Escape Room Review: At The Hop Ice Cream Shoppe
The Attractions Magazine team was recently invited to Dare 2 Escape in Kissimmee, Fla. to test our skills on one of their most popular games, “At The Hop Ice Cream Shoppe,” where we were tasked with recovering a secret ice cream recipe before time ran out.
In this escape room, players travel back to the 1960s and need to break into the titular ice cream shop to find the secret family recipe and escape before the mysterious powers that allowed us to journey to the past run out – and those powers will run out in, oh say, exactly 75 minutes. That’s right, this game has a longer time limit than the usual 60 minutes for most escape games, and we certainly needed it.
The longer time limit was just one of several changes to the meta of escape rooms that impressed us about “At The Hop.” The ice cream shop location and 1960s aesthetics, the 75-minute time limit, the five-player maximum, a unique starting situation, and a cleverly hidden clue monitor were all unique and unusual aspects for this room that we hadn’t seen elsewhere (and definitely added to the experience). Another unique aspect of the Dare 2 Escape venue is an overarching story that runs through and between their varied and unique rooms. Character names, locations, situations, and more appear in multiple different rooms through references (both subtle and obvious). Playing all the rooms in order and noticing every reference is not necessary to enjoy the experience, but certainly adds a deeper level of enjoyment for repeat customers interested and keen enough to follow the lore.
The decor and little details in the room were spot-on and added a ton to the experience. It’s also not too much of a spoiler to say the room has a soundtrack of bops from the 1950s and 1960s that had us all singing along while we deciphered clues and solving puzzles. The “ice cream shop” setting was a welcome change of pace from the pirate ships, prisons, and Sherlock Holmes rooms that are all too common. Props were durable, and no part of the experience was spoiled by wear and tear as some puzzles in other rooms have been.
I would also be remiss not to mention the heavy influence that a certain 1980s time travel trilogy (cough backtothefuture cough) had on everything, which was clearly purposeful and quite tongue-in-cheek and made us smile every time we noticed another reference. Everything added to us wanting a big old scoop of ice cream by the end (this was sadly absent and a real missed opportunity not to sell cones out front as we’d have purchased five).
Puzzle flow and variety in the room were decent, with a good assortment of physical props and puzzles to be moved and played with, along with more classic logic puzzles, plug and chug, and mysteries involving lateral thinking. Props and puzzles all felt consistent with the setting and made sense to be in the room, even if you have to have the usual suspension of disbelief about why all these puzzles exist in this time and space.
With a goal of always escaping so we can see the entire room and experience, we asked for only the rarest nudges and hints if and only if we were hopelessly stuck or headed in the wrong direction. Our game master was great and could recognize the amount of help we needed to keep us headed in the right direction without us feeling like they were holding our hand.
“At The Hop Ice Cream Shoppe” is altogether a unique and fun room that we thoroughly enjoyed; however, we have to mention a few minor quibbles that detracted just a little from our total experience.
The room itself is quite small and, at times, can be a little cramped. A good rule of thumb for most escape rooms is that one or two people fewer than the maximum room occupancy is usually ideal. We brought a maximum of five people to this experience, and more than once, we found ourselves packed together or in situations where we couldn’t all fit together to work on something. The thin walls also meant that occasionally our game was punctuated by screams from the horror room next door. I wondered more than once if they were also listening to the music from our room while trapped in their asylum.
We also had a few situations where the feedback from a successfully-completed puzzle was not as apparent (and one that was so apparent it became an unintentional jump scare). More than once, we found ourselves having solved a puzzle, but not understanding what had been opened or changed, so we wasted time trying to solve the puzzle again. Still, these were minor quibbles, and our players all spoke highly of the overall experience.
Our team of five experienced escapists made it out with about nine minutes left on the clock, a decent accomplishment we were informed of and could see by the leaderboard (which we did not make). We left feeling like “At The Hop Ice Cream Shoppe” was a tight (no pun intended) experience that came with all the appropriate “a-ha” moments we yearn for. The team at Dare 2 Escape clearly takes a lot of pride in their work, and it shows in the rooms themselves and the excitement with which they discussed the game and escape rooms in general. We can’t wait to get back!
For more information about Dare 2 Escape or to book your own room, visit Dare2Escape.com.
We like to use the Morty app to track and rate all our escape room experiences; you can find our reviews of any room we’ve featured in the editorial section – and of course, you can follow us on the app at @Attractions.
