Exit Strategy North — Attraction in Charlotte

So much fun! When we initially got there Jay greeted us in a friendly and professional way. He was very welcoming. When I walked in I had never done an escape room and he made me feel comfortable right away. The location was clean and welcoming with computer screens giving information about the various rooms and what the success rate was for escaping. We were asked to fill out waivers as well which were easy to read, understand and get filled out.

As we waited for the rest of our party to come, there were shirts you could buy displayed around the room, there were pictures of people who had escaped and who had not, as well as a display of wooden tokens for each of the games. There was a "yes" side and "no" side for each room, showing how many had escaped and how many had not.

After the waivers were filled out and our whole party got there we were given a general idea about escape rooms, safety, etc. We were provided a locker to put our things into as no drinks, food, cells, etc are allowed in the room, just us.

We then stepped into another room and were given general safety information and then watched a video on how the escape room worked. We were led back to the area were our room was and given basic information and then we were left. And so began our adventure in The Mansion.

There was a butler, Kelly, that met us and made us feel welcome in the home. Unfortunately she was killed and the master of the house was going to frame us unless we could get out. So our task began.

As you begin your task it is difficult but not impossible. You are provided an intercom to use to ask for hints. During part of our evening, one of the items did not function correctly and a voice came over, telling us what we needed to know that we would have missed with that portion of the game not there.

We did manage to get out with about 4 minutes left. We cheered and felt super excited. Aaron met us when we escaped and his first question was "So did you guys have fun?" We all responded that we had and he congratulated us. He seemed to meet our excitement with his own and he seemed to be as happy for us getting out as we were. We were led back through a well lit back hallway back to the front.

We were given a token to all put our names on and then put into the "yes we escaped" display in the front hall. Very proud moment for all of us. Aaron offered to take our picture in front of their green wall and give us a physical picture and digital for $5 or he could take our picture by the escape room wall for free. We took the free option this time.

I had such a great time and I would highly recommend it to anyone even considering an escape room. This one made me feel perfectly safe. People were welcoming from beginning to end and I am looking forward to scheduling my next try there.

Thank you so much to Jay, Kelly, and Aaron for making my first escape room experience a fantastic, memorable experience. I will...

My wife and I have played two games here. The first room looked cool but had some logic leaps, but the real problem was being told not to use force, then messing with an object for 15-20 minutes, sure it was the next step, but not using enough force. The GM should have seen us struggling with it and not just let us fail because we were following the rules.

That was years ago and I didn't write a review. Now we've done over 500 escape rooms and we thought we'd give them another shot. We did Ruins. Cool set, but most of the puzzles were pretty lame and/or had no direction at all. Again one of the puzzles required something that you normally shouldn't do in an escape room, so we needed a hint to tell us to do it. There is one absolutely horrible puzzle at the end that didn't work properly and they said they couldn't bypass it. It eventually worked right after I told the GM we're not going to continue doing this annoying thing that didn't work. He got snarky in response as if I missed that it worked. That was followed by a puzzle that maybe in a full hour someone would have thought to use an object in it's intended way. No direction or explanation. Just a poorly thought out room. And they seem a little proud of low escape rates, which is always a bad sign. Anyone can make an escape room that doesn't make enough sense to solve in a timely manner. Making a good one that's a fun challenge and not just frustrating should be the goal.

There are much better businesses to go to.

I'll add that we had two less experienced (but great) players with us. They thought it was bad too. Actually I gave it more credit than anyone else...

My friends and I attempted Baruta's Revenge a couple months ago, which is touted as being one of the toughest rooms around, with an escape rate of 4%. Our group has done 20-30+ rooms together (and some individuals having 150 rooms done) and this was one of the worst rooms we have done.

It is fine to have a very difficult to escape room if the puzzles are challenging, but Baruta's Revenge is set up to make you fail. The only way you would be able to escape from this room is by having done it before and knowing how to speedrun past the first half of the room.

Our group was completing puzzles at a good pace. When we failed to get out of the room, we thought we were close to the end but were told we only completed ~60% of the room, and that is apparently more than most people do!

There were multiple points in the room where we had to stand there waiting for something to happen, which happened at a snails pace. These artificial time sinks feel extremely bad in an already tight timed room (or more accurately, an extremely mistimed room), especially when part of it is the game master making you do "Ring Around the Rosie" for a minute before giving you a hint, or having to repeat a phrase for 3minutes straight without any indication that you're actually doing the correct thing.

They give a discount if you rebook Baruta's Revenge having done it before, which feels extremely bad when the room is set up in a way to make you fail and requires you to do it multiple times. It is such a cash grab that I refuse to ever do this room again and will do everything I can to steer people away...