Sunday, Sept 28 — Keith has not enjoyed the activities that we’ve done over the last few days, so we decided to make it up to him by letting him pick an activity that he thought would be fun. When we’d asked a local for suggestions, one of the things he’d mentioned was an escape room called Beat The Bomb. Keith thought that sounded fun, so we booked a reservation for today at noon. It was meant for groups of 4 – 6 people and cost $50 per person. However, they will allow groups of 3, but it actually cost more for three people than it did for four!

Beat The Bomb was about two miles northwest of the Capitol. From where we were, getting there via public transit would have involved taking the Metro and then transferring to a bus. It was slower and more complicated than we wanted to deal with, so we took a ride share.

When we walked in, we were directed to some kiosks to check in and sign release forms. Once we’d finished the check-in paperwork, we were told to wait in the lounge until we were called, and encouraged to purchase drinks and food from the bar.

The black partitions off to the side looked like virtual game areas. A television screen was playing a live feed of the groups that were currently in the escape rooms. The rooms were solid black and they were moving in strange ways. They looked pretty darn silly.

A few minutes later, they called us over to the entrance to the escape rooms and quickly gave us directions. There were four rooms. We’d start in Room 1. We had a certain number of minutes to solve the puzzle, and the better we did at solving the puzzle, the more time we were given for the final challenge. If we didn’t solve the puzzle within the time limit, we’d still move to Room 2. And so on… If we didn’t solve the fifth puzzle in the allotted time, the paint bomb would explode.

We entered into Room 1, which was an all black room with eight screens mounted on the four walls. The screens had strange messages. We had no clue what we were supposed to do. Eventually, we figured out that we needed to put the clues into a sequential order.

Room 2 was basically Dance Dance Revolution, except there were obstacles that were trying to kill us that we had to simultaneously stay clear of. We had to step on the appropriate spots on the ground as the screen directed us. This time, they showed a sequence of images. Each screen had an image and we had to touch the screens in the same sequence… except we couldn’t see the image. We had to figure out which screen correlated with each image by trial and error.

Room 3 was kind of similar to Room 1 in terms of putting items into sequential order. This time, they showed a sequence of images, with each image accompanied by a specific note. Each screen had an image and we had to touch the screens in the same sequence… except we couldn’t see the image. We had to figure out which screen correlated with each image by trial and error.

Room 4 was a laser room. We had get from one end of the room to the other without touching a laser — but the lasers moved. That one felt impossible. We failed to beat the bomb.

When we exited Room 4, we were escorted to another small room where we were parked in front of a monitor and each given a video game controller. Each of our controllers only moved one direction, and each one moved a different direction. We needed to work as a team to move a robot from one location to another to diffuse a bomb. We did not do well on that task and failed to beat the bomb.

We were escorted to yet another small room and given plastic coveralls and told to put it on over our clothes.

Then we were escorted into the bomb room.

The “bomb” was more like a cannon that shot paint at us. The force was a lot stronger than any of us was prepared for.

Keith complained that his nose hurt from the force on his glasses, and Eric complained that his neck hurt from the force pushing his head back. We exited the bomb room, removed the wet plastic covers and exited the building.

We’d all like to go back someday with a proper sized group. We felt like we’d wasted a lot of time figuring out what to do, and it was hard to man eight screens with only three people. Next time around, we’d know exactly what to do and would be able to move faster with more people. And next time, we’d remove glasses and stand more appropriately when the paint cannon hit us.

We hailed another ride share to take us to a restaurant called Old Ebbitt Grill… to be continued…