Exit Strategy

We had a lot of fun but had some technical problems and failed. The phone and the radio are both very important clues but the reception was so bad that we wound up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out what they were saying. We got to the last digit of the last puzzle and I believe that we would have gotten it if we hadn’t had to replay the radio and phone so many times.
We were a party of 6 and more people wouldn’t have helped. In fact, many times only 1 or 2 people were doing anything while the test of us watched. Not as well coordinated as other escape rooms.

This was sooo fun! Went with 5 friends and we all enjoyed ourselves. The Dukes palace was what we did and it was awesome.

This place was so much fun! You schedule a time to «escape the room» and have to go through clues to get the final key! The staff is really friendly and clear about the rules. The rooms we solved was «hotel.» It was so much fun! This is apparently the hardest room and was pretty tough but definitely not impossible by any means. I think this would be fun with kids but definitely not under 12. Seems like they would be more in the way. This is a good place to bring a big group for a fun activity!

Some friends and I went to celebrate a birthday here January 8, 2016. Formerly known as Exit Strategy, Last Minute Escape is a great time when you want to be challenged and just want do something different! My friends and I had the pleasure of doing The Hotel Luxeva room. NO SPOILERS from me but it is definitely tough! I’m looking forward to trying some of the other rooms available in the near future! If you are in NJ and want to tease your brain, definitely check out Last Minute Escape. Ample parking, friendly staff, and a wonderful overall experience. Best of luck!

This was my first time in an escape room and it was great! Me and 5 other colleagues were in the room together and there was never a dull moment. We were in the Speak Easy room. The clues were well thought out and challenging enough that you really had to think but didn’t feel like it was impossible. The staff was courteous and helpful.

Our group was six girls for a friend’s birthday. We had so much fun and will definitely do it again. We did The Duke’s Palace room and it was very challenging. We didn’t get out in time but it was a lot of fun. The people running it were so great and friendly.

Let me start by saying that none of us in our party of 16 had ever done this before.
We gathered on Galesi Drive in Wayne to celebrate my niece’s birthday Saturday night. This family of 16 separated into two manageable groups of 8 and proceeded into the two theme rooms for backstory and mission.
If you have never done this before, let me explain: you are locked in a room and need to solve a series of locks and puzzles to get out of the room in one hour. That’s it, plain and simple.
Much more involved is the actual figuring out of the clues. We were a very varied group on our team, the youngest was 8 and the oldest was over 60. Everyone played a part, using their strengths to solve bits and pieces of the puzzle.
No, we didn’t solve it in time, even with the hints the organizers helpfully sent on the TV in the room. But, let me tell you we had an absolute blast that night. We were laughing so hard at one point that we had to stop with the clues and just enjoy the moment.
The crew at Exit Strategy is just wonderful; very welcoming and positive and we will all be going back to do this again.
I do think that this would be a great team-​building exercise for companies and I highly recommend you visit the team on Galesi Drive soon.
Thanks everyone at Exit Strategy.

Fabulous group experience! Love the themed rooms and that the staff was excited about your experience. Groupon for my husband’s birthday. Totally, totally worth it! We’ll be back to do a different room.

I’ve been to a couple other escape room places, but so far the experience at Exit Strategy is unlike any other. They take escape-​rooming seriously as evidenced by the well put together scenarios and rules/​intro videos before locking you in a room. Much better than some other ‘budget’ rooms that I have been to.
This place can be a little hard to find — it’s right next to the DMV & in the office buildings past/​behind Lace.
The rooms are very well executed — complex but not too hard as to be off putting. The professionalism is on point, and they really do help the groups move along with the hints they give without giving the actual answer.
I’ve done all three rooms at Exit Strategy in Wayne [The Speakeasy, Hotel Luxeva, Duke’s Palace]. They are all very different and all very fun! Teams really need to work together and rely on each other’s expertise/​skill sets to get out of the rooms in time. Also pay attention, and make sure you’re focused! Also, it can be a fun family activity, but for some it might be too over the head. It was tough coming with parents and kids 13 and under — they can end up being more of a distraction than any help. It was still fun though.
I hope they will be able to change the theme of the rooms soon. I’d love to re-​visit this Wayne location, but they do have a Montclair location and they are opening a Morristown location soon.

