Update as of 5/15/2017 - I am not going to change the 2-star review portion because the place is still lacking in so many ways, but I will say this --- my friend forced me to go back here to allow it to redeem itself. It did. Slightly. Mob Hit was 100x better than Pirate Ship. The room is so new that they have yet to "green sticker" the entire place (see below)! And we use a phone instead of a tablet for clues!
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I am now understanding the less-than-stellar reviews on this place. There is so much room for improvement. They have the space to create a masterpiece, but lack the ability to deliver a solid escape room experience.
My friend and I signed up for the Pirate Ship. Keep in mind - this was the 2nd hardest room out of their 4. We were solo, which is always a plus since we work well together and have tackled 20 or so previous rooms. As well, we never opt for the easier rooms. A 20% to 30% success rate is usually our sweet spot when signing up.
Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of positives for this place. The props were worn and falling apart, most of the puzzles were outrageously difficult, and we practically needed a hint for most things. All in all, we asked for 5 or 6 hints, and we usually only need 2 or 3. This is so frustrating, especially since we were informed at the end that we "did better than about 85% of people that try this room". EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT?! That is NOT a compliment. All that says about the room is that it is insane and best of luck.
Cons:
1) They deliver clues on a tablet vs. a screen or walkie-talkie. Sounds like a cool concept, right? Wrong. Upon requesting a hint, the clue master would ask things like: "Have you opened XYZ lock yet?". Dude, there is a video camera pointing right at that lock. Clearly, we have not opened it. The back-and-forth waste of time to get a clue was comparable to texting with your grandmother that had just upgraded to an iPhone.
2) When I say the room is almost impossible, I truly mean it. If you pride yourself on doing escape rooms without using any clues, and can successfully handle this one, you should probably see if you qualify for Mensa.
3) To piggyback on #2 - no escape room should ever be proud of the fact that "every group usually needs a lot of clues to make it through". Well, our clue master seemed pretty proud of it. I get that the point of an escape room is to challenge you, but to stump you so much that you need a bunch of clues to even escape? Uhm, no.
4) "Do not touch anything with a green sticker". Let me just say - there were more green stickered items than touchable items. Green sticker overload. It turned the fun of exploring an escape room into "can't touch that, can't move this, can't do anything".
I'm sure that I could go on-and-on, but I'll stop here. It's too bad that the only local competitor, East Coast Escape, has just 2 rooms - one easy and one hard. I cannot see myself ever going back to this place unless they comped my ticket, and even then... read more
