First Empire Escape Rooms — Local services in Santa Rosa

I recently threw my son’s fifth birthday at first empire. It was a hit! I am giving them five stars for accommodation, excellent service, atmosphere, all of the things! When I first called and spoke with Kent, he was very informative, with clear communication and explained how everything would work for a party. I think I may have called him about 15 more times with numerous questions, and he was very accommodating for each. The day of the party we were able to arrive early to give us enough time to set up all the decorations. As the children arrived, they all got to play in the floor is lava room supervised by employees. This gave us a little bit of extra time for the finishing touches in the separate party room. Yes, there were two rooms which I absolutely loved! They helped us put up our decorations, provided all utensils, plates, birthday boy chair, and even helped with blowing up our helium balloons. During our party, Kent was very attentive and frequently checked in with us to make sure everything was going well and to see if we needed anything. They provided pizzas and drinks, and assistance with the piñata and any games. The lava room is also an escape room of sorts. It was really fun for all the kids to play along with assistance, of course. Even the parents got in on the fun! Once the party was done, they took care of all the clean up and even helped us get all of the presents and remaining decor, that we took with us, back to our car. I would 100% throw another party here! They even do parties for adults not just kids lol. One additional perk is that if you have a kids party here, the parents can do escape rooms while the kids are playing. So it’s a win-win. We did not do a magician or face painter however, they do offer that. And they set up the whole thing so you don’t have to stress about finding anyone. Out of all of the birthdays I’ve done for my son this was the least stressful birthday ever. I cannot recommend...

Unfortunate experience overall. I feel for the one employee who was probably overwhelmed and understaffed - but they were (barely) managing maybe multiple games. Rough from start to “finish”- the lack of a real intro (they showed us how props worked and gave too many clues away), and some of the locks/puzzles were still open or not fixed from the previous groups. When we asked for hints, it was hard to get responses since they were multitasking and managing other groups (they had to also come in the room physically which broke immersion) we also needed a ton of hints since the room mechanisms were really old and didn’t work properly half the time + sometimes we had the puzzles figured out too, but the solve methods didn’t make sense or didn’t flow at all. We’ve done many escape rooms before too, and expected a level of quality that comes with the hefty price. Rooms were very dusty and dirty as well, doesn’t seem like it’s ever maintained, and just hastily thrown together.

Finally, as we were solving the rooms in order, we literally heard other groups behind us doing the room we just left - totally ruins the immersion. If the room had been set up fully from the start - fine, not terrible, but this part really made it unprofessional and overall ruined the experience, and we didn’t really want to continue after the first room + we “finished” overtime but since there was 0 time tracking or timer, we didn’t know, so it felt very disappointing and unsatisfactory.

Shocked at all these good reviews, maybe we got an off day but this location needs an update badly and more staffing. Would not recommend to escape room lovers if you care about quality...

There should be only a few things I need to mention here to help you avoid this place at all costs, cause let me tell you, it will COST A LOT! My company decided to treat all of us to a fun activity to incorporate working together and having fun, let me tell you, this turned into a nightmare. 1st, there is absolutely no objective to anything you are looking for or what you are supposed to be doing. 2nd, this guy with a weird ponytail would either come out of nowhere and just start telling you what to do, or making inappropriate comments to people making them feel even more put off by this experience. 3rd, this "event" for 12 people and a "discount" cost almost $500!!! I repeat, $500!!!!!! You must be thinking, you get a video of watching everyone? A t shirt saying you got out? Even a digital photo to show the fun you had? NOTHING! You get an hour of being more lost in this world than the real one and you pay for it! The last and most upsetting thing about this place was when I asked how we did and the ponytail guy said "I can tell you who was #1" and I asked, he replied "there's one of you", I looked at him puzzled, and he says "the black guy"....really dude?? You couldn't say "the other guy" cause it was me and him... Then the fact my director called, relayed all this information to their manager and had no partial refund, apology, or anything to make up for this disgrace of a time is truly the icing on this horrible place. Stay as far...