After a few months of waiting, my escape crews and I went back to tackle Breakout's new and revamped challenges, and it was a smorgasbord of awesome Escape Room offerings. Thanks to our amazing room runners: David, Justin, Katelyn, and Christian for giving us a fun time every time we go.
Before we get into the escape rooms, some tips from a local. In the busy town of Waikiki, it's hard to find cheap parking. Breakout's new location at the entrance of Waikiki makes finding parking tricky, but my escape crew and I always park in the nearby lot for relatively cheap. I recommend actually parking in the parking lot by the Waikiki Yokocho and walking over. If you're flexible in your room time, I recommend booking in the evening (i.e. after 6pm), because the parking lot rate goes down to a flat fee of $7.00. This means that if you wanted to unwind by going to Karaoke or some of the nearby restaurants after, you would only need to pay $7.00.
Also, bathrooms. Breakout has a small amount of bathrooms in its facility near the back, but the bathrooms are right across from their Armory escape room. If you don't want to be spoiled for their Armory room, or are hesitant to go since you may be watched when you exit the toilet, there's a second set of bathrooms in the Waikiki Beachwalk. Go up the escalators, take a left at the Wyndham counter, and go straight down the hallway and take another left. You should see the bathrooms.
Furthermore, as someone that's done both public and private rooms, I recommend showing up early to your appointment time. At least 15 minutes or so, so that you can check-in, do waivers, go bathroom, figure out strategy, and in the case of public rooms, get to know your other team members. Although public rooms are cheaper, it is a very different experience solving rooms with strangers. To build team cohesion, and to get to know your fellow teammates, I recommend going early.
As for the rooms themselves, there's a lot of different challenges to do.
As of writing this review, there are 5 different rooms. The Armory, Y2K, Patient 57, Secret Sabotage, and The Hero. I've done most of these rooms except for Patient 57. I did that one at their old location in King's village.
The Armory: The best way to describe this room is a civil war era bunker. The atmosphere is great. You can hear the battle going on outside and you can smell the wood. I really liked the fact that the props were very accurate to that particular time period, especially your light source. This room is also another room where a lot of the locks require hands-on actions to be done rather than relying on the usual brick and mortar combination and key locks. I will not give away spoilers, but I really enjoyed the ending to this room. It matches the room's theme, and on top of that, it's very clever. Even after we escaped this room, the indelible image of my group solving the ending puzzle still brings a smile to my face. I think that's why this particular room is my favorite out of the newer challenges.
Y2K: Y2K got a revamp, and it's a burst of 90's nostalgia. Modeled after the period between 1999 and 2000, if you are a fan of the 90's, this is the room for you. There's a ton of nods to the 90's era in the prop choices, the atmosphere, and even the music selection. Compared to the older version of Y2K, I like this version a lot better. If you've done the original Y2K at King's village, there are some familiar puzzles, but they're interspersed between the newer puzzles. I found the newer puzzles intuitive, and super fun. When I did this room again, it was nice to bask in the 90's nostalgia. It's definitely a room for all ages. There's puzzles for all sorts of people, young and old. 90's nostalgia topped with interactive puzzles makes this room a fun one to do (or redo!)
Secret Sabotage: This is Breakout Waikiki's newest challenge, and it's a fun one. Escape room veterans might find the puzzles here too easy, but I had fun in this room. It's a little smaller than some of Breakout's other rooms, but what they lack in size, they make up for in content. At first glance, it's hard to figure out where exactly to start in this room, but this room has a very nice flow to it. It's easy to put the pieces together. I won't give away the specifics, but true to the scenario. It made us sweat early on.
The Hero: Set in an evil villain's mad scientist lab, I found this challenge okay. When I went with one of my escape room crews back in early 2019, we got out fairly easily, though I think that's due to the fact we've done many different rooms. I appreciate the little details they placed inside to make it feel like a supervillian's lair. I enjoyed the little video edits and splicing of local news footage to set up the scenario. The puzzles themselves aren't too hard, and I appreciated how they varied the different types of puzzles. Lastly, as someone that really enjoys physical puzzles, I enjoyed how hands on some of the puzzles in this room were. read more