Mission Escape Rooms — Attraction in Annapolis

(This review is being re-posted from two years ago) We bought a Groupon for one of the escape rooms, and went the same day we purchased it, July 9th. So we get to Annapolis Street at around 8:50 p.m., and Mission Escape is nowhere to be found. Our group of four's scheduled time was 9 p.m. in the Edgar Allen Poe themed escape room. We are thinking we made it, we just could not locate the place. So we call and they answer right away and we tell them we are on ANNAPOLIS Street and could not locate the establishment. They said they are not located there, but are located on 40 WEST Street - Groupon really mucked up the address for this one. Luckily, we GPS it and let them know that it is only 5 minutes away, and is that too late? No, so we make our way. We found good, FREE parking [after 7:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday it is free] on the same street as the establishment. We get there and they say they had to start the room without us, but give us other options. We could do one of the other rooms, or they were willing to book a whole room for us an hour later at 10, due to the Groupon address issue! They are SO NICE! Really great customer service! They even gave us free ice cream vouchers for the mishap! We booked the 10 p.m. room and walked to get the ice cream. It's in Annapolis, the actual city area right near Main Street and the Harbor, so it was a really nice scene and walk. We made it back and they took us back, almost immediately, to the room. It was really fun! There were some excellent clues and quite a few distraction clues! We did not solve the puzzle to escape the room, but we came pretty close, and it was well worth it! They said the room we had was 2nd hardest, and this was our very first escape room, so we had a bit of a harder time than if we had tried one of their easier rooms for our first escape room attempt. Great customer service, really great owner Jason, really cute and clean establishment, an awesome themed room and great clues, and a great location. We will definitely be going back to try the other rooms. And we definitely recommend that you give Mission Escape a try! You will not be disappointed with the customer service or the experience; we know we weren't!

Update: We intend to check out their other location in the Waugh...

This was my first experience with Mission Escape. My previous two escape rooms were with Breakout Games in Columbia. I will draw some fair parallels between these two in my review, but by no means is my review advertisement for Breakout Games.

We did the Hansel and Gretel room, which was very challenging (we did not complete). Our group had eight or nine participants, and this particular challenge is in a relatively dark room (nothing given away - this info is also on the room description on their website). The amount of equipment for lighting was not adjusted for the number of participants, which was frustrating as some people were proverbially in the dark, having to rely on their peers for lighting. It would not have changed the difficulty of the puzzles by providing a little more equipment.

The game time was 50 minutes, which is 10 minutes less than what Breakout Games has for a tad bit more money even. The duration is quite a bit tight, in my opinion, especially since this was rated 9/10 for difficulty. We could not finish, but we were not far from the end, and when the staff revealed the last few steps, several of us noted afterwards that those steps were a bit bizarre and abstract. This is really not sour grapes that we didn't succeed, but it could have been set up a bit different. Personally, I would think that as a business owner I would want to have a bit more success rates for my customers than roughly 10% successful completion.

We occasionally asked for clues, and we found the game master was not tuned into the game. He had to ask where we were and what we had discovered numerous times, which ate up time, and there was noise as employees were clearly chatting in the background. That was just generally a bit off-putting. Breakout Games had much more involved game masters that also proactively made slight, helpful suggestions when it was clear that we needed help even though we hadn't yet asked for it. There was also never background noise there. For the amount of money this costs, I would expect a little more involvement.

I'd like to think this place has some growing pains that they are working through, and hopefully, these suggestions help shape it...

We bought a Groupon for one of the escape rooms, and went the same day we purchased it, July 9th. So we get to Annapolis Street at around 8:50 p.m., and Mission Escape is nowhere to be found. Our group of four's scheduled time was 9 p.m. in the Edgar Allen Poe themed escape room. We are thinking we made it, we just could not locate the place. So we call and they answer right away and we tell them we are on ANNAPOLIS Street and could not locate the establishment. They said they are not located there, but are located on 40 WEST Street - Groupon really mucked up the address for this one. Luckily, we GPS it and let them know that it is only 5 minutes away, and is that too late? No, so we make our way. We found good, FREE parking [after 7:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday it is free] on the same street as the establishment. We get there and they say they had to start the room without us, but give us other options. We could do one of the other rooms, or they were willing to book a whole room for us an hour later at 10, due to the Groupon address issue! They are SO NICE! Really great customer service! They even gave us free ice cream vouchers for the mishap! We booked the 10 p.m. room and walked to get the ice cream. It's in Annapolis, the actual city area right near Main Street and the Harbor, so it was a really nice scene and walk. We made it back and they took us back, almost immediately, to the room. It was really fun! There were some excellent clues and quite a few distraction clues! We did not solve the puzzle to escape the room, but we came pretty close, and it was well worth it! They said the room we had was 2nd hardest, and this was our very first escape room, so we had a bit of a harder time than if we had tried one of their easier rooms for our first escape room attempt. Great customer service, really great owner Jason, really cute and clean establishment, an awesome themed room and great clues, and a great location. We will definitely be going back to try the other rooms. And we definitely recommend that you give Mission Escape a try! You will not be disappointed with the customer service or the experience; we...