Carnival

This one I wasn’t really a fan of. A bunch of tech issues that had us need to call into the game master for, some arbitrary counting/guess and check for some puzzles and codes, and issues with the final puzzle that kind of took the wind out of our sails by the end. I think there are better rooms at this location that I’d recommend over this one.

We’ve done most of the Ottawa Escape Manor rooms and the room quality over time seems to have gone down. This newest room is probably the worst quality of all. The decor on the walls consisted of cheap carnival scenes on backdrops so it didn’t feel super immersive. We had several puzzles not work- a magnet release one where we had everything in the right place but the magnetic lock refused to open. Since they didn’t give us a walkie in this room, we had to “ask the room” verbally for a clue but it just comes up on a video screen and was a clue from two puzzles ago. The next room, one of the components were turned off so again even though we solved the room, we had to physically leave the room to get help and they told us “it shouldn’t have been off”. Well, it was. At this point we were all annoyed so fair to say this is our least favourite room. More oversight from the staff should be available for this room as there are several components that require staff- a “refill” from the staff if you run out of something to get to the next room, and the final puzzle has a pacemaker/heart condition disclaimer which unfortunately applied to our group. To not have a walkie available for this room is a big oversight. The best puzzles don’t rely on technology and I think the rooms should go back to old school traditional roots- Keys for everyone!