Alcatraz

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You’ve been wrongfully accused and jailed for a crime you didn’t commit… but wait! There’s hope if you treasure your next hour as you would your life… Solve the puzzles, untangle the web of lies, and most of all escape through the right exit or else you’ll be reading a lot more of the “Daily Jailbird Times” than you wanted! Such is the case if you are brave enough to venture to one of Hamilton’s newest escape room entries “Alcatraz” up top of the mountain. Did we enjoy the adventure? Did we find the staff suitable prison guards? Read on and find out…

The pre-room and customer service at Alcatraz was good. Although the lobby is pretty small and basic, there’s enough there for you to enjoy your wait such as refreshments and a tv. The staff are friendly, interactive, and always ready to do what it takes to put a smile on your face. The location is easy to find, there’s enough visible signage, and the surrounding side streets provided more than enough parking spots for us.

The room quality was also pretty good with a suitable amount of real to life items mixed with some puzzle elements that will have you guessing. Certain enthusiasts may feel there’s a lack of realism with the props used, but we suspect the overwhelming majority will appreciate the solid construction of the room. Which leads us to the immersion. If there was a part we’d like to see built up a bit more it’s the immersive component of this room. It was good, but we felt with a few tweaks here and there it would be incredible! We got a bit lost on the story by the end, but at least there was a storyline continued throughout, which is more than most rooms can boast! The atmosphere of the room definitely carried a lot of the immersion and did impress us, but again, we would’ve been even more excited if the story was a bit easier to sort out at times….

The puzzles were fairly straight forward, with nothing overly annoying or amazing. We enjoyed there were enough times of having everyone engaged in gathering information without too many bottlenecks. Puzzle enthusiasts will probably enjoy the puzzle-centric approach this room takes, but creative designers will probably feel there weren’t enough surprises and/or original components. For our team, we found ourselves in the middle of these two feelings, we didn’t feel there was anything bad about the puzzles, nor were we raving about that “one thing” that caught our attention. It’s sufficient to say it’s good and most people will enjoy the puzzles.

And now the category and question we get all the time… Is it fun, and would we recommend it? On all accounts it’s a YES! The staff started our experience off on the right foot, the room is good in quality, puzzles and immersion, and we enjoyed that the room includes making some choices based on the story. Will everyone love this room? No, there are some critics out there who will argue there aren’t enough original puzzles, components, or twists to keep enthusiasts engaged. Our counter-argument would be that if you’ve hit a point where you enter an escape room with the intent of expecting the experience to be tailored to the needs of critical enthusiasts, escape rooms probably shouldn’t be your regular choice for entertainment.

We want to hear your thoughts also! Be sure to comment in the section below or send us a message via ERA’s email, Facebook page, or Twitter… As always, happy escaping!