13th Hour Escape Rooms — Attraction in Wharton

I’ve been to 13th Hour before and had an amazing time, so I decided to come back with my boyfriend. The rooms here are absolutely incredible — the setup, the puzzles, the secret doors, and the overall atmosphere are top-tier. Everything about the room itself was amazing. The only problem was the workers, who completely ruined what could’ve been a perfect night.

About ten minutes into our session, a male worker entered and told me to stand in the corner and stare at some cups while he talked to my boyfriend. At first I thought it was part of the storyline, but after several minutes, it became clear that I was just standing there doing nothing while he gave my boyfriend direct answers instead of letting us figure things out. Every time I tried to glance over to see what was happening, he told me to keep staring at the cups. It got boring quickly, and my boyfriend was losing focus because the worker wasn’t hinting — he was basically solving it for us. The glass we had to look through was dirty, which made it hard to tell the colors apart. I politely asked the worker about the old TV hint system they used to have (where we could request hints on our own), but he completely ignored me and just kept asking about the cups.

When he finally left, I said “thank God he’s gone,” because we could finally think for ourselves again. But not even ten minutes later, another worker — a woman — came in and called us “dumbos .” She started giving us “hints” that were really just full answers. I asked her the same polite question I asked the first guy about the hint screen and mentioned how the constant interruptions were throwing us off. She responded sarcastically, saying, “You say you don’t want hints, but now you’re asking for a hint — make it make sense.” I calmly explained that we weren’t asking for answers, we just wanted to be left alone so we could solve things ourselves. I told her I had already spent ten minutes staring at cups while the first worker basically played for us, and now I felt lost and out of the loop. After that, she finally went quiet, helped briefly, and then left.

Between the two of them, the workers were inside our room for around 40 minutes of our 60-minute game. We barely had any time to work together or experience the escape room on our own. It completely killed the excitement and teamwork that makes these games fun. The room itself was fantastic — creative, challenging, and well-designed — but the constant interruptions, rude remarks, and being ignored made the whole thing frustrating.

When we finished, we were greeted by a man (possibly the manager or owner) who was incredibly kind and welcoming, which was a nice way to end the night. I still think 13th Hour has amazing rooms and a lot of potential, but the staff’s behavior during this visit made it an unenjoyable experience. If the workers would let guests play without hovering or giving away the answers, it would’ve easily been a...

This had the potential to be an exceptional experience, but ultimately was disappointing - and an element of extremely poor taste knocks an additional star off my review.

The props were great and the puzzles were very creative, which is why I say it had great potential. The staff was very courteous and helpful.

What frustrated us was that the connections between parts of the puzzles felt much too loose. For example, you'd do something that you think completes a puzzle, but nothing seems to happen. Turns out it opened a drawer in a different room but there was no light or sound effect signaling that something had happened, and you'd have to examine each element of the 6 parts of the rooms in order to find which drawer you'd opened??

Another example is that there were numerous locks with 4-digit numerical combination codes. There was NO clue of which puzzle/code would go to which lock. So any time you solved a puzzle with a 4-digit code, you'd have to go all around the house trying it on every single lock. Takes way too much of a timed game. Another time-killer - one of the hints was in a video. The hint happened rather quickly in the last few seconds of a video a few minutes long. If you don't catch it, you need to rewatch the whole video. FRUSTRATING.

My team has cracked numerous escape rooms before but we needed many hints this time because of issues like this. And one complex puzzle simply didn't work - after trying it several times, with the help of the hint, a staff member had to come in and do it with us another few times until they got it working.

To top it off, I felt that one element was literally in the poorest taste imaginable. Sure, the whole theme was a murder house... one door unlocks to reveal a very realistic crematorium. Complete with a digital fake fire. And in order to solve the puzzle, you need to wheel at least one of your team members into it on a gurney. Our team included at least a half dozen Jewish adults. My own great-grandmother died in Auschwitz and likely was pushed into an oven just like that. We were NOT OK AT ALL with this part of the "game."

So... overall, nice try in the setup and staffing, but I am not going to recommend this place unless and until they make significant...

INCREDIBLE!!!! If I could give the Wizard of Oz Room 100 stars I would. It’s mind blowing!!! It’s almost like being in the movie. The attention to detail, moving parts and puzzles are out of this world. It’s rated as a 3 but it’s much harder. Our game Master was awesome and the 3 of us needed more clues than we have ever needed. If he wasn’t so generous and had given us a little bit of extra time, we would have never gotten out. This room will most likely be impossible to top of rooms I have ever done and will do in the future. I just can’t say enough about it.

This is the first time I’ve been to 13th hour escape rooms (been to haunted house) and I can say with 100% certainty it BLOWS all the places I have been so far OUT OF THE WATER. I will do everyone of their rooms before I go to another place. I would highly recommend this room and place of business. What a job guys! Thanks!

8/12 We did our second room here. We chose The Great Room and to say that it was very challenging is an understatement. The room holds 10 people and has multiple rooms. Again, the staff was fantastic and helped up tremendously. Although we did get out, we were given a bit of leniency because we had 3 people and were getting very frustrated lol. This place isn’t even in competition with other escape rooms. It is FAR SUPERIOR to any other. The sets are incredible and the puzzles are very different. We can’t wait to try all of the other rooms. It’s very cool that they stay with the same theme throughout their rooms with the exception of The Wizard of Oz. I hope they decide to do something like a Willy Wonka room in the future, they would knock it out of the park.

9/9/23 We Did The Cookhouse and it was FANTASTIC. The detail into the set and the puzzles were fantastic. Another room with multiple rooms and secret passages, this was probably the most fun with my wife and daughter that we have done collectively working together. We got out with 2 minutes left. Can’t wait to do the rest of them. On another note, Gabe was our Game Master twice now. Over the top friendly, gives awesome clues and spent some time with us chatting. This place is AWESOME. There just isn’t any other escape...