The Grand Wilshire Hotel

I was surprised to find out that The Grand Wilshire Hotel has been around since at least 2019...”ancient” in escape room years. It was actually a Terpeca finalist in both 2019 and 2020. While I wouldn’t say that it’s a genre-breaking room at this point, it still has some pretty cool elements. The decor is fantastic, and the walls and ceiling have a genuinely decrepit look. I believe there are only one or two padlocks, with the rest of the puzzles being more modern and tech-driven. There’s even some projection mapping. A couple of the late-stage puzzles require info from the beginning of the experience, and I really enjoyed these callbacks. My favorite was a logic puzzle involving the various professions of the Hotel employees. Most of the other puzzles are pretty commonplace by 2026 standards. Unfortunately, the ending is anticlimactic and doesn’t resolve the narrative of the experience. It’s a huge missed opportunity given the design and atmosphere of the final room. Overall I think this escape room has some great bones, but could stand to be refreshed and updated with some more unusual puzzles and a more dramatic ending.

This was a very good room with decent size, quality theming, solid tech, and challenging puzzles. Unfortunately for us, we chose to play it when the air conditioning system was down (we were given the chance to cancel but we went ahead anyway), and despite the staff doing everything they could to alleviate the brutal heat and humidity, our ability to enjoy ourselves was severely compromised. Moreover, we encountered a few tech issues that required manual intervention. Without these problems I think this would have been an excellent experience, so I would still recommend it.

The introduction once the game starts is kinda long. Prefers to have less keys/combination locks.

9.5/10 Amazing room, super fun gameplay. We finished it in 37 mins so it was a bit on the easy side. Exceptional immersion, great story. It’s a must-do!!

8.5-9/10, great room, great immersion/set design. Tons of different and different types of puzzles with a great mixture between technology and traditional locks. Only small thing - a bit on the easy side, completed it quickly with only myself and my husband.

An entertaining room. It felt fairly straightforward but there were a few tricky puzzles which I didn't expect.

The room itself was gorgeous. Super immersive and fun. We did it with two people and it didn’t feel difficult at all, so I’d probably keep it to smaller groups so that you don’t just rush through it.

wow, Imaginarium REALLY lives up to their praise - seriously loved the aesthetic and production design here and the puzzles actually had a good amount of difficulty to them the puzzles felt well thought out and they also felt very original. loved the tech aspects and some of the other initiatives the team took to create a really immersive experience- seriously, it’s well felt 9/10 - another amazing marvel from Imaginarium :)

Really enjoyed the room. Fun interactive puzzles, lots to do, big space, set design/mood felt like a haunted Disney attraction, a lot of attention to detail in the set design. Highly recommend!

Puzzles were pretty straightforward and linear. Lots of search and find, logical connections between props, locks and keys. The storyline and intro was great but I actually would have preferred getting LESS information before entering the room, leaving more for us to discover as we went.