Catalina Island

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Fantastic Catalina Race

Catalina Island, USA

1 hour 30 minutes
Pickup offered
Offered in: English

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Overview

If you’re looking to see California’s Santa Catalina Island, but also want to add some excitement to your day, try this Santa Catalina Island Race and Mystery Experience from Avalon. This experience is perfect for people who enjoy solving clues, as it sends you around the island to sightsee while you play and go on a fun, interactive mystery adventure.

Combine a sightseeing tour with a little mystery for a unique experience
Perfect for families looking to bond and sightsee actively
An all-inclusive experience includes snacks, beverages, and goodies
An easy-to-find meeting spot in Avalon makes for a stress-free start

What's Included

The hunt is all-inclusive, and covers clues, goodies throughout, snack and beverage, and prizes.

All-inclusive tour

Meeting and Pickup

You can head directly to the meeting point, or request pickup

Meeting point

220 Metropole Ave, Avalon, CA 90704, USA
NEW COVID PROTOCOLS: All players must contact us upon signing up. We will then send full registration materials including a contactless waiver form.

Pickup point

Avalon

Start time

11:15 AM

End point

This activity ends back at the meeting point.

Pickup details

NEW COVID PROTOCOLS: All players must contact us upon signing up. We will then send full registration materials including a contactless waiver form.

What To Expect

Catalina Island Casino

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

The Fantastic Catalina Race

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Wheelchair accessible
Stroller accessible
Service animals allowed
Near public transportation

Transportation is wheelchair accessible
Surfaces are wheelchair accessible
No heart problems or other serious medical conditions
Travelers should have a moderate physical fitness level
This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.

Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.
This experience requires good weather. If it’s canceled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date or a full refund.
This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If it’s canceled because the minimum isn’t met, you’ll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Reviews

4.0

14 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

We perform checks on reviews

Showing 1-3 of 14 reviews

Go with the flow

Jack_C, Mar 2024

We had a great time running around and solving the puzzles. Unfortunately our cell service (AT&T) went down completely, but that just meant we had to borrow a cell phone from some random strangers, just like the race on TV. We saw other teams arguing so just remember to keep your team(s) small, go with the flow and have a great time. It was super fun!

Don't Do It...It Sucks!

Angelic_W, Jul 2021

Let me start out by saying that I understand that we are in the middle of a pandemic and that modifications have probably been made to address said situation. Taking that into consideration, this experience Did not meet my expectations at all. I literally spoke to a gentleman named Bob about what to expect. I was told that I would meet somebody named Matthew at the event site and that this was a mystery scavenger hunt that was a far more entertaining experience than the Cabo crawl,(The Cabo crawl is an Amazing Race like experience that involves drinking games/ fear Factor like challenges for ADULTS, full employee participation that includes people at every location supervising individual and group challenges at each location, decoys on the path to steer you in the wrong direction if you ask for help, a free t-shirt, and a slideshow and award ceremony at the end of the event... An absolute blast for our entire group that we gladly paid $50 a person for! And although Bob said there was no drinking in this, he knew exactly what I was referring to and said that this was a far better experience...Really Bob...Really🤬). Upon arriving, there were instructions written on a wall and we were given a code to start the game off with via an email in the beginning. We could not follow the directions on the wall because the liability QR code that we were supposed to scan was not loaded to receive our participants. It stated there are no games set to start within the next hour... So I called the number and the girl on the other end, very snidely asked me, if I had read all of the directions THOROUGHLY! Which I replied, yes! I did however, I told her the problem we were having and then she changed her attitude a little bit and said " oh let me load the game in".. At that time, I asked her where Matthew was .. You know that person we were supposed to meet... The lady on the phone(I refer to her as that because I honestly, don't recall her name), then informed me that we were not going to be meeting anybody that this was a self-guided scavenger hunt that there would be no employee interaction whatsoever ... I told her what Bob had said on the phone and she said I don't know why he said that.. That being said this is exactly what the gal said on the phone.. A self-guided scavenger hunt. What she left out was that the scavenger hunt is probably at the level of 4th graders. Seriously guys, this was not challenging, informative, or exciting in any way shape or form. The prize at the end of the scavenger hunt was a $5.50 coupon to Lloyd's ice cream shop! Not even an ice cream for every person that participated in the event that was $33 a person by the way.. Did I mention that! So for $33 a person (mind you we had nine people so I paid $297 for this wonderful waste of my life that I can never get back), You walk around Catalina looking for toddler-style clues to find an ice cream coupon at the end. Piss off! If I had paid $5-8 bucks a person for this and had a bunch of kids in my family group, then maybe it wouldn't be so disheartening... Yet, $33 a person for a self-guided, ill thought out unimaginative, scavenger hunt for a group of engineers, and other professionals ...in other words smart adults, who by the way, worked their asses off on a regular basis and don't get a vacation very often. ARE YOU KIDDING ME BOB!!! All I can say is...Well done Bob. You got me and my money and an hour and a half of our precious valuable vacation time. This border lines on a scam and was very deceptive of Bob to describe the event in the way that he did. It will now be my life's goal to post This review on every forum available... And hopefully it'll save some other people from being cleverly and quite frankly cruelly scammed out of their time and money. 1,000 curses to you Bob. May you reap what you sow times 3 ☠️

Response from Host, Aug 2021

Hi, This is Larry, the thousand-times-cursed Bob's partner. We are all appalled at the experience you had. We would very much like to make it up to you and your group. When you have a moment, please contact me directly through our website - fantasticrace.com. (I don't think that Viator will let me give you my direct email address here, but I'll see any notes that go through the website, and then get back to you asap.) I look forward to hearing from you, and with luck and time having you lift the curses from Bob's very sorry head.

Unfortunate

robin_k, Apr 2021

Absolutely horrible. Our Viator confirmation page told us to meet at the green pleasant pier. We arrived 15 minutes early and could not find Cordario adventures anywhere. No one on the pier knew who the company was. We called the 1-800 number on our Viator confirmation page god help. Someone overseas answered the call and tried to troubleshoot the situation to no avail. There was also a local number on our confirmation page that we called twice and got Bob’s answering machine. Our kids were completely disappointed and tired by the drama. Thirty minutes after our scheduled start time, we got a call from Catalina Fantastic Race to see if we were coming. They were helpful and told us we were supposed to have gotten. An email that told us y to o meet at The Escape Room?? We walked to the Escape Room to meet one of their reps. No one was there. We called the number on the wall and the rep gave us a code to open the lock box with the clues. We tried clue #1. It made no sense. Exhausted by the entire drama, we quit

Response from Host, Apr 2021

Hello. We are so sorry to hear that you had such an awful experience. While we take full responsibility, the fault lies much more with the booking and confirmation procedure. As soon as we receive a booking from Viator, we message the guest (in this case, you) through the Viator portal to let them know the starting line details. We did just that for your booking. Unfortunately, that message does not always get to the guest. We don't understand the reason for the disconnect, and Viator has not explained it to us. Knowing that the guest does not always receive the message, we do have a stop-gap in place whereby the booking confirmation (and the Viator site itself) instructs the guest to contact us directly for full starting line instructions. We are not sure why that did not happen in your case. In any event, we are indeed quite sorry. We pride ourselves on our great experience and customer service. Clearly we failed in your case. We hope you will give us another shot either in Catalina or, post pandemic, in one of our other spots - Los Angeles, St. Thomas, Cozumel, Sydney, or Kona - when those locales are able to be up and running again. If you are interested, please contact us directly, and we will comp up to 4 admissions. Thank you very much.