Hotel Nocturnus

I think this is the biggest and probably one of the best escape rooms in San Diego. Customers have to work thru several different areas that were modeled after just about every scary serial killer movie or serial killer in the world. Although no one jumps out at you, the special effects and jump scares made it a super special experience. Not knowing what was coming next makes for screaming and laughing and dares about who has to do what. This is a very active room and if you are squeamish or afraid of small spaces it probably isn't something you will enjoy. Be sure to ask the actor who accompanies you how to avoid areas. One of the most unique parts has to be the storyline that starts out with Jack the Ripper and takes you up to many famous serial killers. Make sure to pay attention to the intro video because the background details weave a really clever story. The entire atmosphere inside the huge area makes you feel like you are really in an old abandoned hotel. The puzzles all worked perfectly and the props are totally one-of-a-kind but they aren't like regular escape room puzzles so you might need help. The ending is a surprise.

I can see how this room might have been impressive when it first opened, but our experience was full of problems that made the gameplay frustrating and honestly not worth the money. By the halfway point, we just wanted to leave. Overall, the design was cool and immersive, but the poor maintenance ruined it. Instead of enjoying the atmosphere, we spent most of our time troubleshooting broken equipment or puzzles that lacked legibility. The flow of the game was smooth for the first 30%, but it went downhill during the last 70% with the following issues: **Several clues were unreadable or worn off. **A few puzzles we solved correctly multiple times didn’t trigger. Even the game master admitted we were doing it right but couldn’t explain why it wasn’t working. **The blacklight battery was nearly dead for half the game, slowing us down until it was swapped mid-room. Once replaced, we were able to see multiple sentences of a puzzle compared to one letter at a time, showing how much time we had wasted earlier. **Broken or poorly maintained puzzles, including combo locks that only opened if forced at a weird angle, or another puzzle that if you pushed too soft or pushed too hard wouldn’t trigger. **The room required using your phone/light to progress. At one point, we had to take pictures of clues because once things shut, we couldn’t access them again. **Puzzles that wouldn’t trigger unless pieces were lined up within millimeter accuracy. **Unlocks in other rooms happened with no sound or indicator, leaving us stuck until the game master intervened. **there was a misleading tedious puzzle that took a ton of time to decode, to find out it wasn’t even needed, which was pretty frustrating.

We've been doing escape rooms for the last couple of years and a friend said we should try this room. I can truthfully say it is the best escape room business that we've been to so far and highly recommend. Its a combination of haunt and escape game. Hotel is a serial killer themed room but not like the other serial killer rooms we've been in. It is a lot bigger than most of the rooms we've done and had 13 areas we made to make our way through to get to the end. We were really pleased with how they pulled you into the story with all the handcrafted hotel rooms and games. They did not use the plastic wall panels we see being used in so many escape room games now. We're not interested in going to a sterile commercialized escape room that lacks originality and that seems to be what so many escape room owners are producing but not these people. You can tell they poured their hearts into this room. We've never seen the detail they put into the design of the game in other rooms. We particularly liked the games that are made directly into huge intricate props. We were expecting a bunch of combination locks but that wasn't the style of this room. I don't want to spoil it for anyone but we screamed more than once. They put live actors in the room with us like their advertising says but we felt safe because we had an actor with us throughout the game that managed to scare the crazies who had been trapped in the caverns away. Our guide also helped us with nudges when we got stuck. We hadn't seen their style of room in other places and it was thrilling but not overwhelming meant to throw us off our game. You should not be afraid of small spaces if you play this room. You will also be expected to crawl a little bit and stoop down. If you can't do these things you might be able to avoid them if you let them know in advance but I would say you should play a different room We really enjoyed and liked the fact that they did not rely on cheap tricks like turning off all the lights to scare us. The atmosphere is scary by itself. If there had been more it would not have been an escape room but would have been more like a haunted house. We booked another room already and recommend you try this business.

This escape room was one of the more challenging escape rooms we’ve completed although I wouldn’t necessarily label it as “expert” level. However, we did get help from their assistant and some puzzles were a little bit more challenging. I’d say we solved around 80-85% on our own. In comparison to the escape rooms I’ve been to, I appreciate the mix of puzzles and not focused too much on combination and lock and key locks. Nothing too out of the ordinary with sensors, sounds, sequential order of button pressing, etc. I wished the quality of the props were better. Often times I felt cheap alternatives were used. And while it didn’t take away from the overall experience, I’m still consciously thinking about it since other escape rooms will pay more attention to detail in this area. Some of the lock releases required way too much precision to work. One of our item placements was off by a few millimeters and if we didn’t get help we would doubt ourselves if the puzzle was actually solved. We wasted time in one room as we had to hold a key card up to the door but didn’t know you had to hold it for 3-4 seconds so we proceeded to believe we were incorrect until we asked for help. Overall, we had a great time and escaped with 1 min left! I don’t think I will go back due to the quality of the escape room to the price you pay but kudos to the crew investing in this and being super friendly and entertaining.

This was a great escape room with easy and brain thinking puzzles. IT IS NOT A LINEAR ESCAPE ROOM. You go back to places you’ve been through and have to connect dots. The GM in the room helped us understand what we can touch and not when we were worried of breaking stuff. Some rooms are very squeamish and if you don’t like that, don’t do the room. The only bad thing is the story line, I thought we were solving a killer story but we fully didn’t? I’m still confused on it but, overall it’s fun!

Amazing room with so much to do! All of it very interactive and creative. Having the GM in the room was a must but did a great job not helping but more guiding if needed.

This is by far the best escape room we have ever done and I’ve done over a hundred. The room is huge and you work your way through about 13 different sections to get to the way out. I counted at least 8 major serial killers in the story and finally getting to the identity of zodiac was totally unexpected. I’m not going to say we got out without clues because some of the puzzles are hard and they’re definitely unique compared to other San Diego escape games. If you’re looking for a game that you need to win then this probably isn’t for you. You also don’t want to bring younger players here as it’s a little scary. Overall this is a must do game.

As someone who’s played around 30 escape rooms, I’m throughly impressed whenever I encounter different puzzles or elements! I appreciated the live actor who assisted whenever we needed. We literally only made it with 1 second to spare! I had done this game with people who haven’t completed many escape rooms and they were able to contribute to puzzles easily!

Okay, when I first walked in, I expected I was going to be jump scared every 5 minutes; not like that at all. The room is very thrilling, well designed, and you see the different serial killers and other historical murders they based this room on. That being said, a great time. I felt stupid that the way out is the way in, but you don't know that when you're trying to get out of the first room. However, you do need to collect lots of clue throughout the game, to escape in the end. The elevator was nice touch, and I loved feeling like a People Under the Stairs. We had a lot of fun, and the host was great.