Our house became officially visitor-free on Thursday, after two weeks of hosting Lynne’s niece, Sharon, and our friend Carol Rouse.
Carol had lived on the island for many years before moving home to the town of Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 2024, so she was well overdue a trip here to reconnect with old friends and restaurants.
Although she and Sharon are quite independent and very familiar with Cayman, we still felt the obligation to put some effort into entertaining them. So, rather than watch yet another film, we decided to open an escape room board game that had been sitting on a shelf for many a moon. It was just the thing, we fancied, to get our grey matter working. We all loved a good puzzle.
The game was ‘Clue Escape: The Midnight Hotel’. I think I bought it because it incorporated characters from one of our favourite games – ‘Clue’ (or ‘Cluedo’ in the UK) – so I figured we’d be starting it with an advantage.
How wrong I was.
On the box, it said it was for 1-6 players ages 10+, and that it would take about 90 minutes to complete it. Well, there were four of us strapping ladies – a quartet of absolute brainboxes – and we were bright as buttons at 9pm. With any luck, we’d have this done and dusted by no later than 10pm, allowing for a couple of nightcap cocktails before we headed to our separate beds. Capital!
Once we opened the lid, we had to read the first set of instructions, which immediately forbade us from opening any other envelopes or booklets until we understood the rules. Then we had to choose our characters and playing pieces.
Carol was Solicitor Peacock, Sharon was Mayor Green, Lynne was Professor Plum, and I was Colonel Mustard. I’ve always been drawn to Colonel Mustard, or – as I called him for the rest of the game – Colonel Mostaza (Mustard, en Español). I was reminded of the days when I worked in town and used to go to the local market, where all the ladies working the sandwich counter were Latin American. Over time, they taught me how to order a roast beef sarnie – condiments and all – in Spanish.
Anyway, back to the nightmare …
Even though not all pieces were being played (Chef White and Miss Scarlett were left), we still had to read out their character cards. After going through the initial instructions about three times, and still not feeling abundantly sure about how it all worked, we decided to move forward. Out came the first room board – The Lobby – with three numbers on it. We were to each place our pieces on a different number, then pull the matching card out of the deck and follow what it said. But there were four of us and only three spots – how did that work?
Sharon got the first card, which then led to another card that was part one of a puzzle. She would need the other card to solve it. Okay, hopefully that would show up as we continued.
Next was Carol, who went through a similar process, followed by Lynne. A whole bunch of the cards they were reading were to be discarded once they had served their purpose, and those got deposited in the game box top. By the time it was my turn, I had no number to sit on, and no puzzles had been solved.
“What do we do now?” I asked. We were already at an impasse and had barely begun.
9:20pm.
“I don’t know – do we pull another card anyway?” Carol asked.
Lynne grabbed the booklet and pored through it, trying to find answers. It had none.
“I think we’re going to have to just take a card,” I said, with no confidence at all that we were doing this properly, but I had no better idea.
So, we got another card that happened to be part two of one of the puzzles. Mercifully, it wasn’t too difficult to solve, and we awkwardly lurched forward to the next room – The Restaurant – where at least there were four numbered spaces. Mostaza finally felt included.
We began to improve as we went along, but some puzzles were slightly more challenging than others. It didn’t help that when we went online, trying to find a deeper clarification of how something worked, lots of reviews popped up along the lines of, “… puzzles really a bit too simple …”, “… only designed for complete amateurs …” and “… more for children than adults …”
10:15pm.
As we placed room after room on the table, Lynne piped up with further news, “I think this is a 3D model,” she said, pointing to an image in the booklet.
“It can’t be,” I said, my voice trailing away as I looked closely at it. “But that would mean we still have quite a way to go.”
Everyone groaned.
Aware of only our guests’ comfort (honest), I offered a way out. “Look, if you want to pack it up now, we can. We’ve got tomorrow. We can just take a picture of how everything’s laid out, then set it up again in the afternoon, when we’re fresh.”
“I’m not going to bed without us finishing this,” said Carol, in a clipped voice, digging her heels in as she wearily surveyed the separate, growing pile of Clue cards that were only supposed to be utilised at the end of the hell.
Sure enough, as the next room entered the mix – The Penthouse – we also had to open envelopes holding sets of windows that, when put in place, would hoist it up a floor. 3D, here we came.
10:40pm.
By now, we were skimming through the text on the cards. It was Sharon’s turn.
“You open the door, which reveals, blah, blah, blah, someone playing the piano, blah, blah, blah, start the helicopter,” she said, monotone in her delivery, as she chucked the card into the landfill of discarded predecessors.
At 11:10pm, we had a structure worthy of John Doak before us, and had solved all puzzles but one. I really didn’t want to reveal this, particularly if there is a group of sniggering 10+-year-olds reading my tale, but it would be dishonest to omit the fact that we actually had to look up the answer to unlocking the vault door in The Spa. Two hours of storytelling, numbered cards and collecting clues had taken their toll. We needed the answer, don’t you see?? Can’t you understand that??? We were exhausted, I tell you!
Amazingly enough – and I wouldn’t have thought there was any chance in a zillion years – we actually solved the murder and escaped the hotel. There were three parts to the answer, and we got all of them correct.
At 11:30pm, we were right. We were righhhh … zzzzzzzz.
The next night, we had my siblings around and a couple of friends for a games night we had already scheduled. I had another unopened escape game, which remained firmly in its box. We got out Cranium instead, and hilarity ensued.
If you’d seen Mostaza trying to operate Peacock like a puppet to demonstrate a copying machine for the rest of their team to guess, you too would remember that you can’t beat a good board game … and it’s no fun to try and solve a lousy one.
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