Grand Rapids Escape Room — Attraction in Grand Rapids

I definitely don’t recommend doing the hacker room and I would in general stay away from this company. There were many technical difficulties and the employees do not know the rooms well at all.

Once we started we had almost immediately opened the first lock where nothing stood out to us. We wandered around the room trying to figure out what to do for a good amount of time before our game master told us what we were supposed to do but then counted that as a clue. At the beginning of the game we were told that in order to use a clue we must all give a thumbs up to the cameras and verbally express we needed a clue. None of us did so, but yet it was still counted as a clue that she gave us the answer. To us, as frequent Escape Room goers, this is a big no no, and very frustrating to us as we could have used the clue for something else we may have gotten stuck on.

The second big thing that was very frustrating was there was a technical difficulty on the 8 sided panel. After finally figuring out which way the switches were supposed to go we found all the cable cord configurations except for the one we were supposed to receive when pressing the buttons on the white/white side. Nothing happened when we did that, we switched all the switches the opposite way, multiple people tried to make sure one of us wasn't doing something wrong, and nothing worked. That was a very large time suck figuring out what we were doing wrong when really it was a technical problem that was not addressed after several minutes. We understand there is a significant chance of a technical issue happening in Escape Rooms and nearly every escape room we've been to has had a technical issue. The difference being that the clock is stopped, or wound backwards after the issue has been realized. This didn't happen. The biggest kicker being that once they did figure out something was wrong, the game master or manager came in and gave us the cord configuration for the white/white side and we knew right away it was incorrect because it was the exact same as the configuration right next to it. We did express our concern with that issue right away but no one responded so we continued, but again nothing was happening anywhere and our clock continued to count down. Finally they opened the door for us that was supposed to pop open when the cord configurations were all set, but at that point we were very close to being out of time.

Another situation was our third clue we were given (and we had actually asked for) literally said to "find the keys to the purple box" which was not helpful at all. Obviously we knew we had to find those keys eventually, so after protests of "that is not a helpful clue" someone came in and told us where to find them.

There were quite a few other issues and annoyances with this room including red herring clues/locks/puzzles, and something that we could barely see through to solve a puzzle. We felt this room was a cheap excuse for an escape room because every step was based on time sucks.

While we understand that escape rooms are meant to be tricky and answers to puzzles should not be blatantly obvious, the puzzles at least need to have an element to help you solve a it without so much trial and error.

The biggest frustration in this particular experience was the technical difficulties with the panel not working how it should, combined with the management/game master very clearly giving out the wrong code/solution to the cables (and then letting us try to run with it for another 5-10 mins), and not stopping the clock or giving time back due to an error on their part.

We were all very clearly displeased with the experience, and we were told we could get a discount on our next room (half of our group had completed all the rooms at that location), but no one followed up with us afterwards. We also wrote an email detailing the experience and letting management know what happened, but we received no response to the email either.

If you’re looking for a fun experience, this escape room isn’t the...

Booked an appointment online and the company had no information on this. The slot was still open but did not allow walk in due to it being "company policy". The lack of customer service and combative management presence was very unprofessional. Will not return after this experience.

Edit after owner reply: To your response, its not how the company has decided to operate based on safety. Its the lack of common decency and treatment of a customer. When your management team is combative and argumentative with no regard to customer service is what has irritated me. Don't be condescending and blame your employees actions on "safety of the group". I fully understand that things are by appointment only. Thats not the issue. The fact we got turned away after a fault in the appointment setting isn't the issue. I totally get it. Mistakes happen and that might be on our end. BUT when a member of your staff/management team is acting like he did and treat the customer so horribly and argue with everything I had to say when I had a question is totally unnecessary and unacceptable. So don't blame covid for your lack of customer service. Thats not the issue here. If you want to lose out on money, that's your porogitive. I don't care if you want to turn away customers. Just next time, don't treat us like second class citizens when doing it. Whats done is done. I thought a business owner would like to know how their customers are being treated, and the lack of care put into your response just goes to show that you don't care how your customers...

My husband and I are escape room tourists and have completed rooms all over the world. We did The Cure room with my parents (who had done an escape room before) and escaped with 14 minutes to spare with one unused hint. Our game master was Paige.

It was good. But not great.

First: I have to be honest when I say that the production value is a bit low — I suppose I can give them a break because the setting was a science lab and there were a few props that required specific design and engineering. However, the room was not terribly immersive. Perhaps one of the other themes would’ve been better in this regard.

The puzzles were challenging, to be sure; however, the game seemed short compared to other rooms that we’ve done. One puzzle in particular was set up in such a way that it could only be solved by trial and error. Having to brute force solutions consumes minutes, yes, but I’m not sure it’s an effective method of testing escape room wits. A good puzzle should be about following the breadcrumbs, and in this instance, it felt like they were scattered everywhere in random directions.

This is the first room I’ve done that employs the command line. That was a fun and interesting touch.

Overall, this is a good experience, though I think it could be improved by varying the mechanics and adding a few more puzzles to replace the super tedious trial and error one. I’d be interested to know the completion rate and or difficulty level...