Hijinx Hotel [Immersive Experience]

[This is a review of the “challenge rooms” experience, not the mini golf or other activities you can do at the Hijinx Hotel.] Tl;dr - I’d give an A+ for atmosphere and theming, but I can’t recommend this place simply because the games weren’t challenging enough to be fun or interesting. I will say that they did a fantastic job creating the funky and weird hotel atmosphere. I loved that they committed fully to the theme, with employees dressed like bellhops and giving you a room key when you check in to play. I enjoyed every aspect of this place except for the actual challenge rooms. The way it works is you pay for a 30-, 60-, or 90-minute experience, which translates to getting to do 5, 10, or all 15 of their rooms exactly once each. Each room is about a 5-minute experience. You scan your key card to start a room and then it explains how to play the game in that room. Then you get to play and see how many points you score. When your time is up, the game shuts down and it tells you which room to go to next. It’s a really great concept and run very well. I really expected to love the experience. Literally my only critique is just that the activities in the rooms are very simple and repetitive. Had they been more challenging or interesting, I would have had a blast. As it was, I’m glad I got to see the place, but I don’t need to go back, and I wouldn’t recommend it to my friends, sadly. Note: This review is from the perspective of two adults who enjoy escape rooms as well as physical and mental challenges. This business concept should have been a slam dunk for us, and we have been to other immersive experience places like this and enjoyed them quite a lot! However, I think this would be a great place to take kids for a birthday party with their friends or for a family activity with your kids. Not challenging or interesting enough to be a good activity for adults, though, IMHO. Perhaps the target demographic is meant to be kids, but I did not get that from the website or when I was reading the other reviews, so I’m just letting you know.

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  +4

I would not qualify this as an escape room. IT WAS A LOT OF FUN. You basically spend about 5 minutes in each room, an each room has its own activity and own theme and you complete the task in each room to score points and your points are added up at the end. It’s a little physical and a little mental, family friendly, and a good laugh. I did it in a pair and I feel it would also be fun to go in large groups. I enjoyed that each room is private, but you can talk to other teams in the hall a little as you approach your next activity room

This would be considered an immersive experience rather than an escape room but it does have some puzzle elements and physicality involved that makes for a great time. Hijinx Hotel is an amusement park wonderland. My group participated in their challenge rooms and when we checked in to the “hotel”, they gave us a key with our room number. We then made our way to the elevator where we were greeted by the concierge and they shared with us that each room in the hotel is a 5 minute experience. Some rooms are more physical in nature while others require teamwork to solve a puzzle. During your stay, you earn points to get on the leaderboard. The points don’t seem to have a reward system other than the sheer pride of seeing your group’s name on the leaderboard but that was enough for us to do our best on all the rooms. There is the option to do 1-2-3 sets. Each set is a 30 minute experience where you get to try out 5 rooms in total. If you opt in for the 3 sets, that means 90 minutes of 15 different rooms! This was a great time that reminds me a lot of Activate! The price point is higher than I would like but the visuals and the production value cannot be beat. A wonderful addition to the Irvine Spectrum and they have other attractions that I would like to try in the future - such as the Holey Moley Mini Golf, karaoke, and dinner experiences.