Thanks to everyone for the advice. I wanted to post a summary because it was a fun thing to do, but also in case anyone else does it and searches for Duke trip on the site.
On Friday, we got into town around 5 or so. We checked into the hotel, I watched some golf, and then we headed to FullSteam Brewery. Parking in that area was pretty tough, as there was no parking lot. I was wearing a Syracuse sweatshirt, but there was literally nobody wearing Duke there, as it was a non sports atmosphere, more of the board games and bring your dog type place. I'm a beer snob, and while I thought the beer was decent, it was more of a if you're there it's fine, but not worth going out of your way for place.
On Saturday morning, we drove over to Chapel Hill and visited the UNC Hall of Fame. Given that it's 15 minutes away, it's almost surreal to have two College Basketball BlueBloods that close to each other. Their Hall of Fame is an A+, with so many artifacts in each display but also so well done. They have a main section that's on a court, with a three point line. They have footprint displays on the spot on the course where various famous shots were made. Overall, for doing this trip, it was a cool thing to do. The greeter at the door wished me the best of luck tonight, but was also genuinely happy to see two people supporting other schools coming to see their place.
Late morning, we drove over to the campus so my friend could hit up the bookstore for his merchandise and to ensure we knew where we parking and going. There we saw Krzyzewskiville, which is in a word nutty. I'm not sure if it's the best or worst thing I've seen. I imagine 20 years ago, I would have been jealous. Now, so many questions as a parent. I'd probably read a book if someone documented their entire experience of it.
The Campus is beautiful as everyone says. Unlike Syracuse with many beautiful buildings, but of different ages and design, everything there is seemingly made of the same stone and looks very similar to each other. That sets the backdrop for seeing Cameron Indoor Stadium from the outside for the first time. Holy cow...it looks like any other building on campus and is really small versus literally any other place I've ever seen. The only comparable thing I can compare it to is when I was outside the old Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. You literally wouldn't know it's an arena/stadium, etc.
The Duke Hall of Fame is also very nice, but not nearly as big as UNC's. It shows that we probably could still do more with ours though. Ours is beautiful and cool, but not quite as big or thorough as either of theirs.
We left campus for a few hours and had a few beers and burgers at Bull City Burgers and Brewery. The Burger there was delicious, but a little on the small side. The beer was decent, but also nothing that I was overwhelmed with. On the way back, we stopped at a place called Pour Taproom, which was a pay by the ounce beer place where you served yourself one of about 100 beers. Now this...impressive, and one can only hope this concept / franchise makes it's way up north.
Once we got to the game, it was 3 and we were informed doors didn't open until 5. This is the first gripe I'll have versus our setup... there's really no tailgating / party fun type setup. I'm not going into the tents at age 40 to drink, but there's no bars, no tailgate, nothing. Alot of fans just walking around doing nothing. The next gripe would be that while literally no person harassed me, nobody really engaged me in any conversation either. I know people talk when we see fans of different schools, and this was just like everyone was there doing their own thing. It made for a long 2 hours waiting to get in.
Once in, we walked up a narrow stair case to the second level for our seats, and it was literally amazing how small it is. It's not Broome County Arena or OnCenter small, but it's not much bigger than that. We were the second row from the top in a corner on the student side / Duke bench side, and it was probably no worse than sitting in the first few rows of the second level at the Dome. The only problem up top was that each seat in each row was even, so I had to lean to see around the guy's head in front of me that was blocking the basket. It was also tough to hear the student's chants or PA, as the sound was loud but not totally audible. There's 16 sections at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and on that top level it took me 2 minutes and 39 seconds to walk around the entire top section from my section around and back in the concourse with people. There's times at the Dome where you can't get past a concession stand line in that time. Similarly, where you can get 50+ dudes in the bathrooms at the Dome, you can get like 6 there. Gary Battle has a good tweet on that. There's almost no advertising, and the concessions are as basic as it gets. The Cameron Crazies were pretty mesmerizing to watch though to the point of jealousy that we don't have that. There's no reason why with some coordination any student section couldn't do it, but they also need to just do it.
Overall, it was a really cool trip. Worth the money once? Definitely. Twice? I'd probably rather do the entire ACC Tourney in Greensboro for the same amount as a next trip. However, the best thing I'll take away is seeing the really classy Cameron Indoor Stadium writing on the scorer's table with Jim Boeheim to one side and Coach K on the other. If that doesn't give you chills, I don't know what does.
