This was underwhelming and disappointing to say the least. My partner and I love doing escape rooms, so we looked for the hardest one in the area. We saw Outbreak from Big Escape Room had a 9% or 19% success rate (you see both numbers written on their website so I'm not sure what the actual % is) and that they could accommodate up to 10 people, so we booked that one. There is the option to reserve the entire room, which we preferred so that our group could have the room to ourselves. I asked if there was room to store our belongings, and they had a room we could reserve for $$, but I was just curious if we had cubbies or anything. In general, the escape room itself is fine for storing belongings. - Logistics - Once we arrived, we had to wait until past our reservation time because they were still setting up the room and waiting for the group before us to finish. We ended up starting ~30 minutes after our reservation time, which became part of the reason we were late to our dinner reservation after that. On top of that, we were told there was a lock in our room that wasn't working, so they suggested we do the Clown room instead. We decided to continue doing Outbreak but told them to just leave the lock open, and only grant us permission to move ahead once we figured out the code. I had read reviews that the equipment wasn't maintained very well, and that was the first indication of that. We hadn't even started the room yet! - The Room Experience - Things were largely fine in the first room we were in, but again we found locks that weren't working properly. When we managed to get the code, we only got half of the lock open and then lowkey brute-forced the contents out because we weren't sure we were going to get the other side. Thank goodness the contents were small enough to make it out. The second room was chaotic. We also started to ask for hints once we arrived in this room, but our walkie talkie was improperly set, so I had to leave the room to find the staff to help us out. That took up time to set up, and the staff weren't sure where we how far along we had gotten, so that took up even more time out of our time limit. I couldn't tell if they were on their phone for work or leisure, but hopefully the former... The worst part comes towards the end. We had finally made progress, but the solution we got to the math problem wasn't opening up the lock despite the game guide's instructions that it would. So much time had run out at that point, including the time limit, during which staff came in to explain what went wrong for us. One of the staff members actually had not played/made the game, so they couldn't not walk us through the solution and instead needed to call another person to do that. They could have invested in more training for staff... When we finally got the explanation for the lock, it turns out they gave us the wrong formula for the solution??? How many people have done the room with the wrong formula? Why didn't the staff test out everything, including the formula, to make sure it actually works? Despite the many things that went wrong, they let us finish up the room past our time limit after identifying the error was on their part. Most anticlimactic exit ever, but an exit nonetheless. We were late to our dinner reservation already, so we decided we might as well finish this out. - Overall - The staff are kind, but this is not an escape room I recommend or will be returning to any time soon. read more

Beware! We showed up to play and the employee working there quit saying the place was a s***hole. Another disgruntled employee showed up and was very rude and abrasive as if everything happening was our fault. We had waited an hour at that point so we said we just want a refund. We were told to fill out the credit card authorization form and write "we did not play this game" to get a refund. Someone came out of one of the rooms as we were leaving and said "We've been asking for a clue for a long time now and this part of the Escape Room is not working". Exactly why we decided to not play. We called the next day and were told by Gregg, who I think is the owner, that it would take 7-16 business days to get the refund, which in itself is absurd, but we were trying to be patient and courteous. After 16 business days we called again and were told the refund was processed and they have no idea why we didn't receive it. That they are waiting to talk to "Brandon" who handles their accounts but that I am not allowed to talk to him or their billing department. They are unwilling to send us a refund check. Looking at other reviews I understand now the guy is a lying scam artist and we aren't going to get our money back. Not to mention trying to find this place was difficult enough. It's like being in an escape room just to find their office in the creepy business building they are in. That employee was right - what a s***hole! read more

Low budget rooms, very dirty and had a weird smells. wasn't worth what my friends and I paid for

We arrived for a 12:45 booking and the entrance was locked. Just then, received a text saying our scheduled time was unavailable and to reschedule. Several other people were outside and reported the same issue. Left a message on the designated phone number. An hour or two later I hit a call from the Atlanta location saying no employee was available in silver spring, but promising we would get a refund for the booking + parking. Now, nearly 3 weeks later I'm still waiting. The email (bookingsmd@bigescaperooms.com) promised to look into it, but now I can't get a response from them. Next step is to call my credit card company and refuse the charge. This business is awful. Beware. read more

