Lakeland Escape Room — Attraction in Lakeland

Over the years my wife and I have come to Lakeland Escape Room several times, doing new rooms as they have come out and enjoying our experience until recently. On two recent separate occasions, we have been extremely disappointed in the quality of experience.

The Coffee Cartel was our first bad experience here. My wife and I did the room as a couple and no other guests. The room was not functioning properly, as when we solved two different puzzles the "solve" wasn't registered and we had to repeat the motions in order to advance. This not only took time, but also ruined some of the immersion. In addition, my wife who was clearly very pregnant at the time, was not informed there would be a component involving some crawling on hands and knees for one specific part, for whoever entered a specific part of the room. The game master failed to let us know, which again created frustration as we had to stop the game as her pregnancy made it impossible to advance the room. With both the malfunctions and the physical issue, we were not given any additional time to solve the puzzle, which resulted in us barely not escaping.

More than a year and a half later, we decided to give another shot since the last experience may have been a fluke. We did The Perfect Heist, and are sad to say our experience was not an improvement. We began our room almost 20 minutes late, for reasons that are unclear as we were told the previous party had run late but also that there were issues resetting the room. Once we began the room, we were sorely disappointed in the quality of the puzzles. Giants leaps of logic were required for some clues, and other puzzles had confusing mechanisms that would require brute-forcing the pieces into different positions to actually solve everything. This time around, our experience was so poor we decided to not finish the room.

Both times we spoke to both the employees present about our experiences, and both times we emailed the owner and both times nothing was done beyond a half-hearted apology about us not enjoying our experience. We used to think Lakeland Escape Room was a great local attraction when we initially started going. It's a shame that I cannot recommend anyone come here anymore, and would instead point anyone wanting to do an escape room to the chain down the...

Unfortunately, my experience at this establishment was not pleasant. To begin we were not properly explained the rules. Apparently we were suppose to be shown a video going over what we needed to know but they never played it for us. Instead we were just directly taken to the escape room.

Immediately once we were taken to the escape room we had to point out that they forgot to lock one of the padlocks that were in the room. So right from the get go the room wasn’t setup properly. As we start playing the game we get stuck on one clue for practically 30 minutes. We are hollering asking for a hint and waving our hands in the air and just unsure how to get there attention that we were stuck. We finally get one clue and says that there are 5 of certain item that we need to find to get the code for a lock and we literally were missing the item. There was only 4 out of the 5 that we needed. The hint that was given told us exactly where these clues were and yet those items weren’t all there. It’s hard to continue when you don’t have all the pieces available.

We had to go out of the room several times searching for someone just to get there attention saying that we’re struggling and need a hint and that we’re missing an item to even continue the game. Not once in those 3 times did they tell us we ALL need to raise our hands at the same time to receive a hint nor did they check on our missing item. They “watched” us struggle on the same clue for practically 30 minutes. We were fed up by the lack of assistance or customer service we were shown. They refused to give us a refund or even a credit to come play a game another time. We lost out on our money and left with a ruined night out.

Fortunately, Escapology which is just down the street from this place was much more accommodating. They explained the rules themselves and also played a video of the rules so we knew how to navigate the game. They also were very attentive and gave us nudges and hints when we asked for it and even when they just noticed we needed it. They truly payed attention and gave us superb customer service. They were very interactive and made our night soooo much better. I highly recommend Escapology over Lakeland Escape...

So, we tried the Lakeland Escape Room for my friends birthday instead of Escapology because we liked one of their themes. This was such a mistake, and I’m writing this so others don’t make the same. The place is run by teenagers who are hardly attentive to the front lobby or even the escape rooms when there’s people in there who need clues (we could hear them screaming and laughing in the employee room from our escape room). We weren’t told until after we paid that the room we chose was broken so part of it would be missing. Then, when we were prompted to read a quote aloud in order to get a clue on the screen, we had to repeat it 3 times for the employees to notice and give us the hint. Then, when we were in the last room, we found a hidden key which would not unlock any of the locks. We raised our hands for a while before someone came to check on us, at which point he told us that the key we found didn’t belong in that room in the first place. So we wasted over 10 minutes being confused and waiting for help. Oh, and the room was in such poor condition that there was a sharp screw sticking out of one of the hangings on the wall. I didn’t want to leave a bad review because I see that they already have a ton of them, so I messaged their account on Facebook and received a “we will respond to your message” automatic response. I NEVER got even a response or an apology, let alone any type of partial refund for the broken room or the bad service. Do not waste your money on this place. I have a feeling it will no longer exist...