Over The Moon Escape Rooms — Attraction in Corona

Over the Moon was much less crowded than our first time, because we played on Holy Saturday – it was fully booked for Easter Sunday, no surprise! – but it’s one of those places where it makes no difference whether it’s busy or not, because it’s definitely on our return list for the level of satisfaction we left with. We received our photos later than we would have liked, but we looked very good in them, so it worked out. The takeaway prize for victory at the end was a nice touch – but, have to admit, we had to watch Junior Bake Off after, just for a pie fix!

This review posted on Yelp and Google.

Corona is probably a fantastic place to live, but if you live way down by the ocean, it’s not generally the first place you would think of to go to an escape room – and it would be a mistake, because we found a new favourite place to play now, and we’re only sorry we waited this long to make our way up to Over the Moon Escapes! Our plan as Empty Nesters is to do a room a month, and we try to do a room with a different company each time. After many months now, we’re beginning to go back to the companies that impressed us, many who have expanded and / or added new rooms, so for us to find a company that has been around a long time and still offers very original rooms is exciting for us.

For our final room for 2024, and our first room with Over the Moon, we decided to go with The Phantom of the Opera, a steal at the price. It was quite a difficult choice, because all the rooms have very original themes – we avoid the disease outbreak ones like … the plague …; but our goal is to do all the rooms eventually, because we had such a good time.

Not wanting to get up too early on a Saturday, we made our booking for 2:15pm, and arrived there just shy of an hour. Over the Moon Escapes is located in a business center, so parking was plentiful on a non-workday. The lobby was terrific, and decked up like it was Christmas (it was still!). It did get a little awkward at the restroom because they were fully booked, and there was only one all-gender restroom, but allowances should be made since this kind of crowd is, sadly, not typical unless it is the holidays.

Once we were ready, Elise got us started with an introductory video, which was actually interesting because it was proprietary. She knew the Broadway musical, and it was clear that she enjoyed the room as much as we did, which was very easy to do because the décor was true to theme and authentic. That means it was a dim room, but there were a lot of candles (just like the one stage!) and there was nothing to trip over. The puzzles were very straightforward, and low tech, but the locks were some of the more interesting ones we’ve encountered, and very suited to the historical fantasy setting. Some of the locks were the smallest we've seen - fat fingers beware!

There were a ton of props (to take photos with later!) and a lot of red herrings but we got out in 39:13, faster than our trip up on the freeway! The escape included unlocking ourselves as well as answering some questions at the end of our game, but we were so taken with the room, we completely forgot the questions. Our favourite puzzle had to do with the piano and the masks, and we are not sure what to think about the automated hints and prompts. On the one hand, everything was made very clear, but on the other, it seemed like we were not really playing with a real-person gamemaster. We were a little surprised when Shane showed us out, but it must have been a shift change. It felt a little rushed, but since there was no timer inside the room, we didn’t realise we made it out in less time than it would take for them to put the room back together for the next group! Shane took a really good photo for us, on their camera that they e-mailed later with our real time and who else finished before us, so no complaints! 4.5 stars rounded up. Really looking forward to checking out Peter Rabbit at Easter!

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Decent little rooms with strong themes, packed with puzzles but not all of them clear. We did two rooms (Wasteland Waterworks and Phantom of the Opera) and felt both generally would benefit from more clear “correct” indicators, since several puzzles triggered without us catching any difference.

Waterworks was definitely the more difficult of the two rooms, and honestly one of the few we have ever failed… It kicked our butts! Some puzzles seemed too vague to link to the clues, or had too many places/methods to try combinations — by the time we got them correct, we often felt more defeated than clever. The theme was interesting, though, and offered a lot of drama AND relevant multitasking to focus on.

A big topic around this room is the “live actor” instance, involving a guard. This is a fairly minimal element and honestly meant more for ambience, while also pointing you toward more clues you may otherwise miss. There is plenty of obvious leadup for the players, and no interaction required. Take it as an extra moment of silly immersion to help forget you’re all putzing around a janitor closet for an hour.

One other note: this room contains an easily accessible button near the door that causes loud noises. If those tend to trigger you, make sure your group communicates to one another clearly when randomly testing switches. It startled us, but we laughed and were prepared after finding it!

Phantom is spookier, but still playable for most personality types, with one or two creepy moments. Your quest to discover the identity of the opera house’s ghost and escape features very low light, which makes some details (and especially finicky locks) extra challenging. Our host was kind enough to observe our trouble and bring us a flashlight, which helped.

Overall, the tech in both rooms is impressive, though a little less flashy than some of the higher budget locations. A bit of fumbling aside, most elements DID work, though we came away a bit flustered from a vague connection or two. With a bit more clarity, and perhaps a bigger group (2 was pushing it…), I think we’d enjoy and escape most of the rooms here, though maybe not Wasteland...

I went here on 08/21/2021. I have done 3 of the 4 rooms they have to offer. We passed all the rooms. This place is OK at best. The Phantom of the Opera was a good room but lacked direction. Bad Chemistry had zero direction in the beginning but improved as the room progressed. Lastly we did Wasteland Waterworks. The biggest complaint of this room was the fact it has a live actor and has loud banging. I would hope they can update people and their website to let people know to beware because we were told as we were walking into the room. Sometimes having a live actor can dissuade people from picking a room. I 100% would have never signed up for that room have I known that was the case. This place has alot of room to improve. Hopefully with time they can refine and improve their rooms but for now they all felt unpolished. On a side note one of the owners made a comment that came off alittle rude and disrespectful. Although I am sure the comment was not supposed to come off rudely I left feeling alittle disrespected and embarrassed. My biggest feedback would be to maybe try to understand a situation before blindly making a comment. I only made this comment due one of the owners being too busy to talk to us while...