I try not to give away too much for escape rooms so I'll keep this pretty high level. As someone who's done about 30, this place is not worth it +this pace is open 9am-midnight which is crazy long +plenty of parking in the area -you can tell the staff is not engaged and they really don't do anything besides take your money, hit play on the videos, and respond if you're asking for help I played the Pharaoh room -room was super/too bright -one prop does not help you at all and makes no sense -there are a few puzzles where you don't need all the pieces and the game will "unlock/reveal" the next step even though it's incomplete -wasn't set up properly -one of the props had the sensor fall off and luckily we noticed it on the floor -rated as more difficult but I don't think it was that difficult as it was the one prop that is completely misleading read more

This was the worst escape room I have ever been to. My group and I did Outbreak, and half the things were broken. The "hidden door" was already half open when we first entered. Staff were super non-attentive; when asking for hints, they had no idea which part of the puzzle we were on. After a lot of confusion, they just gave us the "solution" to a safe. Unfortunately for them, the safe was already damaged and open, which caused for more confusion. After completing the escape room, there was an awkward moment between our group and the staff. After a few minutes of just standing around with the staff just staring at us, we asked how was the safe was supposed to be properly solved. They replied that "it was not meant to be solved". Many other incomplete/damaged puzzles were supposedly red herrings. Does not make sense to me to unlock a puzzle piece for it to never be used. This happened multiple times. Would recommend not doing this escape room. read more

Fun escape room! We completed the "Black Widow" escape room with a few hints. All of the clues and items necessary to solve the room were in working in order and the design of the room was intricate and inviting. The staff were responsive when we asked for hints. Overall, we had a lovely time at Big Escape Room and I would recommend them if you are interested in completing an escape room in Silver Spring. read more

After thoroughly enjoying our first outing to Big Escape Rooms, my 9 year old and I booked another room for Nov 4. I took the day off work, paid for a sitter for his little brother, and was excited to return. Hours before our reservation, they called to say they had no staff at any point for the entire day. I scrambled to make new plans and asked for a refund, which they confirmed. Two weeks later - no refund. I called and they assured me it was coming. Four weeks later - no refund. I called again and they said it was "initiated on Nov 28" - nearly four weeks after they first promised me the refund. Whether or not it eventually arrives is TBD, but I will definitely be taking my business elsewhere. read more

Not even worth the time to list everything. Pharaoh room was terrible. Lazily crafted. Low production quality. Many parts of the room were broken and not working properly. We've done many escapes. Won't be visiting Big Escape Room again. Oh yeah, they offered us $10 gift cards if we wrote positive google reviews while standing there. That makes them sound so authentic... we refused the gift cards. Beat dash dash beat/ dash dash dash/ dash dash dash/ beat dash dash beat. If you know, you know. read more

AWESOMEEEE selection of rooms. Also, they're in a great location where there is no noise around them. Hope to see them expand more in the future. read more

So many of the parts of the room were broken (Pharaoh room). The guide had to tell us we had escaped because it wasn't obvious. The puzzles weren't terribly imaginative and some didn't make a lot of sense for the story. The automatic features didn't work for most of it. In all we were pretty disappointed. We've done quite a few escape rooms in the area and this falls to the very bottom of the pack. It was telling that we were offered vouchers for $10 off our next trip for leaving a positive review on Google before we left. We opted out since we want to tell the truth about the state of this place. Go to Clue IQ in Frederick, Escapology in Bethesda, or A Game of Rooms in Rockville. They have MUCH better games, as well as people who are actually excited to be working there. read more

