The Great Escape Lakeside — Local services in Groveland

For the price and hype, I expected more than I received. The water slide and pool are great. Unfortunately, they book the place out for EVERY SINGLE DAY, no down time for upkeep so many of the amenities that you pay for didn’t work, including the floor piano, the game show booth, one of the casino room games, etc. The water equipment like the paddle boat and canoes are in desperate need of repair/updating. There was no way to properly inflate the humane sized bowling bowl thing, and the side rails left red paint all over you. The dungeon room didn’t even have the bed made up - it was a bare mattress. The escape room had many pieces that you didn’t even use for anything, which was odd, and the tablet didn’t keep time correctly. The theming of the rooms and hidden jokes are great, don’t get me wrong, and there were plenty of towels and fun things to do, but I expected everything they advertised to be working for the extravagant price.

EDITED to add my reply to the owner, as he replied and it didn’t give me an option to reply to him:

No, we did not reach out to the owner during our stay. Why? Because we wanted to enjoy the time we were there with our friends and families and were not going to stop what we were doing to then wait around for the owner to come over and interrupt our event. As for his responses, he did not respond to the comments about the lake equipment nor to the game show booth or casino room game. I didn’t even mention that the 5-person paddle boat has a broken rudder and torn shade screen, or that the canoes were missing their seats, one of which we found in the septic field behind the pool for some reason. The game show booth/karaoke was told to us that it actually didn’t work at all for quite some time and would not be operable ever again, as the manufacturer went out of business and would no longer service it. For the piano, during the intro tour, the person opened the piano and messed around then said “Oh well, guess it’s not working..” As for the implements to inflate the huge human inflatable ball, there were 2 implements for inflating - one was a basket ball hand held inflator, and the other was a bike tire inflator; neither was sized appropriately for the use and the tool shed was searched thoroughly for appropriate inflator and none was found. The painted red inflated barriers were not just releasing paint chips, it was full on red dust that covered you.

My review is not a snub at your family or your home. I’m just letting other people looking for honest reviews know that things are not going to work the way you expect, so just keep that in mind going in. My family and friends still had a nice time, hence my 3-star (average) rating. Thank you...

AHHHH-MAZING!!!!!!! No other word can express how much our family and friends LOVE this place. Where do I begin... My husband and I was looking for a venue for our wedding. At the same time we were also looking for a place to house our immediate family in one place. We both agreed that staying at a hotel just wouldn’t be the same and feel like a home to us. On top of that I just wanted something personable since both sides of the family hasn’t met and i had one wish, one stop shop! One stop shop.....1. place to house 30 people, 2. near all the amusement parks, 3. a place to have our wedding, 4. couple of nights to celebrate pre and after wedding events, 5. A FUN place....etc. i mean my list kept getting longer! So our search began and I even remember saying..”it’s official, the wedding planning has begun.” After searching for a couple of months, nothing fits to what we were trying to look for and the idea of having a theme to match the wedding colors blah blah blah... it was just not me! I wanted the place to be UNIQUE.. Finally, the first property - Sweet Escape, at the time we thought we hit a gold mine!!! All excited, on our way back from kayaking, we ended up doing a drive by and acting like dorks... we took pics of property and sent them to our family... Then there was this property the Great Escape Lakeside and a third Happily Ever After. We fell in love with this place!! The moment we tour the place, it was it!!!! Fast forward...the anticipation of waiting 9 months and planning a wedding was overwhelming but at the end it was SOOOO AWESOME! My family and friends truly enjoyed everything! So much to do around the property that we didn’t even go to any of the amusement parks! Seeing the joy and LOVE from my family making new memories was priceless! One uncle even kept thanking me for inviting him and what a great place! To top it off we had a wedding, a reunion, and celebration of endless love!!!!

#claramunting...

Great Escape Lakeside is everything it looks like and more. I googled “fun Airbnb’s in Florida,” to host our 13 year old son’s birthday weekend, also inviting six of his closest friends. The first time I called to find out about availability, the property manager, Alyssa was so warm and friendly. She even gave me her cell number in case I had any questions before the event. She did a fantastic job of keeping me informed prior to the visit. I was told about “add-ons,” certain vendors I may want, and nearby attractions…as if we really needed or wanted to go anywhere once we arrived at Great Escape! The attention to detail in every single room is unbelievable. There are many hand painted murals on the walls of the bedrooms that coincide with the particular theme along with many wonderful collectibles that have been acquired by the owner that makes this Airbnb so different and special. The boys were absolutely blown away. They spent most of their time going down the slide in the fish-shaped pool, playing basketball on their own private court or in the big ball knocking down bowling pins! This place is literally a teenage boys dream come true but it is just as fun for adults. My husband and I were often upstairs in the game room playing very heated games of Pac-Man and Centipede! The property is very well maintained and manicured. It was “game on,” the minute we got there… with everything set up and ready to go for our convenience. This is truly a remarkable place. Best part… we are now the “cool parents” and our “street cred” with the boys has been raised expeditiously! Thank you for an...