Big City Scavenger Hunt - My Review

Back in April, I spotted a Groupon that sounded like so much fun - A Big City Scavenger Hunt for Edmonton. With the Groupon pricing, and some sort of deal of the day discount, I secured 4 tickets for $33.20, and since it had to be used by August 10, I added it to our #summerbucketlist.

As the expiry date rolled closer, we decided to head out on a cloudy Saturday afternoon to make use of it. It took a bit to get it set up (for whatever reason, my phone wouldn't go past the login screen, so hubs used his and then became the group leader).
We got it all set up, and because my youngest doesn't have a phone, he tagged off of my phone.

The four of us got our 'roles'; the Leader, the Art Major, the Architect and the Photographer, and with extra battery packs for the phones headed to our starting point - downtown at the Legislative Grounds.

Assignments were sent to each phone (two to mine as our youngest doesn't have a phone), and you completed them. Some were photo challenges (as in take a picture meeting certain criteria), and some were to read various signs and answer a multiple choice question (which the leader got). I was expecting puzzle challenges and the like, and was sadly disappointed to not get those. Maybe that comes with a larger group?

We moved from point to point seeing buildings and parks that we would've never explored as I, for one, do not venture downtown. So on that point, it was really neat to take in some historical places.

According to the website, it's estimated that you'll walk about 2.18 miles (3.5 km). No problem, we all wore good walking shoes. The truth was it's much more than that. MUCH more. To the end point. That doesn't include the distance back to the starting point.

It's estimated it will take you about 2 hours. This was pretty accurate.

Enjoyability factor - about 3.5 stars out of 5.
Ease of use - it took a bit to get signed in, but after that, was pretty easy. We each received between 6-7 challenges texted to our phones.
Would I recommend? - yes. It was neat to see the historic buildings and the sights I'd never noticed.
Would I do it again? - no. It's only one option.
Value for the price? I got a discounted price, thanks to Groupon, so it was decent. No way would I have paid the regular $20 per person price otherwise.

~~~~~~ warning - from here on in are spoilers about the locations we went to ~~~~~~~~~

One of our stops, after two challenges at the Legislature, was to walk to this location. A very cool building built in 1904 and the site for the Legislature until the main one was built. 

One of the photographer's challenges was to take a photo of something beautiful. I thought the tree was really neat. BTW - you get 5 minutes to perform the challenge. Usually, more than enough time. 

As we headed north, find the Recycle was one of our stops and two challenges were achieved here. This park (Beaver Hill Park) I've driven by a few times, so it was neat to stop and check it all out. All the bicycles in the center are constructed out of other materials. They reused them for another purpose. 

Heading further north, near Roger's Place, is the Neon Sign Museum - another site to complete a challenge. I'm sure it's much nicer at night, and I've seen this as I've gone to concerts and games at the arena, but never actually stopped and checked out the signs. One sign had the same name as my husband, so he posed under it (picture not shown). 

Heading east, we checked out City Hall, and looked for the name of the clock tower. Since we couldn't find the name (likely due to construction, we guessed on that challenge, and --yay-- guessed correctly.) It was called the Friendship Tower. 

The Lunchman was another challenge. We had to describe the object he's holding in his hands. My kids thought it was a hot dog without a bun (LOL) but it's not. I won't give this one away. ;) 

The challenges mentioned how we're getting to the end, but we are still a long ways away from our car. Hmm... we'll keep going. Maybe it will start taking us westward.

The Pyramids at the Muttart are NOT one of the challenges. 

Nope. We followed directions south and east over to 95 A street and 101 ave and spotted our final 'check point' if you will, and descended into Louise McKinney Riverfront Park. We completed our final challenge! Yahoo! 

Only thing is now we are roughly 2.3 km away from our vehicle. 

And I have a very tired 10 year old.

So we walked along the river front and caught the Funicular up to the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald area, and then took the LRT back to our car. Wasn't expecting that. We'd all been hoping that the Hunt would make a nice loop back instead of ending quite a ways away. That put a damper on our experience. Plus it would've been nice to have more stops along the way. Not necessarily challenges, but a little info and history since the app was tracking us to send us the challenges at the right time.

This is a rough walking outline of where we went and where we ended. 5.1 km for the Scavenger Hunt (not 3.5, and we even took some shortcuts!), plus the return distance. 

Verdict - the challenges weren't as exciting as I'd hoped, or was lead to believe. One challenge was to take a picture of one of our teammates jumping. Hmm... different and not related at all to the area we were in. But it scored us 50 points, so yay? IDK.

But the scavenger hunt was neat to do it ONCE. Maybe if they had another option, we'd try it again and park a car at the end point (groupon reviewers had mentioned this, as I read after! Dang!) However, we did see some new areas of Edmonton so that was cool. Overall 3 stars out of 5 (averaged from the four of us).