I booked a Basketball escape room for my group of 4 people on Wednesday August 24, 2023 for 6:45pm event at Big Escape in Silver Spring location (above Whole Foods). When we arrived, we were able to get into the building using the instructions given to us when we booked our appointment. However, the door to the Big Escape establishment was locked, and no one was there to let us in. We called the number, and the person was not able to help us. I emailed and did not receive a response. We waited for over 15 minutes and no employee from the escape room showed up. Later that evening at around 8:30pm, I received a call from a young lady saying that she was an employee of the escape room. She apologized for not being at the location for our booking. I emailed the company the night of this incident requesting a refund. I've spoken to Gregg, who I believe owns the company, twice. On both occasions he told me that I would be refunded the cost of the booking. However, after multiple emails and phones calls, I have not received a refund after 3 months. I am disappointed in the service I received at Big Escape room. It was totally unprofessional of them to not show up for a paid booking. They continued with this lack of customer service by not adhering to their commitment to refund funds for service that they did not perform. If this were a "one-off" incident, then it would seem that they should be eager to make this right by refunding me the money I paid. It's just the right thing to do. There are so many escape room options to choose from in the Silver Spring area. If you are looking for a reliable, reputable and professional establishment don't go to Big Escape. read more

They call themselves "Big Escape Room DMV" and they sure got it right. They are the DMV of escape rooms! Clueless lazy employees, uncomfortable environment, and a broken system. Just like the DMV, avoid it if you can Giving it 1star because 0 isn't an option. read more

I have played tons of escape rooms. This was the worst experience we have ever had the room is set up poorly and cheaply. The staff was unenthusiastic and not helpful. I would definitely steer clear of this one. read more

This was a tough room without our third clue solver!! We got as far as 75% on this one but lost it in the end. Mel, we NEEDED YOU!!! The room was well done. It had the circus and creepy clown theme through and through! Our game master even gave a hint upfront, so pay close attention!! If you can't figure one puzzle or clue, just move on to the next!! Don't get fixated otherwise you burn valuable time. We did pretty well considering we only had 2 in our group as our third partner was on vacation. We whipped through the clues initially but got hung up on what our third partner would have honed in on easily! This room has a 37% success rate, so we didn't feel too bad.. overall, a great experience!! We highly recommend this room!! read more

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Lied on their website about the room time. We wanted to do a walk in room for 3:30, got there and the door was locked. Called Greg and he said the rooms don't open until 5:30. This was summer 2023 read more

Customer service was horrendous, and the room was practically falling apart, don't go!

Booked for Pharaoh and didn't quite make it, but it was well worth it! The difficulty was as advertised. It was overall fun and it was rewarding getting to the next clues! It was tough for our first time at an escape room, but don't regret it! You should definitely check it out with a group, the more people the more chances you'll have finishing it! read more

tl;dr This was a really great experience for an escape game outing. Would highly recommend for a fun activity, and this escape room establishment felt among the best I've been to. Easy to find the location. We did the Pharaoh room with a group of 5 - I would say that was a good size. 7 or 8 might have been a lot. The puzzles had great variety and were reasonably challenging - nothing too simple but for the most part nothing too crazy - there was just one hint for which the process to get seemed a stretch and we used a clue, but the comments in the car ride back centered around these themes: - great creativity and variety in the puzzle types - very good space and lay out - enough of a challenge to stretch you, and not too much of a challenge to feel hopeless - nothing that could be brute forced and nothing that seemed like a stretch to tell a story around - very creative use of props - very friendly staff and the game host was very attentive made it out with two minutes to spare. Many extra points to the Big Escape Room team for a government shutdown special - what a nice gesture! Outstanding experience for us thanks to a great team at the business. read more

I came here with group of friends after pre paying. No One Answered the door! We sat outside of the place for 45 minutes and decided to leave. read more

We've tried two rooms at this establishment and the common theme was lackluster. Parts of the room/clues did not work. The intro video or the timer was not on display until requested. Upon completing the room the moderator didn't greet us on the way out and we took our own selfie. (Pharaoh) read more

Big Escape Room - Building entrance. - Escape Games Near Me - Silver Spring, Maryland

