Recently did a virtual team building activity with them, and I can't recommend it highly enough!…read moreThe facilitators were fantastic, and the puzzle we tackled was interesting and engaging. Organizing smooth and engaging virtual events isn't easy, but they did a great job and the entire experience was flawless. A great way to connect with my teammates in a new way, and get a fun break from WFH during quarantine. 100% would do it again.

I came to ROI to help my team at Stanford Children's Hospital with a 15 minute team building ice…read morebreaker activity. Jay and Kelly put together the perfect package for me to meet the theme of an over 200 person event. They customized the activity to meet the specialty of the group of providers. The games and activities were unique and fun. The group loved the challenge of solving the critical thinking group puzzles with a twist. The activity was a big hit and we got lots of compliments. This is my second time working with ROI and I will definitely seek to work with ROI again especially for our large events. The fact that they made an activity that was so successful for such a large group of clinical leaders was impressive. Jay and Kelly have such a great track record of delivering high quality activities and events.

Amazing, creative and well run camp! Both my girls ages 7 and 10 had a blast, gained confidence in…read moretheir art, found creative outlets and brought home simply amazing creations! We can't wait to do more!

The Dragonfly team is fantastic. Whether it is Ms. T (our lovely instructor), Ms. Savannah or Ms…read more Melissa, the team goes above and beyond for every child. My 5 year old had a bit of a tough time in camp and she was hesitant to return to anything 'camp' or related. I connected with the Dragonfly team about 3/4 days before camp. They reached out to me not only during the working day but also over the weekend. They sent a heart warming video ahead of the camp introducing themselves. And a special shoutout to Ms. T who was caring, thoughtful, warm and kind throughout. May we all have the kind of teachers Dragonfly camp provides. They are wonderful!

We had an incredible team building event with Dean and the BreakoutIQ team! They brought the onsite…read moreescape room directly to us, and the entire experience was top-notch from start to finish. The puzzles were super creative and cleverly designed. Unlike traditional escape rooms where everyone works on one thing, we loved the competitive aspect--it got everyone engaged, energized, and working together. Dean was extremely professional and prompt throughout the booking process, as well as during setup and teardown. His energy throughout the game was fantastic and kept the momentum going the entire time. Everyone on our team had a blast, and we would definitely book BreakoutIQ again for future events. Highly recommended!

Michelle and Tamara hosted our event at the university I work at for a division retreat. There were…read moreabout 14 of us and the "escape room" game was da bomb! I didn't know how they would bring the escape room to us but it was perfect. We were going to do an offsite with a location based one but timing and location wasn't working for us so I thought I'd try breakout IQ. I'm so glad I did! It is a true test of team building and communication. The facilitation at the start was great. It really spoke to what I wanted my staff and me to get out of it. And the debrief was on par as well. It fit in nicely with the theme of our day long retreat. Besides fun it was educational on an individual and group level. I would totally use them again to facilitate for one of our student groups or even with other cross campus partners. Thank you!!

We came with a group of 55+ people for a corporate event, and everyone had such a good time! The…read morecouple that runs this cocktail and pizza making class were so nice, super fun, and really engaging. Everyone had a blast. The drinks were yummy and the pizza was so good! I finally got to try making pizza from scratch. They had a real pizza oven and a ton of pizza toppings to choose from. I could see this being a great fit for not only corporate events, but birthdays, big get togethers, holiday parties. Just be sure to uber or get a shuttle because there isn't much parking in this residential area.

One of the best and fun classes I have attended. We booked city of cocktail for my gfs birthday for…read more16 attendees. It was a seamless process with booking reached out to Amy the event coordinator, super easy to work with. Kevin the instructor and owner was what made this event so much fun! The stories, the jokes really made the event so much fun! He is really knowledgeable and really helped the group make some really delicious drinks like an old fashion and cosmo! Highly recommend coming and booking with them!

I had gone this years ago with a group of people but went again a few weeks ago for my husband's…read morebirthday. It was real easy to book online, and they made adding more people to our party on the day of the event pretty smooth. We did the one taking place in France (sorry can't remember the name of the room right now) and they really put a lot of work into the rooms! It was a pretty hard room though (30% something pass rate), so we asked for a handful of clues. The game master was also nice and professional. I also have to say with the rise of escape rooms, this is one of the more affordable ones in the area so that is also a plus !

Great place for an escape room experience!…read more Went here with 2 of my other buddies to meet the 3 person minimum. We booked the same day for The Spy Room. I was surprised to see how cheap it was compared to other places in the area. Tickets here are $35-37 per person. The room itself was quite challenging. The puzzles were really good and some gave us a run for our money, but we managed to escape with ~5 minutes left. Overall, I think this is a great place for an escape room experience.

