Escapology Escape Rooms — Attraction in Tampa

We saw an ad for Escapology Tampa on Tik Tok and it looked so awesome we decided to go there for a birthday celebration. Upon entering, the place appears so well done - definitely the most upscale waiting lounge for any escape room we have visited. We were so excited for the game to begin. We were doing the Lost City room.

Long story short... the first issue was when the manager told us not to touch the crank in the first room until we were "sure" we got to that clue because "people break it". Totally threw off the game. Then there were SO many things in the room that were just downright broken and as any escape room fan knows, when you encounter a broken clue, this totally messes up the rest of the game. A few of the broken clues included a box that didn't pop open when we took the right action (so we never got that clue and therefore the rest of the game was messed up), doors to different rooms that weren't locked so when we tried to open them we could even though didn't get to the clue that should have opened the doors (again messing up the game even more). The game master knew things were broken because she kept giving us clues on the screen we never asked for so we could keep moving forward. This was a hard room. It was obvious after the first 10 minutes we weren't getting out and we were fine with this and just wanted to have fun but because of all the broken clues we "got out" in 44 minutes but not because we cracked the code but because all the broken doors prematurely opened up to the next rooms.

To make matters worse, when the manager came in at the end she told us the owner knew things were broken. She was apologetic for us having had such a bad experience. She said despite numerous attempts to tell the owner that the room needed fixing, he did not fix things because he was putting all his resources into building a new escape room. She offered us another escape room experience at half off. We said we wanted a full refund. She said she didn't have the authority to do that but would call the owner. She called us back after talking to the owner and said he could offer us another experience for free but not a refund "because we got out in under 30 minutes". That was not acceptable to us. We called the owner ourselves and after a serious discussion he finally agreed to fully refund us. We didn't even ask for a free experience to make up for our horrible one because we don't ever want to...

Went in today for my daughters birthday. Drove an hour to get there to be very disappointed. We have been to multiple escape rooms, and not one of them were as bad as this location. The theme was good, the setup was nice. Unfortunately the staff was terrible. This was a more difficult room so we kinda figured we may need a hint or two. We pressed the button multiple times without a response from the staff. Which left us standing there stuck unable to move forward. This caused us to not be able to finish the room. Not finishing was not the issue. The issue was, we paid for an experience and didn't get that experience. The staff (Aracia) that came in after the game was over stated "we got busy, we had a big party come in" so instead of assisting the people that already paid and are in the experience, they ignored us to handle a party that walked in. Then after calling twice I got nothing but excuses, and one of the staff (Aracia) told me a manager would be in a 6 so I could speak to her, then when I called at 6 the other staff member stated "she is not there. And he is not legally allowed to tell me when a manager gets in." I stated that "we drove an hour to go to this escape room and paid $200, for an experience that was ruined" and his response was "$175." He very sarcastically corrected the amount I paid like $175 wasn't a lot of money to throw out on an ruined experience due to an obvious staff shortage. He refused a refund or a credit to a DIFFERENT Escapology location, because we will never return to that location, free or not... due to how unprofessional they were both in person and over the phone. I was told the managers name was Jayleen, I will continue to try to reach her and update this review if warranted.

Update: I did get a call back from the manager Jailene. And she was great. Very empathetic she stated she would be handling the staff that didn't give us the experience we expected. And even offered a...

Staff was very friendly and the atmosphere of the lobby was very cool. My only real issue was the escape room itself (Mansion Murder). Escape rooms are supposed to be difficult and the puzzles are typically challenging but this was the first escape room that I felt had absolutely no direction. Typically a well-structured escape room has a fluidity to the puzzles that keeps you moving along, this escape room however had no direction or linear flow and most of the puzzles were so overly complicated that most people would have no clue where to begin. The staff even said that their escape rooms have 'misdirection' which, to me, defeats the whole purpose and makes the experience dumbfounding and not thrilling. Escape rooms are already difficult so throwing in 'misdirection' only will lead your guests to being overly frustrated and confused. I've done many escape rooms, I've felt frustrated and discouraged but I still had fun. This was the first escape room where I left very annoyed and agitated. When the staff member explained afterwards how the rest of the puzzles were solved I just shook my head because 9/10 people who have never even thought to entertain that. A bunch of the props in the room were broken and were faulty at times, costing us time. We definitely needed to use the clue button but sometimes we would press it and it would take a long time to get a hint, which was ridiculous because time is of the essence in escape rooms. I personally don't think the escape room was well structured compared to others I've done. It almost felt like a trial run escape room that needed more customer feedback in order to polish it into a more coherent and pleasurable experience for participants. I don't think I will be interested in trying the other rooms. Once again, staff was great, atmosphere was great. The escape room itself was...