Exit Strategy is a great «Escape the Room» experience that has been wildly popular in places like New York City. However, for the people in this area, having a spot like this in Wayne is great! If you know where the Wayne DMV is, you basically turn into the DMV from Route 46 and just bear right, rather than left and go into the building complex nearby, as Exit Strategy is located in within the complex. You book the rooms that you want to try online at their website. If possible, I would try to maximize the amount of people you bring to the room’s capacity. You can just book with a few people, but that may cause you to not be able to explore as much of the room you can with more people, making it harder to solve, or you will be put with strangers, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s usually more fun to do it with people you know!
My friends and I got a reservation to do the Speakeasy Room. Without giving away any clues, it was a great experience. The staff was very friendly and explained the rooms of the room very thoroughly. You have one hour to go through the room (s) and find all the pertinent clues, solve puzzles, open locks, etc. in order to escape. I was with a group of seven other friends and I felt the size was perfect for the room, as there were a good amount of clues for people to multitask and work together.
You will have the best experience as long as you bring the right people with you who are able to communicate well and put together all the clues people find. As a tip, always state what you have/​find. You never know what it could be used for! What is nice, just like many of the other «Escape the Room» establishments is that if the staff can tell you are completely stumped, they will give clues on a TV screen to help bring you back on the right track.
Unfortunately, my friends and I did not escape this room. I distinctly remember having the last part of the room figured out with the clues that we found out, but unfortunately one of our clues was mixed up and we could not get the key! Blah! Oh well, at least there are other rooms here to try for next time!

I’ve played 6 escape room games so far, 3 in CA, 3 in NJ. The puzzles were definitely challenging and fun. The theme/​atmosphere was done pretty well, there were several clever parts and «Aha!» moments that made the experience worthwhile. There were a few things that kept it from being an A+ experience that I had in my Cali games, but I would definitely recommend Exit Strategy!
I played «The Duke’s Palace» and «The Speakeasy». My teams came close to solving both games, especially The Speakeasy. I have some general critiques, and some specific ones.
I want to really stress that while the crits below may seem negative, I just want to see this become even better. It’s a great experience that I highly recommend!
General crits:
1) My biggest gripe, and HUGE potential area for improvement: There were almost no puzzles that involved finding hidden things! Put stuff inside pillows, under loose floorboards, inside flowerpots, behind frames. Get creative! A good way to make a puzzle-​room better for large groups is to have these things so some people can scour the environment, while others work on the puzzles they’ve already found.
2) Sloppiness with random out-​of-​context non-​clues. If I look under items and see numbers, they should either be part of the game, or maybe in rare cases, a red-​herring. These were neither. It was just sloppiness to not hide/​remove these numbers. There was a lot of this.
3) Have a suggested # of players guide for your rooms, please! We felt Duke was too small (physically) for 8 people, and not great for multitasking. Meanwhile, Speakeasy was excellent for multitasking, and if we had more than 4 people, we would definitely have cleared it! (Still a good challenge)
4) A little too much dependence on the hint system!

Best activity for a big group of out of the box thinkers. I do a lot of online escape games and I decided to try this with a few friends. It was definitely some good clean fun!!! We went through rooms touching and looking at everything and frantically trying to escape. Each clue brings you to another clue until you get the end.
Advice:
–touch everything
–everything is important
–work as a team, communicate
–use the clue master clues

Just got home from doing «The Speakeasy» and it was the most fun group activity I’ve ever done. I highly recommend coming here. We didn’t get out but our instructor said we did better then 95% of people which is good enough for me. We went with 7 people and everyone has an amazing time!

This was my first time doing an escape room like this and I planned it for my husband’s birthday. When I first called to make the reservation I wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate business line or if someone had used google voice to get fowarding to their personal cell – either way booking over the phone was pretty simple and I ended up having to call multiple times to keep adding people to our reservation. We had the Duke’s Palace room and were really into it, more so than we would have expected. I do have to say it’s easy to get side-​tracked by the sheer number of puzzles, locks and clues that you are thrown into when you enter the room since you don’t really know where to start. It was a great experience for a birthday party and it was something completely different for us to do. With 8 people who enjoy geeking out and playing sherlock holmes for an hour we couldn’t ask for a better time. We won and had a few minutes to spare. I would definitely recommend this place and would love to try the other ones too.

WHAT. FUN. I was in the Duke’s Palace with 3 other people for a birthday and we had an amazing time. Unfortunately, we did not complete the room but the people who worked there said it was hard so not to feel too discouraged! There are a lot of clues and things to go through in this one but it is possible to finish, I should’ve brought more people though. Next time for sure! I WILL be coming back!

