Forget Disney World. This Orlando-area vacation home rental that’s gone viral is a destination in itself.
“Many guests tell us that they came to Central Florida just for our house. It’s a full-scale vacation experience with no lines!” owner Andrew Greenstein told The Post.
“It” is Great Escape Parkside, a board game-themed McMansion.
“It’s not just a place to sleep,” added Greenstein, who owns Orlando Area Luxury Rentals and manages four rental properties that are all more fun than functional.
He started getting down payments from guests wanting to stay at Great Escape Parkside, which opened in 2019, before he’d even broken ground. Four years later, the property is so popular its waiting list often has a waiting list. Travelers come from all over the world to fight over 15 bedrooms that make you feel like you’re living la vida Hasbro.
In the Monopoly bedroom, choose from crashing in a car bed on Virginia Avenue or a wheelbarrow bed on the Community Chest. The Scrabble bedroom is covered in floor-to-ceiling tiles. Even the linens feature oversize letters.
The two adjoining Clue bedrooms? They’re part of the Clue Escape Room, where guests have 60 minutes to solve a series of intricate puzzles in order to “escape” in time. There’s also a bedroom inspired by Twister and one that looks like a hospital a la Operation. (It even shows Cavity Sam’s bare backside, which is definitely not a part of the original game.)
Greenstein says he’d call dibs on the Ms. Pac-Man room. It was hand-painted by professional theme park artists and features an arcade machine loaded with all the ’80s classics. The room also comes with a library of cartridges to use in an original Atari 2600 and a Colecovision console. (For modern gamers, there’s the Xbox and Playstation bedroom, just across the hall.)
In total, Great Escape Parkside, which starts at $1,595 per night, can sleep up to 54 guests. Greenstein says he hosts mostly family reunions but he also gets lots of church groups, weddings and multi-day senior trips. He sees a lot of familiar faces, too.
“The group who checked out just the other day was on their ninth stay and has their tenth one booked for October already.”
Of course, it’s not just the bedrooms that are full of fun. The house’s indoor communal spaces start with a Jumanji 2.0 Theater with cinema seats and ’90s movie memorabilia (including an autographed photo of Robin Williams).
Then there’s the carnival midway, the commercial laser maze – Great Escape Parkside is one of only two homes in the world that has one – and the main living room where instead of couches and carpet, guests find a life-sized chess board and all the king’s men. What guests most hope to find, however, is the hidden lottery ticket worth up to $2 million.
“I’ve recently started hiding Monopoly scratch-offs in the house,” Greenstein said. He insists it’s always somewhere “reasonable,” where guests won’t need to climb or use tools. “About 50% of guests find it, and so far the biggest prize has been $10 to $20.”
Guests who don’t spend their entire vacation hunting for the golden ticket inevitably find themselves outside. Great Escape Parkside is home to the world’s only “billiards” pool complete with a water cannon cue and a chalk hot tub that seats seven. There’s also a lazy river with a real current and a two-story water slide that culminates with a 3-foot freefall.
Guests who want fun in the sun but don’t want to get wet can sink submarines and carriers while playing backyard Battleship. There’s also a giant Connect Four, and a 4-foot-tall Jenga.
What’s more, Greenstein is thinking about expanding his empire of entertainment-driven real estate.
He’s is going to put some more ideas into action when he and his wife become empty nesters next fall.
“The ideas are still top secret, but I can tell you this: we have a new concept for a style of vacation home that transcends anything ever done before,” he told the Post. “It’s a completely unique and immersive vacation experience that will be a literal GAME changer.”
