Quarantine: Can You Escape and Save the World?

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Alexandra Wensel, Student Writer

Have you ever wanted to test how clever you truly are while under pressure? Well, Expedition Escape in Montgomeryville, PA, is a great place to do it. Expedition Escape is a high-quality escape room establishment nestled on the side of Bethlehem Pike. The rooms offer an immersive 60-minute real-life adventure game where you and your team have 60 minutes to complete the mission and “escape” the room. You do so by locating and solving hidden clues like codes, puzzles, and riddles scattered throughout the room. Finding the clues requires teamwork, speed, creativity, and patience. However, if you do happen to get caught up on a puzzle or clue, most rooms have a mechanism in place so that players can receive hints. Escape rooms are usually themed, with each escape room having its own mission. The themes offered at Expedition Escape in Montgomeryville are Lost Teddy, The List, The Candy Shop, Da Vinci’s Office, and lastly, Quarantine, which is the room our newsgroup chose to solve for ourselves.

As stated on the Expedition Escape website, the backstory behind Quarantine is, “There has been a pandemic outbreak of Apocu-Enza, a horrible virus that spreads quickly and is always fatal. Luckily, you work in the lab where a scientist has created the only known cure. Unfortunately, the scientist that created the cure has recently contracted the virus but has hidden the formula in the lab. You and your fellow survivors have 60 minutes to acquire the antidote before the virus infects you.” Sounds stressful? Well, that’s an understatement. 

Our experience at Expedition Escape was nothing short of wonderful. When we walked

into the building, we were greeted by our guide Wyn in the cozy waiting area. He sat us down and went over the rules and safety precautions of the room to make sure we weren’t going to damage any of the set pieces and things of that nature. Wyn then led us down a hallway with doors to each escape room and into the one we would be spending our next exhilarating hour. A screen in the top corner of the room showed a video explaining the backstory of Quarantine to us, and before we knew it, our time had begun. Of course, as not to spoil anything about the room itself, the clues and details of the room will not be discussed; but trying to solve everything definitely gave us a newfound respect for those who create escape rooms. There were various puzzles, all of which were in-depth, complicated, and intertwined with one another. We were able to ask for hints when needed, as we were visually and audibly monitored by Wyn, our guide, the entire time– which came very much in handy. Nevertheless, our group got quite the brain workout. We were able to escape the room with four minutes to spare, and afterward, Wyn provided us with notes pertaining to our performance and things he found interesting about how we chose to solve the puzzles. During this time, we were able to ask him a few questions.

Wyn has been working at Expedition Escape for about a year, and when asked why he chose this job, he replied, “Honestly, because there were no other good jobs. I got it during quarantine, and the main reason was that it wasn’t a supermarket, but I’ve really taken a liking to it, and I love it now.” We then asked Wyn about the difficulty levels of the rooms offered and what he would recommend to a beginner; “We don’t like to give our rooms difficulty levels because people are better at different rooms based on how they think, but we typically start them off in a specific order. We start with ‘The List’ since it’s more observation-based. Next, we do ‘Candy Shop,’ ‘Davinci’s Office,’ and then ‘Quarantine.’” This answer boosted our group’s confidence quite a bit because we were able to escape the room that’s regarded as the most complicated. We were also curious about any regular escape room attendees, and Wyn told us that, “People go across the country and do all the different escape rooms. A lot of people will come back just so they can get the free t-shirts. And, you also get a lot of people coming over from King of Prussia, our other location, because they did all the rooms over there, and now they want to do the different rooms that we offer at our Montgomeryville location.” Wyn also added that there isn’t any type of preparation required if you’re interested in doing an escape room; it just may not be the best experience if you’ve taken a final right before coming. Our group found this comment pretty hilarious, considering most of us had just spent a week taking AP tests. 

All in all, the five of us absolutely loved Expedition Escape and would love to return to test our knowledge in the other rooms. It was stressful, exhilarating, and so much fun. We recommend Expedition Escape to anyone who’s looking to have a great time with friends.