This is going to be a long review…but I want to get my feelings out. Game Masters make or break an experience a lot of the time, and in this case, our GM was not great and put a sour taste in our mouth. Hubby and I are enthusiasts. We’ve played probably over 400 escape rooms all over the world so we feel like we know the difference between good rooms and mediocre rooms. This is a mediocre room, and I’ll tell you my feelings why. This was the first time we’ve ever had a time penalty applied to us from the GM. We were in San Diego for a family memorial and decided to share our love of this hobby with family members. We had no idea where lockdown was not being from San Diego (turns out in the middle of a busy street and area) and they don’t provide parking. Our game was at 7:45p. Our family came in separate cars and though hubby and I got there at 7:30p and found parking, street parking in San Diego can be problematic and it took my family a little longer, and they arrived at 7:50p. The game master told me he started our clock and we’d incur penalties until they arrived. Now, we had already filled out electronic waivers ahead of time, and done everything requested including trying to arrive early, however, with no on site parking we were at the mercy of Saturday night San Diego parking. Once they arrived at 7:50p, another group was in the lobby so the GM helped them and got them settled and told us to sit until they were ready…and continued to keep our time clock running!! By the time we got into the room we were down ten minutes. This is only shocking because in 400+ rooms I’ve never had this happen! Especially at a place that doesn’t provide parking. The GM was not welcoming to our family. Told us to walk down the hall and the room was the first door on the right and let ourselves in. He didn’t walk us to our experience. No rules or regulations were given (which is fine, we know them by now but we had first time players in our room so that could have been nice). The room was their easiest room, and that’s totally fine. Hubby and I knew we’d be taking a step back to let our family play. (Sucks when we paid $40 a person to do that but we really wanted our family to experience the joy of an escape room) One disappointing part was the room was worn. You could tell it had a lot of wear and tear and was not well kept. It also had a second door inside (which lead my family to believe it was multi room - it wasn’t. That’s a door to another game. Maybe cover it up, as it’s obviously not an emergency exit) Finally, my family ended up asking for a hint, and the GM just told them how to to do the puzzle!! I was aghast!! That’s not a hint when the answers are just given! Are you kidding me?! There were also so many of the items in the room that had do not touch stickers on them. The finale piece had so many do not touch stickers (and a “do not touch the rope” rope with no purpose…so why why the rope there?!) or anything on it, and was very anti-climatic. For a beginner Room people want to touch things and most everything was do not touch. We ended up escaping the room in 30 minutes so the time penalty didn’t even matter, but it was so off-putting to my family who had never played before. Based on this experience, they would not want to spend the money to do another room. So, in conclusion, I write our experience off as a bad or untrained GM, and a mediocre room. Hubby and I played two other games in San Diego, and they cost less (This was $40/person which is soooo expensive for a mediocre room. There are sooooo many incredible games in San Diego to experience and yes, this is an escape room, but it’s not an example of how magical or whimsical a room could or should be, so be cautious with your money and consider a higher reviewed game first for a better experience. If you are a small team (no more than like 3 newbies) you might enjoy this but there are only about 7 puzzles in the room and there are a lot of great rooms in SD to experience first so don’t rush to this one.
Particularly interesting or different
No
Physically active
Not at all
No parking available. Only street parking.