Operation Spy

A more fun interactive way to entertain your guests when they visit you in DC. I thought the museum was just okay, but Operation Spy was pretty fun where you work with others to get through clues and solve one puzzle to find a bomb and save the world.

Oh my. Went to Operation Spy with my 11, 12 and 12 year old kids. None of us enjoyed this at all. It was totally fake and not even the kids thought it was fun. During one of the skits; they handed my 11 year old to take this piece of metal and said scan all of the documents in the room. He was like this is a piece of metal it is not a scanner. It was not real expensive, but was not worth the 1 hour we spent. Museum was decent, but Operation Spy was a complete waste of time and money.

I included my thoughts on operation spy in the Spy Museum review. This was really fun. You need to be able to quickly travel in dark spaces and keep up with the group. Kids will enjoy this. The employees did a great job at making an adventure believable. Try to get a coupon and don’t go during the Cherry Blossom Festival or Spring break. Bring hand sanitizer with you since you have no clue (get it?) how many people have touched all the knobs, and surfaces you may have contact with while on your ‘mission.”

I enjoy Operation Spy and think that it’s a good interactive experience. I like experiences and am always opting for such an activity to supplement or be the only component of museums, etc.
I do tend to agree that it can be a lot of material to absorb in a short time-​frame and that it would be helpful to have a pre-​brief pamphlet and/​or introductory short video to assist with starting off on the right foot — so that the information doesn’t feel too overwhelming. This would also help unimportant but tedious, in terms of time or confusion (such as telling participants to select a code name; it really flummoxed some people and therefore simply did not come up with a name). Then, when the experience starts, the reiterated information during the adventure would helps with the ‘digestion’, ‘comprehension’, and putting together the pieces quicker and perhaps more smoother, without the overly-​heavy reliance of the guide.
I appreciate that the experience is small-​group oriented. I suggest that for those with children to inquire about appropriate age-​range.
TIP: If you become a member (disclosure: I am a member) of the Spy Museum you receive free passes for this experience. If you believe that you’ll visit the museum a few times, I suggest you look into the feasibility of the membership.

This review is by my daughter.
Okay this review is from the view point of a kid so stay with me. When I first went to the spy museum I was 9 years old, and saw the ad for operation spy. So 3 years later I’m finally ready to go, and it was okay. We arrived 25 min early for the experience, and then this whole group of people show up from a tourist bus. Which kinda shocked me because I did not think this many people would be joining us, but that didn’t slow them down because they started on time. So we were led up some stairs and they explained we were gonna be entering the fictional city of Khandar, and told us our mission was to locate a missing nuclear missile trigger. Our experience started with a briefing and getting to use surveillance equipment. After that you had to unscramble a phone call. Finally we took an elevator, searched an office, interrogated a double agent, rode in a motion simulator and got rescued by a helicopter.
Now to the things that were not so good about this experience. First off I don’t think the age limit was high enough I was twelve and I got freaked out. If you are thinking about taking your kids on this experience be warned there is darkness, motion simulators, pretend search officer, and a staircase run. Also the lack of participation by the others — my dad was like the only one that spoke, and the rest of the group was pretty quiet so that kinda made it a little boring.

«LET’S GO TO THE SPY ADVENTURE AT THE SPY MUSEUM» Yikes! Panic set in. My kids having gone to the 5Wits archeological adventure in Boston wanted to try this one out. But when do we go during Xmas break? Downtown is way too busy before Xmas and after Xmas you have the post shopping rush. Maybe the day after the day after Xmas would be good… WRONG. It was a Friday, and the streets around Washington DC at 11 am were jammed like it was 5 pm rush hour.
WHAT IS THIS? This is an interactive adventure game. If you ever tried Myst, this is a spy themed version of it in real life. You pretend to be a spy in a foreign country and you go through a maze of rooms to solve the mission at hand. You have to solve tasks at hand, find things, run up stairs… and go into motion simulators which simulate a truck ride, not Magic Mountain… There is only a group of 12 people per session so it’s not a wild free for all chaos. You meet everyone and work as a team to accomplish the mission.
This is located above the International Spy Museum. The entrance is next to the ISM gift shop. This adventure takes about an hour. Admission for just this attraction is $ 14. You have to buy admission into the ISM separately. It is listed as a separate busness with a different address than the ISM.
PROS: Interesting adventure. Props are reasonably realistic. Lots of information to absorb.
CONS: I felt too rushed going through this. The plot is intricate with some surprises. There is alot to figure out. If you don’t solve the puzzles in 5 minutes, the guide helps you through it. There should be a several hour version of this if you really get immersed and into the game. At $ 14 per person, I feel you should be able to take your time if you want to accomplish the mission without help.
OVERALL RATING: 3 stars. 4 stars for the setup and props. 2 stars for the value. $ 14 per person for 1 hour is steep for what you get here. They should have two rates. $ 8 for the hour version. $ 20 for as long as you want to stay version.