Escapology — Attraction in Florida

Our previous experience at Escapology Four Corners left us underwhelmed, but our recent visit has completely turned our perception around. What a difference a day – and an incredible game master – can make! This trip, my wife and I tackled "Antidote," "Lost City," and "Narco," and we left absolutely thrilled, already planning our return to complete the remaining rooms at this location.

From start to finish, the rooms themselves were a blast. Each one was well-designed, with clever puzzles that were both challenging and incredibly engaging. We did require a few hints along the way, but unlike our previous visit, every hint we received was perfectly timed and, in retrospect, made complete sense within the puzzle's logic. There was no feeling of disjointedness or illogic; everything flowed beautifully, leading to incredibly satisfying "aha!" moments.

The real MVP of our visit, however, was our game master, Ricki. She was, without a doubt, the reason this trip transitioned from good to absolutely amazing. Ricki was super friendly, enthusiastic, and genuinely fun to interact with during our games. Beyond her excellent game mastering, Ricki went above and beyond. We had only booked one room initially, but thanks to her fantastic demeanor and the enjoyable experience, she helped us to book two more on the spot! Her help and genuine excitement for our enjoyment were truly appreciated.

We still have a few more rooms to conquer at here, and after this phenomenal experience, we are genuinely excited to return. This visit was a complete turnaround, and we wholeheartedly recommend Escapology, especially if you have the pleasure of having Ricki as your game master. She truly elevates the entire escape room experience!

Original review:

We’ve always enjoyed our experiences with Escapology at their Sunset Walk location, so we were excited to try the Murder on the Orient Express room at the Orlando branch. Unfortunately, this experience didn’t live up to our expectations.

To be fair, we were informed beforehand that the game master was managing multiple rooms. However, this seemed to significantly impact our experience. We spent nearly half our time stuck on a single challenge. We were attempting the correct solution early on but didn’t realize that hitting the buttons too quickly was the issue. Had the game master stepped in sooner to guide us, we might have had the chance to progress and solve the room on our own. Instead, once we finally cleared that challenge, the game master essentially gave us the answers for the remaining puzzles without us even asking. This took away from the satisfaction of solving things ourselves.

After we finished, we hoped to salvage the day by playing another room. We’ve often received discounts for back-to-back bookings at other Escapology locations, but when we asked, we were told no rooms were available. Oddly enough, when we checked the website, there were still open time slots.

Overall, this experience left us disappointed, especially compared to the excellent times we’ve had at Escapology Sunset Walk. While there are other rooms at the Orlando location we were interested in, we’re hesitant to return based...

UPDATED/EDITED REVIEW (07/19/2021) Since having posted my initial review the owner, Brandon, reached out to me in a very timely manner to apologize and further accommodate me. He was very sweet, understanding, and even offered to give me a free game to make up for my initial experience. He assured me that he would go ahead and update all of their sites to include flash/photosensitivity warnings for their rooms that have flashing lights. I really appreciated him going above and beyond. Not many businesses are willing to take accountability for slip-ups, and I really appreciate him being so patient with me during all of this. Definitely had to change my review from 3 stars to 5 stars for all of the efforts Brandon and his staff made to ensure customer satisfaction!

Went here for the first time with some friends visiting Florida and was a bit disappointed. We did the Murder on the Orient Express Room. Every time we made progress these bright lights in the room would flash for a few seconds. I have epilepsy and would’ve really appreciated a flash warning before starting the game. After leaving, I checked their website and they don’t have a flash warning posted there as well. I was lucky this time and didn’t have any auras or seizure activity, but someone else with my same condition might not be. It was a really unpleasant surprise, especially because every progression that we made triggered these lights. Efrain, however, was sweet and made sure to accommodate me when he came in and showed us the clues that we missed (that triggered the lights again). As another review mentioned, we could hear everything in the room next to us, especially banging on the walls. It made for easy distractions. Whenever we activated the hints and needed to push the button for further clarification, the same hint would pop up on the screen which wasted more of our time. The game master was very attentive and helpful for the first 20-30 minutes, but it felt like they stopped looking/listening as time went on. We lost about 5-10 minutes due to the fact that our game master wasn’t monitoring the room. We were told 3 different game masters rotated on monitoring us, I just wish they would’ve been more attentive. We spent those 5-10 minutes audibly asking for help and waving our arms for the cameras in hopes of them responding to us on the speaker, but had no luck. For three of us to do an escape room the total was $125. I have been to many escape rooms and have not spent that much money before for them. I was really hoping for a better experience, especially because it is on IDrive, a place that gets a lot of foot traffic. For the amount of money we spent, I don’t really think it was worth it. I know it was the hardest room, but I wish they would’ve paid more attention to us in need of assistance with this in mind. I wish we would’ve had a better experience overall to make us feel easier about spending...

Both my wife and I chose the Under Pressure room. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not enjoy any part of this room and this is the first and last escape room I will attend with this company. It was very poorly done.

My prior experience with an escape room starts with an interesting plot line/story, interesting clues that are solved linear in nature (one leading to the next, one explaining the next, one requiring an item found earlier to solve the next, hidden compartments, keys to open hidden compartments, etc), and a completion of the storyline due to the completion of the clues.

This was not the case...

The storyline starts off with the plot that a German saboteur destroyed part of the submarine that you are on. You only have 60 minutes of oxygen left on the sub to survive and get the submarine running again. Not a bad storyline. I can live with it. Let me be clear: at no point in time do any of the clues involve directly fixing items that were sabotaged nor are they clues that a saboteur would leave behind. Pre-printed dog tags? Letters of the sailers on board? 5+ lock boxes with different locks? What would any of those things have to do with a saboteur? They don't.

None of the clues naturally led to another clue. We were constantly given random pieces of information, none of which had to do with another, and no information as to which order things should proceed. Many times I found myself saying, what the hell does any of this have to do with a sabotaged submarine? Short answer: it didn't. It was just a random logic puzzle thrown into the mix. Because of the lack of connection to any sort of storyline, I constantly found myself dumbfounded as to what I should be looking for next.

What was even more infuriating was how poorly put together the clues were. Try listening to an extremely soft morse code audio while the audio on the connecting room is blaring. I think it took 4 or 5 attempts at listening to the message to copy down what we heard and even what we heard was wrong because the volume was so soft compared to the other TV. Or a clue that says look for numbers written in the telegrams message... except half of the numbers are on the paper that came with the telegram, not the actual message.

If the TV didn't give the clues for the final tank sequence we never would have solved the room. At no point in time did anything directly link the sailor's pictures and information on the wall to the sequence of the tanks. Nothing. Random clues given from the beginning, random information on the letter on the wall, and nothing to link any of it together.

If I could give a zero star rating I would. If you are reading this and want a quality escape room go to Escape Cocoa Beach in Cocoa Beach, FL. Their escape rooms make this one look like a 3rd rate high...