Hogwarts: Dormi Cito

I am a big fan of Harry Potter so I was really excited for this room. The sets, decor, and atmosphere were solid, and I felt like I was in Hogwarts. I really thought I would like this room. However, the lighting was way too dim…too dim to be fun. There was a decent amount of reading and it was very difficult using a flashlight. After solving a puzzle, you had to put the letters/# combo into the lock…that was even extremely difficult in the dim light without someone else holding their flashlight for you. Each room was too dim, diminishing the potentially great experience. The room was lock/key heavy without much tech, but did have some cool puzzles (puzzle box was cool and another using a mirror), but due to there being a lot to do, the game being non-linear, and the lack of light in each room, the flow was really poor. Our GM (Trinny), was very friendly, but did not provide us with timely nor good clues. The Panic location in Hoffman Estates always only has 1 employee on site so if there are 1 or 3 games going on, that 1 employee has to greet everyone and GM all of the games simultaneously. This leads to us asking for clues several times without a response from the GM since they are not actively following our game. Panic is also strict about their 3 clues limit and will not provide more unless you pay for them up front. I think this is bad business as we told our GM we really wanted to escape and if we were running behind at all to give us a hint before we asked…yeah, that never happened and the hints we received were not very helpful. Overall, with better customer service and a little more light in this room, Hogwarts would have been a very good room.

Loved doing this with my friends as big Harry Potter fans!

Finally a harry potter theme done right!

The escape room had impressive decor and visuals, but it seemed more focused on testing my ability to navigate in the dark and match small pictures, rather than genuinely challenging my puzzle-solving skills. Instead of enhancing the difficulty of solving puzzles, the poor lighting and tiny pictures felt like examples of subpar craftsmanship.

This is such a fun, immersive room! As a Harry Potter fan, the decorations, voice acting, and thematic puzzles exceeded my expectations. The puzzles are tricky, but very fair, and my group didn’t struggle on any one puzzle for too long. There is a lot to keep track of, but it all comes together for a really fun ending. Fans will enjoy this a lot, and even non-fans will likely have fun with the well-put-together magical academy setting! There are flashlight wands! Expecto Patronum!