Last week my family and I had the best bonding experience ever. My cousin Cherie and I were both visiting Hawaii from Las Vegas at the same time, and we wanted to do something fun with the adult cousins to catch up. It was a toss up between axe throwing and an escape room. But since it was Father’s Day weekend, there were no private lanes available at Blade & Timber Axe Throwing. So we decided to do an escape room at Hawaii Escape Challenge instead.
An escape room is a live-action and physical adventure game in which your group or team is “locked” in a room and must use elements within that room to find clues, solve puzzles, discover hidden rooms and complete tasks to either “escape” the room or accomplish a specific goal within the time allowed. I’ve never done an escape room before, so I was super excited.
The family and I arrived at Hawaii Escape Challenge located at Pearlridge Center. Out of the 12 of us, only our cousin Joe had done an escape room before. The rest of us were all newbies. We checked in, signed our waivers and picked a team name. We then watched a 2 minute instructional video and met our Game Master, Trevor. He gave us a few additional tips and a mini-tutorial on how to open the different types of locks we might encounter in the room.
We reserved the Nuclear Launch Room, which was the only room available for our big group. Instead of “escaping” our room, our goal was to get in the White House, disarm the countdown and stop the nuclear launch in 60 minutes. Sounds easy enough right? I was totally confused.
The Game Master led us into our room which actually looked like the oval office, explained a few last things, wished us good luck and left. There was a security camera and TV screen in the room which displayed the countdown timer. We all just stood there for a few moments, still trying figuring out what we were supposed to do. My cousin Joe took the lead and said to look for the locks and what types of clues would help us open them.
We looked around the room at books, pictures, and statues among other things in order to give us number, letter or directional combinations for the locks. In some cases we had to solve puzzles or riddles. We were allowed three hints if we were totally stumped. To receive a hint from the Game Master we all had to look into the security camera and wave a shaka sign. The hint would then show up on the TV screen.
We were laughing and woohooing the whole time, especially when we got something correct. We screamed when a hidden door opened. It was so exciting. Each family member had a chance to open a lock or get something done in the room. And I was proud to figure out a major clue on my own.
Our 60 minutes was almost up when we got stuck on the puzzle to open the last lock. Luckily we had one hint remaining, but still we needed a little more time to solve it. “For extra time do the chicken dance” flashed on the TV screen. We all cracked up as we were doing the chicken dance. That gave us enough time to solve the puzzle and stop the nuclear launch.
We had such a great time and want to do it again! We worked as a team and it was definitely an amazing family bonding experience. The best part was taking our group picture in the end for the memories.
Have you done an escape room before? I’d love to hear your experiences.
Best,
Marlene
