How has COVID Changed Meow Wolf Santa Fe?

A couple years ago, the hubs, Jason, and I went to Meow Wolf for the first time when driving through Santa Fe, New Mexico, on our way back to Colorado from Havasu Falls. We went in curious and did not know a ton about it, but we had an open mind and only moderate expectations. The experience was more than we could have hoped, and I struggle to even write about it because it was one of those “had to be there” kind of activities. No description can do the actual experience justice.

In April 2021, I decided to take my 19-year-old son, Aaron, to Meow Wolf. We made a weekend out of it since it was a seven-hour drive from our home. Aaron graduated from high school during quarantine, and I told him that as soon as Meow Wolf opened back up, I would take him for a graduation present. April 2021 was when we could finally go. But, the pandemic had changed the museum in several ways.

Going to Santa Fe to see all the art museums on Canyon Road is touristy. Having your mind warped by Meow Wolf’s immersive art experience is touristish.

Click to read about the new Meow Wolf in Denver >>>

Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return, at its core, is an art museum. Nobody finds an art museum more boring than I do, I assure you, so don’t let that turn you off. It’s basically an art museum without rules. The artists don’t have limitations when creating, and the visitors don’t have rules when experiencing it. Want to touch everything? Go ahead. Want to fully immerse yourself in the mysterious storyline and try to solve the riddle? Knock yourself out. Want to climb around and play? You can. Want to sit quietly and just observe? That’s ok, too. 

The museum starts in the front yard of a large house. Nothing unusual about it (except, of course, that there is a large, life-size house inside of a museum.) Entering the house, you can explore the living room, kitchen, laundry room, or upstairs to explore some bedrooms. There are clues about the Selig family who once resided there and have now disappeared in each room. If solving this mystery interests you, you can spend hours reading through files and journals, clicking through computer files, or thumbing through photos, hand-written letters, and newspaper articles. This aspect of the installation feels similar to an escape room, and the storyline is reminiscent of the Netflix series Stranger Things.

The more you explore the house, the more odd things you find until, at some point, you are spit out into another dimension. This may happen because you walked through the refrigerator or entered through a clothes dryer. Or maybe found a moving wall. This dimension is colorful, strange, and mind-bending. One with no rules. A world that is oozing with creativity and inspiration, and awe. This is where the art and fun really begin. 

House of Eternal Return boasts 70 rooms of art, each completely different from the other. Guests are encouraged to explore them in any order or way they want and are also encouraged to touch and interact with the art. There are treehouses, a treetop retro camper, a bus turned on its backside to be experienced laying down, mirror rooms, laser rooms, music rooms, recycled trash turned into beautiful mosaics, dinosaur bones in the arctic that have musical instrument rib cages, hamsters appearing in strange places… you get the idea. And those are just the things that can be put into words. 

The awe and wonder that someone feels when going to Meow Wolf for the first time are hard to beat, so I wondered whether it would even be fun going a second time. I will say it is worth going a second time! First, it was fun to go with someone who had never been, to watch them explore and experience it for the first time. I told Aaron all about it and showed him photos, but it’s not the same as seeing it in person.

Second, there was an entire wing of the museum that my husband and I never found when we were there the first time. We literally missed about an eighth of the museum and had no idea. I was so excited to find these new rooms that they were worth the price of admission themselves. Meow Wolf also periodically updates some of the rooms, so there is almost always something new to discover.

When I went there the first time, I also found that there was so much to take in and see that I was doing it on a macro level. It can be joyfully overwhelming, in fact. But, the second time, I looked at the closer details, the small nuances, and found that there was even more, to see that I had just walked past the first time. So, hands down, it is worth going a second time. And probably worth returning every couple of years at least.

Of course, Meow Wolf is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, just like most businesses. But, they have plenty of health and sanitation protocols in place to keep guests safe:

• Everyone over the age of four is required to wear a mask (no gaiters or bandanas)
• Vaccines are required for concerts and special events at Meow Wolf (but not the installation)
• No food or drinks are allowed in the art installation 
• Extensive cleaning and sanitation, upgraded HVAC filters, and hand sanitizer throughout the installation
• CDC and local health department guidelines are being followed, and their regulations will change as needed to stay compliant

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The first most noticeable thing is restricted ticket sales. Gone are the days of showing up on a whim and buying a ticket. Occupancy requirements mandate fewer ticket sales, which means the tickets sell out faster, and advanced tickets are a must. This could be a good thing because it means sharing the installation with fewer people, right? However, there weren’t noticeably fewer people, and it still seemed pretty darn busy to me.

The next most noticeable change was that several of the props were missing from the inside of the house. You used to have the ability to dig through files, photos, journals, and books belonging to the fictional family of the house. Those have been mainly replaced by QR codes that will pull up a website with those artifacts on your phone’s web browser. It’s a creative workaround, but definitely not the same. Other artifacts were wrapped in plastic and plastic tubs that are easier to wash than the originals. It took away from the aesthetics, but I preferred that over QR codes.

Some things were completely closed off to prevent the spread of COVID. The most noticeable and disappointing thing was that the iconic clothes dryer you used to go inside to take a tunnel slide to another realm was off-limits. Clear plexiglass blocked the slide, making it an art piece instead of a cool, surprising portal to the “other side.” I get it: they don’t want people going down the slide, smearing their cooties down the sides, and then having other people ride the cootie-slide. It makes total sense. It just was a bummer.

There are some small music rooms, mirror rooms, and puzzle rooms that pre-COVID as many people, namely teens and kids, as possible would cram in, throwin’ elbows, to touch all the buttons. Now, these rooms are limited to one family or group at a time. This means some rooms had a line to wait for our turn, but once we were in, we could enjoy it in peace and at our own pace. I was a fan of this idea.

Masks are absolutely mandatory for anyone over four years old, and they cannot be removed under any circumstances. Staff members are lurking in hidey-spots to ensure this rule is being followed. Meow Wolf is an Instagram Selfie Haven, so for people wanting to have some cool maskless pics, that’s not going to be an option for the foreseeable future, even with vaccinations.

I am grateful that Meow Wolf could rework some of its installations to make it more COVID-friendly. If I had never been before and didn’t know how it was in the “olden days”, I would have had an amazing experience and not missed anything. So, I highly recommend going to Meow Wolf during COVID if it’s your first time.

But, with missing props and especially a closed-down clothes dryer slide, I will admit my heart hurt a little with disappointment. I think for those who have been to Meow Wolf before, you will find some of the changes innovative (like instead of using a hand to open doors to different realms, there’s an elbow button!). But, some of the innovations will feel lame, like a QR code instead of a pile of newspapers.

Omega Mart is a Meow Wolf installation in Las Vegas, Nevada, that opened in February 2021. I have not yet been, but I would love to go in the next year or two. It is grocery-store-themed, and the grocery store is full of quirky and funny items before you go to the other “realm.” I have not yet been to this Meow Wolf, but I’m hoping to take the family next year. If you want to hear about that trip, subscribe to my email list for updates when that happens.

Convergence Station is their newest exhibition, and it opened in Denver in September 2021. You better believe that I was there within the first couple of days so that I could report back to you on whether it was as good as House of Eternal Return! Click here for the full report!

Beyond that, Meow Wolf has been pretty tight-lipped about where the next location will be after recently pulling out of planned projects in Phoenix, Arizona, and Washington D.C.

Because Omega Mart and Convergence Station were designed and opened during COVID, I believe COVID considerations would have been worked into the design, and the experience not impacted. And, if they had initially had other ideas pre-COVID, well, I guess we will just never know! 

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