The Great Escape Room Akron — Attraction in Akron

I have never left a one star review as I am aware what poor reviews can do to a business but I just can’t get my experience off of my mind and feel the need to share with others.

My 13 year old son requested to experience an escape room for his birthday so we booked here. The online processing was made easy and provided me with confirmation right away. Three days after booking I received an email stating that my reservation had been confirmed again for a date 21 days after my initial reservation. I called right away and was told that a mistake was made but they were going to “put my reservation right back where it was”. I wasn’t upset over this because mistakes happen, right? When I called in I asked the employee to confirm that the room that we booked (Rob the Mob) was a good fit for a 13 years olds first escape room to which they responded and confirmed that it was an excellent choice and would be so much fun. Upon booking it was confirmed that we must arrive promptly 15 minutes before our reservation and that we could not be late. Upon arriving we were told that the group before us had “run over” and that we would have to wait. Once again, no problem on our end- we understand that these kind of things happen. Our guide came out, introduced himself, and let us know that we had chosen the hardest room which was a surprise to us considering I had called and confirmed that this was for a child’s first ever escape room. Our guide explained the rules to us, reset the room, and then took us in the room and explained the rules again. This is where it got weird. Our guide was very stern with us about not damaging anything in the room to the point where we all felt as if we were being scolded. We were told that NOTHING would come off of the walls and threatened with the fact that we had signed a legal contract to hold us accountable. We had no intentions on breaking anything in the room but after this we were all scared to even touch the items. I spend a majority of the time ridiculing my sons for even setting things down “too hard”. It was small, hot, and poorly lit. We had to get our phones out just to use our flashlights to be able to see the locks that we were unable to bring closer to the light. We had to ask for several hints and were given hints to things that we already had found. We felt embarrassed to keep asking because we’re told several times that most people like to stay within the 3 hint suggestion. This was a a 3 room series and we didn’t make it out of the first room. When the guide came to bring us out of the room she explained to us what needed to be done for us to unlock the other locks. When she informed us that we were supposed to THROW things high up in the air to knock several targets over to reveal a required clue I was SHOCKED. I immediately let her know that with how stern our initial guide was that I would have never allowed any member of my group to throw ANYTHING in that room and that we would have never escaped because of that. She responded that being stern is required because things have been broken in the past. I understand that but being stern to the point of scaring people out of playing is crazy to me. We all left upset with the time we had. Even though this was an expensive experience we still took our son for additional fun afterwards because he was so sad that this was his birthday experience. We were then asked to leave a review to help bring them to 5 stars even after telling them our concerns and that we did not have fun. So, here’s my honest review. I would...

We've been to quite a few escape rooms locally and out of state. We're here visiting family, and we just tried this one.

To start, the escape room starts when you try to find it. They're in an office building with no real signage from the road. When you get up to where Maps says the location is, you find a dirty glass door with another business' name and a printed little sign for the escape room. This would have been helpful information in the welcome email. Instead, there was zero actual information except their rescheduling policy and not to be intoxicated.

Upon calling and receiving a code to open the door, you open that to a sketchy stairway to the sky. The building was dirty and run down, and it immediately doesn't feel like a real business. You get up the stairs to find a mess of hallways that leads into the area where they are doing business.

The room itself left a bit to be desired. A curtain covered a random sink in the corner, and the whole "escape room" was one room with a screen and a bunch of locks and props. We have played rooms at a similar price that were multiple rooms with passages, a whole real ship in a room, etc. This was a dingy room in a dirty office building.

Our first hint took several minutes to get after the request. Each subsequent hint took quite a while as well.

On our way out, we were asked to come back again and told they were moving to a new location. If this location is any indication of what the next one will look like, I'll pass. I don't think it was worth the $35 per person, and it overall wasn't a good experience. We escaped the room, but I would have rather escaped...

Edited to add new experience! We came last night with a large group to try Mountaintop Murder and it was a blast!!! I loved that there were so many locks and we didn’t have any problems like last time. Some of the clues were a little obvious, that’s my only complaint but otherwise it was a great time. Can’t wait to come back!

I’ll start with the fact that I believe our 3 star visit was a fluke and I would come back to try another room! But with this being our first experience, it was a let down. Our group arrived early as requested but had to wait 10 mins past start time. The woman who took us to the room and talked to us was very friendly and gave a short intro but that’s it…our group was SO confused at the beginning we had no idea where to start or what to do or even what the point was (we had no idea we were even hunting for keys).

The worst part was I felt cheated because of FOUR lock problems: two of the locks had the same combo, another lock was never reset so we found a key totally by accident and proceeded to waste time by unknowingly focusing on the puzzle that was supposed to lead to that key, and last, another lock didn’t open despite having done the correct combo multiple times. Our guide told us before AND after our experience that that lock “has a mind of its own” and doesn’t always open. Locks cost like $15, y’all can’t buy a new one!? Come on. We did end up escaping, but it didn’t feel victorious and there was no sense of urgency until the last ten minutes.

At the end of the day my group had a fun time and we’d try it again, but I sure do hope they reset the rooms better and get...