Five Escape Rooms Beside Sawgrass Mills, Including a Gold Rush
The Oasis is the open-air end of Sawgrass Mills, and one of its plain storefronts opens onto a log cabin, a submarine and a train that travels through time. You book one of five rooms for an hour. The part worth reading twice is which days this particular booking actually covers.
The Oasis is the open-air section of Sawgrass Mills, set apart from the enclosed mall. Suite 1407 is an ordinary looking storefront along it. Behind the door are five sets.
One is a log cabin in the California wilderness with an old gold mine beneath it. One is a submarine moored outside a deep-sea laboratory that has stopped answering. One is a museum gallery missing a Monet. One is a night market where the smuggling turns out to be the small problem. The last is a high-tech train that runs through the centuries.
You pick a single room and play it for sixty minutes. Each room takes eight people at most. That figure is the room's own capacity, which is also why the booking form stops at eight.
That distinction decides who you spend the hour with. The operator says most of its games are private, your group only, and that other people can be sold into any seats you leave open.
Most games are private to your group. Book all eight places and it stays that way. Leave places open and other guests can be sold into them.
The operator names weekends, holidays and its busiest stretches as when shared games happen most. It also presents the shared version as a feature, on the grounds that two teams trade hints and occasionally leave as friends. The listing has 306 reviews behind it, averaging a shade under five out of five.
The days matter here. This listing covers Monday through Thursday only, with start times from 8:00am to 11:45pm, while the rooms themselves run seven days a week.
The Escape Game Sunrise: 60-Minute Adventures at Sawgrass MillsAdmission to play one adventure, priced per person.www.viator.comA Gold Mine, a Submarine, and Three More Doors
The operator scores its own rooms out of ten. Gold Rush, The Depths and Timeliner sit at seven. The Heist and Special Ops sit at eight.
- Gold Rush: a late relative stashed his gold somewhere around his cabin, and you have first claim on it. The operator calls this one a good opening room for people who have never done this before.
- The Depths: steer a submarine, then work out what became of the researcher who went quiet.
- Timeliner: Train Through Time: the newest of the five. It mixes ordinary locks and keys with screens and sensors.
- The Heist: a Monet has left the Barclay Museum of Historical Art, and the curator is the obvious suspect.
- Special Ops: Mysterious Market: a night market, a decoded message, and a plot rather larger than the market.
The five rooms do not start on the hour. Each runs on its own staggered grid a few minutes off the others, which is why the times on offer land at odd minutes.
Sixty Minutes Inside, and Fifteen on Either Side
Each game is an hour. This booking is listed at seventy-five minutes, which covers the hour plus the briefing that comes before it. The operator asks for fifteen minutes ahead of the game to check in and be briefed, and another fifteen afterwards to talk through what happened and take the photographs.
Arrive fifteen minutes before your start time, and sign the waivers online before you set off.
Hints are unlimited and cost you nothing in the scoring. The door is locked, which is the point, though every door carries an exit button and the operator is plain that you can step out whenever you want. Nothing in these games is crude or gross, and there is no adult language. The operator does allow that a theme can feel intense.
Thirteen and Up Is a Recommendation, Not a Door Policy
The operator recommends the rooms for ages thirteen and up, then says in the same breath that younger players are welcome. Some puzzles will be tricky for them. The operator reckons younger children are unusually good at spotting things the adults walk past.
Two rules sit firmer than that recommendation.
A paying adult of eighteen or older must play alongside anyone aged fourteen or under, and anyone under eighteen needs an adult to sign their waiver.
Children of four and under come along free, though the operator asks you to call before reserving so their place is counted against the room's eight. Service animals are welcome and the operator says it follows the guidance published on ADA.gov. Other pets stay at home. A drink is fine if it has a lid on it, although you will want both hands free.
On wheelchair access the operator does not publish an answer. It asks you to call so it can steer you to the room that suits your team best. The Sunrise line is answered from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, Monday to Friday.
Finding Suite 1407, and the Days This Booking Covers
The address is 2610 Sawgrass Mills Circle, Suite 1407. The door opens straight onto the Oasis parking lot, with Oasis Cigar next door at 1405 and the Old Navy Outlet a few units along at 1415A.
Self-parking is free, open access around the mall's perimeter with two garages as well. The operator asks you to use the Oasis lot, which is the one outside its door.
This booking covers Monday through Thursday only, with start times running from 8:00am to 11:45pm.
The store itself publishes nine in the morning until midnight early in the week, and until half past midnight from Friday to Sunday. The mall around it closes at nine. So the late slots are real, and they run after the shops have shut: getting in does not depend on the mall being open, because this unit has its own door onto the Oasis lot. The slot to look twice at is the first of the day, which this listing puts an hour before the hour the store publishes as opening.
Cancel at least twenty-four hours before your start time and this booking refunds in full. Inside that window it does not refund at all.
Hotel pick-up is not part of it. What you are buying is admission to play one adventure.
Walk-ins are accepted, though the operator would rather you booked ahead so you get the room and the hour you want. The last fifteen minutes are for the debrief and the photographs, which is when most teams work out how close they came.
Then you push the door and step straight back out into The Oasis, open air and the shopfronts, which after an hour in a gold mine takes a second to adjust to.