I spent an exciting and fun afternoon with my colleagues at Ryptic Room Escape in Mountain View. It…read moreis a little tricky to find the location, once you enter the complex, look for signs to direct you to the entrance. The entrance/lobby is quite cramped and has limited storage space to keep bags and purses, so avoid bringing in huge items. We were a group of 11 and had the whole place to ourselves. The concept here is a little different from other escape rooms that I've done in the past. Here we were divided into two teams and had to compete to win. The puzzles are quite challenging, so make use of the hints you're given. It's a good idea to have teams of at least four people so you can solve things in parallel. Our game-master was friendly and helpful and ensured we all had a great time. If you've found other escape rooms easy, come here for a challenge! And if you've never done an escape room before, come here for the fun!

Not my favorite escape room. While it's always fun to try and solve puzzles with your teammates, I…read moredidn't really like the way the game was organized. We had a group of 9 people, all part of 1 team. There are 4 rooms in total to solve. They move you through each of the 4 rooms for 7.5 minutes and then it's open time for the last half hour so you can solve the rooms in which you didn't yet crack the code. The puzzles here are quite complicated and it would have been better if they allowed us to break ourselves up into mini groups to divide and conquer the different rooms. As the rooms themselves are small with only 1-2 puzzles really to solve, you end up having way too many cooks in the kitchen and only a couple of people actively working on cracking the code while the others loiter around. Also, not good for people who don't like being crammed into small spaces. I'm also used to the game master walking us through each of the puzzles at the end to explain how we should have solved it, which ours did not, even though I had requested her to.

Amazing venue for single digit birthday parties & I am sure it would be wonderful for any age…read morerange. The space is small although well utilized to accommodate adults & children. I loved that the kiddos were whisked away to do art upstairs while the adults enjoyed a glass of wine downstairs. A part of me wishes I could have painted along side my twinsies as well. It was highly organized in a fashionable way. I thoroughly enjoyed this crafty birthday party & am interested in some weekend activities here with my kids & adult friends!

Lately friends have been in an artsy mood and I'm always happy to oblige. I used to be quite crafty…read moreand a pseudo artist back in the day when I worked for an ad agency in SF....awww memories. Fast forward many, many years later I seem to have lost that creative side (other than cooking!) and haven't done much arts and crafts so this was a nice reprieve from the usual. My friend picked a day we were painting Hocus Pocus since it was close to Halloween...I never watched the movie but game to take a class as I haven't done a "paint-and-sip" since my first time in Danville. The concept is having wine and cheese while the instructor guides you thru each step of your painting. After 2 hours of painting, laughs and seeing everyone else's "interpretation" on the subject, you have an end product to take home. A fun experience for all creative levels even if you think you don't have a creative side. The whole point is to go with the flow and have fun. ...and it's not the wine talking. Other classes offered: fused glass, painted charcuterie boards, light saber class (yeah hmmm!), painted wine glass and kids summer camps. Highly recommend for a date night, private event, team building or something different to experience!

After much research, the reviews on Suzanne and World Chefs were too much to ignore. So we hired…read moreher and her team to come to our house and conduct a cooking class and dinner party for my girl friend's birthday. There were 6 of us total and we all had a wonderful time. Suzanne was very well prepared and did a wonderful job explaining explaining the steps for each dish. She had a charming personality and was an absolute delight. The food was splendid, fun and unique. We all learned so much about Moroccan food, spices and culture. And the wines she suggested for each course paired perfectly. We will definitely be hiring Suzanne again and are considering a food travel trip with her. We loved the experience and highly recommend her.

