The Grape Escape — Attraction in Napa

Family of four -- two parents, two teenage kids. We had done Tick-Tock last time, and so we went for Razum this time, which is advertised as more difficult... -- it was! The riddles are creative, intelligent, never annoying. There is a sense of getting better as you go along within the specific room and, certainly, from room to room. What I mean is, one can become better at solving these rooms. Our family enjoyed debriefing what we had learned that we can take to next time, the various useful heuristics we have determined. For example: (1) work on multiple problems at a time; (2) all riddles need to be solved; (3) not all information is relevant, and some is even distracting: (4) be prepared to undo what you believed was the correct approach; (5) keep a broad sense of what riddles, objects, and clues are still "in the air," because you most probably will need to use them; and (6) if you operate some mechanism, look around if something is happening in response to this action. And so on. Of course, we could never have this "meta" discussion without the experience itself. One nice feature is that it lets everyone shine, because we each bring particular strengths, such as verbal, quantitative, logical, spatial, etc. You probably want to have 4-6 people. 2 is too few to keep abreast of all the riddles, 6 is beginning to get crowded... The facilitator (the spirited Jordyn) struck just the right balance between letting us struggle and offering hints when we asked for them. All in all, a good time had by all. Highly...

For anyone that loves puzzles, solving mysteries, etc., YOU NEED TO COME HERE! My family and I did this while my brother visited, and we had an absolute blast. They have three different rooms available to do, so you can even go a couple of times. My family decided to do two rooms (about an hour or so per room) and honestly I think we would have gone right into the third room if we had the time.

Alicia and Lizette took great care of us, and Alicia's playful hosting (They can use a mic to communicate with you in the room) had everyone in hysterics.

The rooms have some complicated puzzles, but you're allowed to have 3 hints per room, if I'm not mistaken. We only needed 1.5 tips (Alicia chimed in with a bit of a hint since we were very close to solving something but couldn't figure out the last step), but we also had a group of 4 people so we were able to divide and conquer.

The first room we did was the Steampunk Casino. I obviously won't say much about it here as that would ruin the fun, but it really helps you feel drawn into the story.

The second room we did was kind of... Indiana Jones themed. Revenge or Rezum? I forget the name. It's hard to pin down which one was my favorite, which goes to show that they put a lot of care and time into making sure these rooms are engaging, challenging, and fun!

If you're looking for something fun and different to do with your friends or family, PLEASE give this a try; I'd recommend...

As an escape room enthusiast who has done dozens of escape rooms across the country, believe me when I say that Grape Escape in Napa is one of the best! I have tried all of the rooms here, including both of their pop-ups and their new room, and it has been delightful every time. The aesthetics and set design of each room are some of the best I've seen (I especially liked the Kraken Casino in this regard), and you can really tell that a lot of care went into them. The puzzles with only very few exceptions all felt fair and well thought out. They each felt like they had good "escape room logic", with appropriately-telegraphed hints. The kinds of puzzles where you feel clever when you solve them, but when you miss then think "Dang, I totally could have gotten that if I paid closer attention." There are a few puzzles that involve some physicality that might be a bit more challenging for some guests, but there are only a few of those and they aren't egregious.

I also want to personally thank the owners for going above and beyond to help make sure we had a wonderful experience. Consider me a Grape Escape...