Today is Nicole’s birthday. She has had a desire for many years to visit a mythical place in Hollywood called the Magic Castle. It is where magicians from all over the world strive to perform in one of its numerous showrooms. It is invitation-only, and one cannot simply buy a ticket. In fact, it is fairly difficult to gain access to this coveted locale of the dark arts. One has to either be a member of the Magic Castle, which essentially means they must be a magician themselves or have been invited by one in their own right. Alternatively, Los Angeles County occasionally gives out access if you donate blood. Lastly, you can get an invite if you stay at the adjacent Magic Castle Hotel, which has specific room rates which entitle you to an invite.
Despite living in the city of Los Angeles, where you would think we would run across more magicians in our daily lives, we had to resort to the hotel option. Interestingly enough, SALT, everyone’s favorite elder travel couple, have stayed at the hotel in the past when I lived in Hollywood …*checks notes and gasps* …16 years ago. º_º They, however, had some sort of different pricing scheme and were unaware of all the hotel’s quirks which I am about to tell you about.
First things first — calling the Magic Castle Hotel a hotel is being generous. It’s a pretty beat looking motel with average prices that rival a five star hotel. If you’re a tourist and think being central to Hollywood is a good idea for your vacation, it’s an okay location to be. If you have children, it might also be a hit because there is unlimited soft-serve ice cream, snacks, and soft drinks. This also includes the famous popsicle hotline, a phone at the pool with direct line to the office where an employee gives you white gloved service to an array of popsicles.
The problem with the er motel, is that there aren’t any places to just sit and chill. The lobby’s too small, the pool is saturated with bodies, and our room was a bit confining as well. So as much as we wanted to try out the popsicle hotline, we ended up just hanging out in the driveway for a spell just to get away from all the flotsam. While we were chilling outside, a gaggle of about 60 girls entered the motel. It did not seem there were enough rooms to accommodate everyone that we kept running into. Perhaps that is the greatest magic trick of all.
With relaxing at the motel being an impossibility, we got all dressed up to go to the Magic Castle itself. There is a very strict dress code that required I wear a suit for the first time in years. Furthermore, and for understandable reasons, no photography was allowed inside the castle beyond the lobby area, so I will do my best to paint a picture with my words. Also, that’s why you’re getting three pictures of Bricole basically in the same pose. But you’re welcome, I suppose. Paparazzi would kill for this kind of content.
The Magic Castle is difficult to describe. It is part Haunted Mansion of Disneyland, part Milwaukee Safe House, and part speakeasy. We entered by saying, “Open sesame” to the bust of an owl. We found ourselves in line for a small parlor room for some close up magic. Our first magician, Paul, performed a variety of card tricks before upping the ante so to speak. He wrote down a number on his cellphone and then asked if anyone had any currency on them. Nicole being from New Jersey, was one of the few people who actually had cash on them. After handing Paul a $20 bill, he showed us that the number he had written down matched the serial number of Nicole’s bill. Oooh aaaaah! All the shows ran about 20 minutes or so, which was about the right amount of time. We then wandered a bit to find an elderly Asian man named Melvin in an empty room performing more sleight of hand. It was now time for our dinner reservation.
They have their own dining room and we splurged for Nicole’s birthday. After some filet mignon and a mushroom pasta, I got a pretty slamming banana cream pie, but they also brought out champagne and a little bowl of ice cream and fruit because they knew it was Nicole’s birthday. I snuck a quick picture as I felt this wasn’t revealing any tricks of the trade. The place is a maze and often a bit confusing. And on top of that, you encounter people standing around a table throughout and it’s not clear if they’re about to perform some more magic or they’re just waiting for their partner to come out of the bathroom. Speaking of bathrooms…every corner of the Magic Castle has some kind of Easter egg to discover.
There were phones in the bathroom that would evidently do some sort of thing where they would call a number and give you an alibi as to your whereabouts. This, however, did not appear to be working from my experience at least. Elsewhere, there were trick mirrors, portraits of skeletons, and in one particular room a ghost playing a piano. Her name is Irma and she claims to be able to play any song you request. The sign with her bio next to her stated that one needed to request the songs loud enough because 1) she’s old and 2) an apparition. Seems legit. Other guests were overall really friendly inside the castle — wishing Nicole a happy birthday everywhere we went (she was given a button to remind them, but still). As we entered Irma’s room, another group cleared out gesturing to us that we might want to request a song from her. Nicole naturally went with “I want it that way” by the Backstreet Boys. I later requested the theme to Jurassic Park, which was played within about one second of me saying it — too fast for someone to google sheet music or queue a song. Pretty impressive. Well played, Irma.
We then had another magic show in a large hall, but despite being billed as the sort of main event of our evening, it didn’t really dazzle either of us with the illusions being pretty predictable and somewhat cliché. Nevertheless, one of the performers made the contents of a gentleman’s wallet disappear whilst the man had his hand around the wallet and inside his pocket. Interestingly enough, the contents of my wallet also disappeared during our dinner. Ala kazaaam! After watching a British performer do some more mediocre card tricks, we continued wandering the labyrinth of rooms.
During this wandering, we saw a guy in a cowboy hat and some rope sit down at a table and we reckoned he was about to do some magic, so we shyly sat down with him. He called himself “El Ropo” and did a lot of tricks with . . .rope. That probably sounds pretty lame, but he was one of the more entertaining performers of the evening. He made light of the absurdity of many of his tricks with a heavy dosing of humor. Sitting directly next to him, I was asked on multiple occasions to assist with his tricks. We went to one last show in the closeup magic parlor again where a gentleman from Spain did some card tricks which defied explanation. This was a good way to finish our evening and we walked the short distance back to the motel.
We collected a substantial amount of snacks from the lobby, walked by the now empty pool, and returned to our small room for the night. There are two experiences that could be reviewed about The Magic Castle. The motel is frankly pretty bad. It’s old, it’s beat, it’s nothing special. It is only redeemed by the staff who were delightful. They’re trying to spice it up with the snacks and popsicle hotline gimmick and all that, but they are charging way too much for what it is. The actual castle and magic part is expensive in its own right, but well worth the money in my opinion. So if one has to stay in the motel to get the other, I guess that’s alright. At the end of the day, all of this was still cheaper than a single ticket to any game at the 2026 World Cup.
passports & pepto bismol 