Ever since buying a place a few years ago, I've wanted to learn how to cook. Not just to make it by…read morewithout starving, but really learn how to make quality food at home--I'm a foodie after all. ;-) This is the best cooking class company I've taken classes at to help me move closer to my goal. Highlights: - Format: A combination of demo and hands on which is the perfect mix: "see then do" as they say. Thorough and educational with detailed information on not only cooking techniques, but also the equipment (helpful gadgets in some cases), ingredients, their origins, and health benefits. I left each class feeling like I was becoming a more educated and better chef already. I've been to classes at Home Chef (when it was in SJ), Whole Foods (Cup and San Mateo), and Sur La Table (LG), and while those were fun, I didn't really learn as much as I would have liked. - Teacher: friendly, approachable, easy to learn from, comical, seems to genuinely care about her food and the people in her class, and knows her stuff. Chef Suzanne Vandyck has the culinary credentials and has even authored a cookbook. She tells you little tricks here and there along with fun stories of her travels and related eats to give it a personal touch. - Environment: very casual and comfortable. Questions are encouraged throughout and you don't feel intimidated chiming in with one during the demo or while cooking. I've been to classes where you felt like you were learning from a cooking nazi: if you didn't use the right spoon or something she'd snip at you. I want to learn, but this is for fun. I like more hakuna matata attitude here. As Chef Suzanne says, "In a restaurant it has to be perfect, at home it's ok." :-) - International Themes: I took the Easy and Healthy Japanese cooking class but they offer Italian, French, Mediterranean, Spanish, etc. I was a bit weary of learning Japanese food from a lady from Belgium, but she had enough traveling, visiting with locals, eating, and cooking experience to portray the authentic styles. I lived in Japan for a few years and eat Japanese food a good deal and learned tons from her class. - Great recipes: everything that we made was scrumptious. I loved being able to know how to make the classic Japanese sauces (tempura, miso, etc.) There are always options either written down or noted verbal during the demo so you know how you can change it up to suit your tastes or ingredients you have handy. - Salads: when you sign up, you can see what dishes will be made and I was enticed by the entrees. After all was said and done I did enjoy the entrees like expected, but was surprised to be blown away by the salads. The watercress and then spinach salads with dressings we made on our own were amazing. - Recipe handouts: before class you get a few pages stapled together of the recipes of the day. The teacher not only includes pictures up top, but a nice little paragraph of the story and background about what the dish is. - Plating: after Chef Suzanne makes an item, she plates them on beautiful little authentic Japanese plates (since I took the Japanese class) and organizes the food so it looks professional and impressive. Since I want to be a Top Chef quality chef, I love learning these plating skills to make my dishes visually appealing and fancier than the average home cooked meal. 8-) - Leftovers: sometimes there's a lot of food, so if you bring a container you can take some to enjoy at home - People: After the demos we break up into groups and make a few recipes. I didn't take the class to meet new people, but I made some nice friends through the few sessions we've have. - Class time said 6-9:30pm which I was initially worried sounded a bit long, but we usually finished by 9 or earlier so I could make it home to watch Grey's just slightly delayed on TiVo. ;-) - Location: most of the quality classes I have seen are in the city which is hard to get to on a weeknight. These are held closer to home in Cupertino and Santa Clara. Lowlights (my flip side to highlights): - How much fun you have cooking depends on the group you end up in--just normal group dynamics and personalities, etc. - Not optimal equipment: this is where it's a pro to go to a specialty store like Sur La Table or Whole Foods: the equipment will be more top notch. Our class was at Cupertino High School which had dull knives, old silverware, etc. They also didn't have any chopsticks to use in our Japanese class, so we brought our own. - Sometimes she changes the recipe from what's written down so you just have to be aware and take notes on your handouts. - Some classes you get a snack pretty early on but others you don't get to eat until 8:30pm, so you may want to have a snack before just in case. I'm so happy to have found this cooking school and will be looking to take more classes in the future!

We have a first grader at Tessie and we started this past year. My daughter has been thriving at…read moreTessie and loves going to school each day to experience a unique education model where the emphasis is on learning through hands on projects and well laid out journeys that are integrated into the curriculum. Due to the low student teacher ratio, my child's teacher has been able to tease out my child's strengths and areas for improvement and challenge / support her accordingly. The school is definitely not a 'one size fits all' model, thereby making it interesting for students each day. We moved from an academic group of private schools where monotony had set in and my child did not have an opportunity to look past academics and perceive the broader context of topics. This past year, she has learnt so much across various topic areas and seems to have developed a more holistic personality. The school has also supported with SEL topics and strategies to work on accepting failures, addressing perfectionism and other such challenging areas for gifted kids. The specials like theatre, music, innovation and nature are not just blocks in the schedule but times of the day when my child is able to have new experiences and learn from them and build her skills in those areas. With the new leadership and management change, revision of schedule and curriculum, I am confident the school is heading in the right direction on its mission to offer differentiated learning for gifted students. I strongly recommend this school to other interested parents!

First, there were 75 reactions to my original post plus I received many messages from families who…read morefelt mistreated. I just want to express my deep sorrow for every family who has been mislead and mistreated by this school. It has been devastating to get a glimpse of the dark reality. Final update: this school is even worse and more corrupt than before, in my carefully considered and humble opinion. We had a deeply concerning and disturbing set of interactions with the new director, Luthern. I remain proud of the way that we handled our interactions, and very bothered by the way he treated us. Furthermore, we undetstand that they are removing and/or drastically reducing the nature campus component of their program which was a huge part of the draw in the first place. We are thrilled that this chapter is permanently closed for us. We finally found the most outstanding school for our children, and we will never look back. Good riddance to a poorly run institution with what we believe is an unethical and corrupt administration. And by the way, the "Gifted Qualitative Assessment" is manipulable. It's largely based on parent surveys, and which parent searching for a school for gifted children won't see their kids as gifted? We all do. Your best bet if you're not a founding family is to make sure you have a ton of money and that you are willing to part with in their capital campaign, and always tread cautiously when it comes to expressing yourself authentically.

I received a freebie introductionary offer to attend a seminar. It was in the area of networking…read morefor women, something I felt I needed to learn more about. It was ok for a freebie course. I felt they were more women centric, which I liked. They also have coaches and management consultants that you can hire for individual consultations and intact work teams. Teaching teambuilding, communication, etc... Since I have access through my HR connections, this didn't meet a need of mine since I have personal connections with HR consultants. For a woman leader/manager/supervisor who doesn't, this would be a decent jump off point to find out more about professional management coaching.