SO MUCH FUN!!! I have heard about escape rooms and never got to try one out til now! It was so much fun yet stressful trying to get out of Clown room! My friends and I, in a group of 11, tried the "easiest" room (leveled Medium) with a 35% success rate, that they had. Many of us have never done an escape room before so it took us some time to figure out what we had to do while in the room. Our host, Brian, was great and such a joy to have as our ring master. He played his role well and you could tell he LOVED to be a host at Big Escape Room. (Kudos to juggling like a pro!) It was nice that they had signs outside of the place (next to whole foods) which looked like a part of an office building? The signs outside helped us find where to go. Pretty neat in the hallways you can look out this window to see the inside of whole foods! My friends and I definitely want to come back and try the other harder rooms, Pharaoh and Outbreak (9% success). I cant decide if it was good or bad to have that many people in the room because they arent that big (max mightve been 10?, but they allowed us to have an extra person), and so much is going on with everyone trying to solve something it gets confusing! Def a ton of fun if you like puzzles! I believe it was $24 to try a room and you got an hour to get out. read more

Hugely disappointing. Clues were broken or falling off the walls. Guide admitted one of the pieces didn't work like it was supposed to. Basketball room was just locks and easy mirrors. There's a reason this is cheaper than all the others. read more

Had a great time. Escape room attendant was very engaged and played the part. Added to the fun. be sure to leave a bit earlier than assigned time to account for parking and walking. read more

How fun!! Today was my first time doing an escape room, and I did it with my colleagues from work as a staff retreat team building activity. It was a lot of fun. We did the Outbreak room that had only 9% success rate (the hardest room out of the 3). We didn't make it... We were sooooo close on the last clue! Steve (the guy who was on site and helped us give us clues through the hour) was very helpful with clues and definitely played well to his role as a character of the Outbreak room. The Outbreak room had lots of fun clues and requires some brain power! Highly recommend this room if you're into solving clues that are not as obvious. This does not really require any prior knowledge of something in particular, so everyone's on equal playing level and can help out :) there's three rooms -- clowns, the pharaoh and the outbreak. Each room gives you an hour long to work through the clues. The big escape rooms is located right above whole foods. The entrance to get in is between whole foods and Sprint... Just take the stairs up! read more

Worst experience ever. I've done a lot of escape rooms but this one was by far the worst. The clues were unnecessarily difficult, the locks stuck - we had the right clue from the start but the lock didn't work. The host/ game master just stopped helping at the end of the game. Ignored our call for clues even though it was unlimited clues. Will not be back. And be aware that it's not private rooms - if someone else books, they'll be in the room with you. read more

So much fun!!! The manager was very professional and light hearted. He did a great job debriefing us of the tasks and storyline. We did Outbreak with only a 9% success rate and we completed it with only 3 minutes left. Mental strength is just as, if not more, important than physical strength. One hour in length and a great way to spend a Saturday night with new and unfamiliar faces. **and it's on the 2nd floor above Whole Foods for location reference! read more

This should be zero stars. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY. For background-my family does escape rooms multiple times a year. We love them. We had gone to Big Escape Room in Atlanta and we loved it. We noticed that there was another location in Maryland, and fortunately, it worked out that we were able to book a room for thanksgiving weekend. We saw that the Outbreak room was challenging, and we love a challenge. The room wasn't challenging, it was LITERALLY impossible. After we made it about half way, we started having difficulty figuring out reasons for clues. We asked the game guide over a walkie talkie for help, and he ended up having to give us answers rather than hints. This happened numerous times. Once we "escaped" we asked him for explanations for what we couldn't figure out, expecting an explanation that made sense for our stupidity. However, he explained that the room was actually broken and therefore all the clues we were confused with were considered "red herrings". Escape rooms often have a red herring or 2, but they are small and not clues that take up 10-15 minutes of your time for no reason. Some of the clues took over 20 minutes to solve and had no purpose. We expressed frustration at the fact that we spent $175 and got a broken room. I understand that things break, but what's not acceptable is the fact that this place is still allowing people to use the room. The place has other rooms and we would have been completely fine trying a different room. However, instead, we were scammed by not being told a single thing was broken in this room. I don't want people to make the same mistake and waste their money. There are other places with escape rooms that are actually good, have better equipment, staff, and an overall better experience. read more

