Great Room Escape — Attraction in Layton

We just finished the Mobster escape room, and while it was fun, several frustrating aspects took away from the experience.

First, when we asked for hints, there was a significant wait time, which cut into the time we had to complete the room. This made it difficult to maintain momentum and solve puzzles efficiently. Additionally, we were new to escape rooms and didn’t know what certain sounds meant. We weren’t informed about them beforehand, which caused confusion. I assume this was because our account was mistakenly categorized as bounce-back passes, leading the staff to assume we had been there before.

Second, the paint-matching puzzle on the door was unclear. The paint colors on the door didn’t match the ones on the paper, and some were so similar that they were nearly impossible to distinguish. A helpful fix could be adding small markers—such as shapes or directional indicators—on both the paint and the door to provide better guidance.

Additionally, the peephole puzzle was frustrating. Looking through it, we could see multiple numbers with no indication of which one was correct. A simple solution could be blacking out the unnecessary numbers so that only the relevant one is visible. I mentioned this to a staff member, who agreed and said they would pass along the feedback, but this issue really impacted our experience.

We also weren’t told that the hints would be very random. We asked specific questions out loud but never received direct answers, making it unclear whether the staff could hear us at all. Meanwhile, we could hear employees giving instructions to other rooms, and at times, when we could make out what they were saying, we realized they were helping another group—not us. This added to the confusion and took away from the immersive experience.

On the booking side, there were issues as well. I called to book because I had Admit One passes (not bounce-back passes) and requested a military discount. The staff incorrectly categorized my passes as bounce-back and then said they couldn’t apply multiple discounts in one transaction. Had I known, I could have easily done separate transactions. Additionally, they required me to come in person to show my military ID instead of allowing me to send a photo. More frustratingly, they processed the payment before confirming the final cost with me. While I understand that the discount was small, the gesture matters, and better phone etiquette would have improved the experience.

Overall, while the room had potential, the combination of unclear puzzles, delayed and unhelpful hints, and frustrating customer service made it difficult to fully enjoy. It also made team-building harder due to the added stress. With some adjustments, this could be a much better experience for...

Writing this as I sit in the car sort of ticked off. We brought our 11 year old and three friends for The Quest. I asked on the phone about supervision. I was told that either one of the staff could do it or the parents could sit in. Once here, they want to charge full price for the parents (who aren't participating), Oh, and by the way, it's mandatory. So, at $35 each, I get to sit in the car while my wife supervises and my son has his birthday. Lame. It already costs $160 for four kids - charging more just to let a parent observe (especially when they require it) is just plain asinine. I totally regret this choice.

Update: In response to the business response - I understand the policy (though the employee told me it would be fine if my wife and I wanted to observe). My point is this - for adults, that rule makes sense. However, when you have parents who just dropped $160 to pay for a birthday party - and then you tell them they MUST observe (not planning to participate) but for the parents to observe it will cost another $70. Would you pay $230 for a five kid birthday party? Do you even WANT kids birthday parties? Your employee (though she went against policy) was smart enough to know that if you want the party full of kids, and you REQUIRE the parents to supervise, then you need to let the parents supervise without asking for a ridiculous amount of money. Your employee instinctively understood the business side of it and how logical that sounded. I am just trying to do you a favor.

One last thing. This is a public forum with my name attached and you are calling me a liar and so I will defend my integrity. You might want to talk to your staff. You seem so sure that no one offered the option of having the parents sit in the lobby while the staff monitored. . . maybe your staff will come clean? Maybe not. . . but please don't call me a liar. I did not come to your business looking for a negative experience. I am just explaining exactly what happened. The kids had a good time. The parents. . .not so much (and the parents have the $). It is up to you to figure out how to correct it (if you even want...

Honestly, we were really excited to go to do the Houdini escape room, but we were pretty disappointed. We were a group of 10, and two random people were added to our group. It ended up being way too many people in a room. We were also disappointed that we had to open SO MANY locks. It was lock after lock, and halfway through we were tired of looking for the next lock. We also had to keep going back into all the rooms. We’ve never been to one where we had to go back into a room, when we opened a new door at other places, we wouldn’t have to go back and forth. There also wasn’t a sequence to opening and getting clues, it was all just random. Then, our Bess was completely out of character. She never explained anything about why we were opening all these random locks, and we ended up getting these gems that didn’t make any sense, it would have been better to do like a crystal ball or something, or at least explain what we were looking for and why we were holding rocks for no reason. She kept snapping at us not to touch things, and trying to act like she was part of our group. She was so excited to go home, at what I would assume was the end of her shift, that she was constantly cleaning up behind us, and leaving us unsure about whether we had already done those clues. It was extremely annoying, and made us feel unwelcome. She also said that the ending was “cheesy” before the video at the end played, and invalidated the video and the hour we had spent getting to that point. We were disappointed in our experience with the Bess, and with the repetitiveness of unlocking 15+ locks. We are not likely to return, or to suggest to anyone else to visit, there are plenty of better escape rooms with less repetition and more...