12 Things Everyone Should Know Before Doing An Escape Room
Escape rooms are a foreign concept to most people. If you are curious or just now getting into escape rooms; then here are 12 important tips you need to know.
1. Reserve Your Escape Room Ahead of Time
Booking an escape room is similar to buying movie theater tickets online. You can pick your escape room theme and then pick a time that works best for you. Expect to pay (usually in full) to make a reservation.
Escape rooms are somewhat limited on how many escape room experiences they can have a day. There is usually about an average of 6 “showings” a day per room experience. You can see why these fill up fast during high traffic days, such as weekends or holidays.
Make sure to schedule your escape room ahead of time by at least 3 hours, if not several days, to make sure you can get the time slot and specific room theme that you may want. Especially, if you are trying to book on the weekend.
If you have any special requests like a birthday party or work event you would like to schedule. Escape rooms will be more willing to make special accommodations if you contact them with a request far in advance of the event you are planning.
2. Pick A Theme Your Group Will Enjoy
Before reserving your escape room, keep in mind everyone that will be joining you inside of the escape room. Make sure to pick an experience that will be enjoyable for everyone.
For example, if you were to have younger children join you, you may not want to pick a very difficult or scary room. You may have some teammates that are very experienced with escape rooms. Therefore, you may not want to pick the easiest option because it may not be challenging enough.
Keep in mind any possible disabilities that the group may have. You can call your escape room of choice and ask if a disabled individual would be able to do the room. I have received this call multiple times in my escape room. I always make sure everyone is able to physically do the rooms, disabled or not. The same may not be true for your chosen escape room. So call ahead to ask if this may affect someone in your group.
3. Do Not Pick A High Difficulty As A Beginner
Escape rooms will typically show their difficulty levels on their website. If they don’t, you’re welcome to call and ask. Do not try and be brave by picking the hardest difficulty offered if you are not experienced with escape rooms.
There is a learning curve to solving escape rooms. Picking a difficult room may prove too difficult and discourage you and your team from trying more escape rooms in the future. Escape rooms are meant to be fun so you don’t want to get too frustrated by biting off more than you can chew early on.
4. No Food or Drinks Allowed
Escape rooms will not allow you to take food or drinks inside of the escape room. Escape rooms want to take care of their props, locks, and other technology that may be used in the escape room. They do not want to risk their experiences being damaged.
Make sure to plan ahead. Get a drink of water before you go inside the room and expect to leave anything you brought with you in the lobby area of the facility. Most escape rooms have a temporary storage space where you can put things while you were in the room.
5. Research The Theme
Doing research about your theme is not required to do an escape room. However, if you do research on your theme, it will greatly enhance your experience. By researching the specific theme of your room, you will be more likely to notice a lot of “Easter eggs” or references to the source material. Who knows? Maybe it will help you open a lock or solve the clue. You may catch things others won’t.
6. Know How To Use The 3 Most Common Locks Found In Escape Rooms
Escape rooms may not go over how to operate certain locks. Some locks may be obvious, but others aren’t. Surprisingly, many people that enter my escape room have no idea how to use some of these locks. Below are pictures of what each lock looks like as well as a table describing how to use them and what to expect.
| Type of Lock | How to Reset? | Possible Length of Combination | How To Open? |
| Directional Lock | Reset Lock Pushing Down Shackle 2 times | 3 – 30 Inputs | Place your thumb on the button located on the front and center of the lock. Slide the button either up/down/left/right following the combo sequence. Pull the shackle to open. |
| Combination Lock | No Reset Feature | 3 – 5 (Letter or Numbers) | Examine the lock for a line or logo indicating where to line up your combo. (Usually, the left side of the lock is horizontal & on top is vertical) Line combo up straight with the line and pull. |
| Dial Lock | Spin Dial to the right 3 times | 3 Numbers | 1. Rotate to the Right (Clockwise) to the first number and stop 2. Rotate to the Left (Counter-Clockwise) but pass the 2nd number once then stop the 2nd Number the next time it comes around. 3. Rotate to the Right (Clockwise) to the 3rd number and stop. 4. Pull to open |
7. Show Up 15 Minutes Early
Make sure to show up to your escape room at least 15 minutes early to allow the attendant to properly give you the rules and answer any questions your group might have. Also, you will be able to use this time to go to the restroom since you won’t be able to once the room has started.
8. Plan To Be Away From Your Phone
Many escape rooms will not allow you to take your phone, camera, or other devices inside the escape room. They do this because they are concerned about cheating, taking pictures, and revealing secrets. Tell your business, job, or loved ones that you will be preoccupied for the next hour inside of an escape room and that you will get back to them when it’s over.
9. Escape Rooms Can Be Frustrating
Expect at least some level of frustration throughout your first escape room experience, and all escape room experiences after that. Seeing as you are trying to solve a mystery and open locks to which you have no idea what the answers are. Trying to solve them and failing can leave someone feeling rather frustrated. However, don’t give up because once you finally overcome these hurdles. Finally solving something is a very satisfying feeling. That is the feeling you want to chase and why people love doing escape rooms. Part of the fun comes from the frustration.
10. Communicate and Stay Organized
When an escape room starts, it’s easy to start splitting up and looking for clues. This is great for discovering new things, but it can be hard to communicate all the clues that are being found, worked on, or solved. Make sure to announce to the group once you’ve solved something or found something new.
Stay organized by creating 2 piles of clues. One for completed/solved clues and the other for clues that are not. Communicate this to the entire group once the room begins. That way they know which pile is which. That way, when someone solves something, they know what to work on next. Alternatively, if something has been solved, they know what has already been solved.
Communicating efficiently and staying organized will ensure that you don’t waste any time that you may desperately need to escape your escape room.
11. Use Your Clues
All escape rooms usually have some way where you can get an outside hint or tip to help you move along in an escape room. It may be through a TV screen, a walkie-talkie, or an attendant coming in and out. No matter the escape room you should have a way to receive help if you are stuck. Help is usually limited to three clues but that can differ between different escape rooms.
However, if you are doing a room that is scary or highly difficult, you may not receive the same kind of help or any help at all.
12. You Aren’t Fully Locked In
Most people think you are locked inside an escape room, and that’s not usually the case. If you are curious about why that is; then you should check out my article “Are escape rooms dangerous?” here.
Using these 12 tips will ensure that you are properly prepared for your next escape room event.
If you are curious about all things about escape rooms, then make sure to check out some of the other articles that I’ve written. Those go into more depth about how and why escape rooms operate the way they do.