Let me just say I was disappointed. I had some pretty high hope and was excited to be able to do an escape room (I absolutely adore puzzle/escape games. The amount of money I've spent on them is quite a lot.) The staff was friendly to us and was a good GM but the room itself was subpar. We did Clown and I was not that impressed with its setup and some of the puzzles we did. We had one simple puzzle that took 20 minutes for my group to figure out (even with a hint) because it was done so faintly that it was hard to identify. I know these things are meant to be challenging but when it's so faint it's barely there to the eye is a different story. We did have some good puzzles and I though some of the ideas were cool but overall not super impressed. The room was also pretty beat up. A lot of things were cracked or needed to be replaced. It was also very sparsely decorated which didn't really immerse me in the story. It kinda lost the whimsy of an escape room. I've done other escape rooms that were much more engaging and worth the hefty price tags needed to play these games. Concepts were good but not executed very well. It lacked dynamic surprises and excitement that I usually experience when doing these games. read more

Had an amazing time at the clown escape room! It was engaging and the locks were fun to solve. Our group enjoyed our time and will definitely return! read more

This was my first escape room experience and it was a blast. My sister and nephew were in town for Thanksgiving and really wanted to do an escape room. The experience from start to finish was fun and the staff was friendly and helpful. We started with the easiest, Basketball, and escaped with 12 minutes to spare! We will probably make it a holiday tradition and will be ready for the more challenging room next time!! read more

Big Escape Room - We escaped!! - Escape Games Near Me - Silver Spring, Maryland

This was HARD. We did Outbreak and were so frustrated (with ourselves mostly)! We are definitely escape room veterans and this room just stumped us. However, this only made us want to do the other rooms to prove ourselves! We will keep y'all updated on the other rooms! read more

The rooms are ok but our recent experience was far from what it used to be. I will say that in my opinion if cell phone use is required for the game, it should be more clear. Every escape room is strict on cell phones. As long time players we don't take them out for anything since thats the typical rule. I'm curious on other's opinion on that? The other issue is the tv in the room was playing an endless music very loudly and we could barely hear the walkie talkie. 5 people trying to listen couldnt make out what was said the music is so loud. The tv had a note that said not to adjust the volume. Our host was barely into the job. In out previous experience here the host would put on a labcoat or something and seem excited and tell the lead in to the story. Our host, when asked for a clue, was like 'what lock do you want?' Well we have 3 locks, we don't know which lock is next, we don't want to go out of order. And lastly, the rules said clearly not to touch wiring but in one room we had to turn on a little switch in a live outlet. It was very dark. Please provide a little flashlight if you can't provide more light if we have to read small text in the dark. Anyways we were all disappointed. read more

Great place to spend a few hours; really difficult rooms but a great way to put your thinking cap on and bond with friends.

We did the Outbreak room and had at least 5 aspects of the room that didn't work correctly. If it wasn't my friend's birthday, I would have made a big deal and asked for a refund. The problems are due to a combination of the room being worn down and the staff having done a terrible job resetting the room. They included locks left open, doors jammed, iPad password locked, and a mechanism too worn to work properly. Escape rooms are expensive. This place need to do a better job or stop charging people the market price. read more

Amazing room set up and backstory behind the room! We did the outbreak escape room which had an exciting surprise towards the end. Absolutely loved it. Worth the money!! read more

Did the basketball theme. No back story, online theme says "Atlanta hawks" but it was a Lion theme. Some of the puzzles were broken and overall very minimal. Also, there was only 1 person working all the rooms bc the majority of the staff quit a few days before we went. So the worker was overwhelmed with having to take care of everything. We also asked for help with something and bc she was the only one working she had to call us back but never did. read more

This place was great, a little hard to get to but still a fun time. Great for large groups. Winnie helped out with great hints!

Terrible customer service. Multiple clues not reset properly. I feel like I was completely scammed

I booked a date for Valentines Day and was told at the time of our date that we would not be able to do an escape room because of double booking on their behalf. Asked for my money back and a month later still haven't received it. Now they are saying I won't get it for another 2 weeks. Unorganized and terrible customer service. read more