Marv’s Diner Deluxe

After spending close to two hours in the Cabin room, we weren’t sure if we had the mental fortitude for this one right after! But, it turns out we did! The interior looks like something right outta the 50’s. The puzzles are, again, non-linear for everyone to be able to break off and work on different things. Lots of logic puzzles again. Some math. And tasting puzzles! Actually, there’s at least one puzzle for each of the five senses in this room which is awesome! Plus there’s free treats inside, and one you have to work for. It was set up so clean and everything was still themed and related to the theme of the room. We ended up in a tie for the quickest time, which was sweet but also really surprising after spending a total of three hours straight doing escape rooms hahaha. There were business cards at the front desk for Marv’s Classic Soda Shop that we thought were novelty takeaways for the room, but it turns out they’re legit business cards for a place in Black Diamond (just south of Calgary) where Marv is an actual guy and has a diner! So awesome! We plan to go there one day and say “hi” and have a bite to eat.

The story for this room is quite unique in that you are challenged to a series of tests in order to determine if you are a worthy successor to Marv, the diner king. The first room was set up like a typical diner complete with a lot of vintage type decorations. There was a good mix of physical puzzles as well as logic. They were non-linear and we were able to spread out and work on various different things. This room required using ALL of your senses which is a unique feature not found in other rooms we have tried. The other best part about this room was the candy. We came out with our bellies full of different treats which was a great booster throughout the room. Only thing lacking for this room was the second half of it. The decorations weren’t quite as great as the first part and we found the room to be quite plain. Despite this, this is a really unique room and a definite must try if you find yourself in the Banff area!

Okay first off this room offered free treats as part of the ‘candy diner’ experience so I may be slightly biased on the grounds that I am hugely food driven and surprise candy makes me immensely happy. But I mean even putting that aside I really enjoyed it! I think it’s a really unique experience in terms of escape rooms and they had a lot of interesting ideas when it came to the puzzles. I wasn’t sure how all five senses could be incorporated in them, but it worked pretty well and really made for a memorable experience. I was also quite fond of the 50’s aesthetic of the diner portion of the room, though it unfortunately did get considerably more bare moving on from that first part. The puzzles had sort of an opposite effect going though- there were a few clunky ones in the beginning, but they did get amped up in creativity after that first room so it seems to balance out. This theme could be really improved if the decor and audio were more immersive, but even with that it’s still a quality room with great staff, and I had a fun time here.