in a bad way, which is not the fault of the hotel. I do not know why I expected the stadium and the hotel to be somehow connected. Entering the hotel requires going through security, which is not connected to the ballpark in any way. Then, to enter Rogers Centre from City Centre, you have to exit the hotel and go through the ballpark’s security. The entire process takes about ten to fifteen minutes.
Yes, you can watch the game from your hotel room. The room has an occupancy limit to try and prevent the sneaky or the industriously cheap from filling up a hotel room to watch the game. Truthfully, under regular circumstances, it is far cheaper to get a decent seat at the game and stay at a nearby hotel. And if you want to get in various stages of dress, in a room where you do things that you don’t confess while watching a Dodgers/Jays game, that’s up to you. You can see the game, and people can see you, as there is no one-way glass to be had.
The one thing I wish someone had warned me about before I visited is that stadium maintenance comes by at midnight, making an unholy racket cleaning Rogers Centre. Use earplugs and close the blinds; otherwise, expect to wake up cranky in the middle of the night.
The City Centre hotel has a sports bar that overlooks the ballpark: the SportsNet Grill. Under normal circumstances, one can pay a fee to reserve a window seat with a minimum amount to spend on food and drink. A game ticket is not required to eat at the restaurant, but, like the hotel, it is not connected to the ballpark.
4. Where should I sit?
Rogers Centre now has upgraded sightlines for most of the ballpark. Content creator Cameron Guzzo recently broke down the scope of the renovations in his ongoing quest to find the worst seat in every ballpark. Rogers Centre has some choice candidates in that regard.
I would concur with Mr. Guzzo, and to add to his insights: avoid the upper deck at all costs. If you have taken the time and expense to watch the Dodgers play in Toronto, why on earth would you subject yourself to a subpar seat? Going to the upper deck of a domed stadium carries its own risk and would only be recommended if you knew that the dome would be open.
As alluded to earlier, Rogers Centre was retrofitted to be a ballpark-only facility. Still, the skeleton is what it is, and like the now-defunct Oakland Coliseum, sometimes the skeleton just cannot be fixed.
Sitting in the highlighted area is one’s best bet for a proper seat at Rogers Centre. If one is visiting during the 2025 World Series, good luck finding a seat there for non-Tokyo Series prices, even with the favorable currency exchange. If you’re visiting for the World Series, please follow the advice I gave during Tokyo: do what you can and ride it out; after all, it’s only money.
There was a law that prevented such gouging, which was repealed by Canadian conservatives in 2019. There has been such an outcry that the Canadians might address this goof after the Series, which doesn’t help anyone visiting now.
A proper baseball stadium’s seats would run parallel to the foul lines, not curve around them. I have sat in the 219 section, the 119 section, and in outfield section 103, before retiring to my room at City Centre. Apart from cost, there was not a huge difference in the quality of view between the 100-seat and the 200-seat sections.
Sitting in the outfield sections is great for socializing. Still, if you want to watch the game, under normal circumstances, you would be better served to consider the logistical hurdles you would have to overcome to visit Rogers Centre in person and sit closer to the action.
Would I turn my nose up at sitting here or higher up if I had the opportunity for a World Series game? Probably not, but I am someone who put in a lot of elbow grease to make attending the Tokyo Series work. If the alternative is not going or watching from a hostile sports bar in Toronto, and the desire is high enough, speaking from experience, I find a way to make it work.
5. After your trip, is it worth going back?
In the disclaimer to the Guide, I described the informal range of subjective outcomes that can occur after visiting a location. So far, I have attended three games at Rogers Centre in 2024, during which the Dodgers won two. After this visit, my rating of going to Rogers Centre is:
- Hey, that was fun, but I probably don’t need to do that again.
While this entry has been critical of Rogers Centre, I do want to stress that it is not a bad ballpark. Compared to its division brethren, it is a far cry from Orioles Park at Camden Yards and Fenway Park, but it is significantly better than Tropicana Field. [Author’s Note: I have yet to visit New Yankee Stadium in the Bronx as of publication.]
If not for the Fall Classic between the Dodgers and Blue Jays in 2025, I was perfectly willing to let this stadium remain in the pile of “one and done” stadiums I have visited in my travels while writing for True Blue LA. At the end of the day, I have to rationalize a return visit to Toronto; unlike with Tokyo, Kansas City, or Milwaukee, or even Arlington, it is much less of an ask.
Rogers Centre is probably the best stadium in MLB that I have no genuine desire ever to visit again. If we are all very fortunate, the Dodgers will make just the one trip to Toronto in 2025 for breakfast, because sometimes one egg is enough.
