I'll start by saying that I have been to quite a few of the escape rooms around WNY and enjoy them thoroughly, so this place had a lot to live up to. I had a good time, because of the people I was with, but because the experience was lacking in so many areas, when I have had such wonderful experiences at other escape rooms locally, I would not be running back or recommending to others wanting to do escape rooms.
First thing you should know is that it is down town directly across from the casino. It has no parking lot, so you may want to car pool, there is street parking but it is $5 an hour per car, there is free parking at time nearby if you don't mind walking, but my group came in 4 separate cars. Not really docking any stars off for this, just a point of note if you are visiting.
They are in one of those buildings where you have to buzz in because there are other businesses and places inside, but their doorbell system was very weird. I rang it multiple times, and either no one heard me, or it wasn't set up right or something. I eventually called my cousin who was already inside, and she came and let me in. My cousin who arrived after experience the same thing.
We registered for the cellar. When it was time to go in the lady working there put blindfolds on each in our group, led us in individually and put a chain around each half of our group. It was sort of weird because they obviously meant for you to not move from that area until you found the key, but it was lose and wasn't made clear when we were led in. I have been in others where you were legitimately handcuffed, and needed to find the key, but here you could "let yourself out" without getting the key.
There was a video screen that was supposed to communicate with you, both showing you words, but also using sounds to get your attention. After like 10 minutes of starting our escape adventure the girl working came in and half apolgized half said she had been sending us messages but the system wasn't working. She said we weren't supposed to leave our chains, but also that we had gotten into some parts that we weren't supposed to be able to yet, she didn't really elaborate on how, and that also the video and audio wasn't working so she would have to work on that. On that note she left for like 10 minutes, and we just stood there not really knowing what to do, the clock has stopped, do we keep looking? This is ruining the whole vibe of an escape room and we aren't sure what to do. We decided to just step out of the room through the open door and chat in the hall. After about 10 minutes the lady walked by us, didn't say anything, went into the room we had vacated for a few minutes, walked back out to the front desk and into other back rooms and was gone for like 15-20 minutes. She came back and went in the room again and when she walked by my cousin asked what was going on. She said she was having some technical difficulties. She eventually agreed to let us do a different room that she assured us would work.
We ended up doing Al Capone's Speak Easy. The room was well decorated in a style that fit the name. There were minimum "things" around the room and minimal directions on what to do next, but that can be kind of good in my opinion. I don't know like it when they are too easy. We did need quite a few hints but escaped.
Overall, we had fun because of the people we were with. I do feel back because technical difficulties could happen anywhere at anytime, and the lady working was nice enough for sure (albeit a little weird that we were left hanging for so long), having us do another room. However I have never experienced technical difficulties at all at other escape rooms, let alone something big like this. The whole experience was just underwhelming for all of us. I think the place has the potential to be great, but if I was going to do another escape room I'd go back to somewhere where I had a great experience instead. read more