This was awesome! Brought a group of buddies and then a couple had signed up for our same time slot so it was 7 all together. Would not suggest doing this with 4 or fewer, it is very challenging.
We had plenty of room and were able to work as a group and also split up into smaller groups to solve multiple problems. I’ve always wanted to put my brains to the test and this is a perfect scenario.
There are plenty of elements in each room that lead to a clue. Which means you have plenty of momentum and not a lot of tedious, time consuming work. Although there are a few Red Herrings and Misleads, that’s what makes using your detective skills so important.
Those running the scenario do guide you a little bit so they’ll never let you suffer over a useless clue. Well decorated, managed and everything you need is in the room. No outside knowledge or technology needed.
Overall: Great, hope they keep up the good work and bring lots of friends. I’ll be going back soon!

Just amazing! This was my 1^st time experiencing an Exit Strategy and I loved it! I will definitely do this again with more people. It was four of us this time.

This Exit Strategy is located in an office complex across from the Wayne DMV on the ground/​basement level of the building. Plenty of parking and enter through the left door at the front of the building (if you’re facing it) to find Exit Strategy.
On par, if not better, than its Montclair sister site due to the variety of rooms and friendly and helpful staff. We had done the Senator’s Mansion in Montclair and had a great time and decided to try The Speakeasy at Wayne now that their Groupon can be used at this location. Did not regret our choice — engaging theme and enough puzzles to be sufficiently challenging. Working in a team of two may be a time crunch given the amount of puzzles, but we were in a group of 8 and succeed with 15 minutes to spare. The staff does pay attention and give clues over the screen when they think we may be stuck.
I have done 7 exit rooms now (yes… I’m a junkie)… and Exit Strategy is probably my second favorite given their selection of rooms and adequately challenging (but not off-​the-​wall confusing) themed puzzles.
Looking forward to trying their harder rooms next time.

Such a fun and challenging experience ! Have been to other «room escapes» and «EXIT» strategy has it DOWN! By far ! The rooms are put together extremely well ! Detailed challenges and great props! Truly a step up from traditional Saturday night plans !

I was part of a group of 4 puzzle solvers that visited this «Escape the Room» event. I had booked way in advance, for my birthday, over the phone. The gentleman I spoke with over the phone was very helpful and walked me through the steps and let me know a little of what to expect. You can also book online, but as I wasn’t sure what the final total would be — I spoke with the guy and he helped me out.
We arrived to a small office building by the Motor Vehicle Service. It’s definitely not a ‘walk in and try this out’ location, you have to be looking for it to find it. Even when we knew we were at the right building, it wasn’t super easy to figure out where to go by looking at the directory. Jokingly, we asked ourselves ‘is this the first puzzle?‘
We walked in and were greeted by two young women running the game. There is a small waiting room with little puzzles to solve on the desk by the door to get in, in case they cannot take you yet. Thankfully, we were all set to go and after a quick trip to the bathroom (you are locked in for an hour, after all), we walked into the space. They start you off with a quick movie, which explains the rules of Exit Strategy and gives you the backstory of the room you’re going to be locked in. I had chosen the Speakeasy room for my birthday, as I have an unnatural obsession with speakeasies. After that, they put you in the room, lock the door, and let you go.
I won’t speak any specifics of the room, as not to ruin the surprise (that’s even one of their rules, no pictures in the space as to not ruin the surprise), but I will say that there is a TV screen in the room that gives you not only how much time you have remaining, but it gives clues if you are completely offbase or stuck. They want you to win, after all. They don’t hold your hand, but give out little clues to guide you in a direction that will aid you.
We beat the room with about 2 minutes to spare. It was very stressful and fun! We liked it so much, in fact, we decided to give the second room, an 80’s hotel room, a shot. We just went out for a quick drink of water, then made our way back to try to escape once more! We did it with less than 2 minutes on the clock!
I highly recommend this game for people who like to solve puzzles and like to critically think and won’t get too mad if they’re headed down the wrong rabbit hole, so to speak. The people who run the game are very nice (we had the two girls running our first room, and then a nice guy running the second) and have a great sense of humor (I yelled at the cameras a few times in frustration, but all in good fun!). Don’t come here if you’re intoxicated or looking for something easy to solve. These are challenging rooms, and you will need your wits about you.
Such a great place.