Review, Outage: No Vacancy Escape Ventures, Orlando - Waterford Lakes
Fun Factor: 7
Escape Ventures
Waterford Lakes Town Center, 570 N Alafaya Trail Suite 109-110, Orlando, Florida 32828
Date Played: June 17, 2026
Booking Size: 2 to 6 players — we recommend 2 or 3
Game Time: 60 minutes
Difficulty: Advanced/Expert (darkness)
Horror Theme: No—but definitely spooky, with an extended period in complete darkness
Physical Elements: Some crawling and prolonged play in complete darkness
Objective:
The condemned Madame Locktane Inn & Suites has new owners—and somehow they have decided that your inexperienced maintenance crew is exactly what the property needs before its grand reopening. During your first shift, an electrical outage plunges the motel into darkness and awakens the spirits of Madame Locktane and the maintenance team that disappeared during another outage fifty years earlier. Your team must navigate the darkened property, complete the necessary repairs, and restore the power before history repeats itself.
Our Experience
We had fun playing Outage: No Vacancy at Escape Ventures in Orlando, and we recommend it with a Fun Factor of 7.
Escape Ventures operates more than one Orlando-area location, and this game is at its Waterford Lakes location—so make sure you are heading to the correct one.
That Fun Factor is based on one of the best uses of complete darkness we have encountered in an escape room, a well-developed transition into the blackout, and a substantial collection of varied tactile puzzles that required Laura and me to communicate constantly.
We have played several “blackout” rooms, and this may be our favorite.
The game does not immediately throw you into darkness. I would say it has two distinct acts - we are sharing some of the photos of the set in Act 1 where this room begins in a small, illuminated space with several puzzles that are not especially difficult are satisfying and require some thoughtful manipulation of the props and set pieces. These are not throwaway padding. This segment of the room establishes the maintenance story and gives you time to become familiar with your surroundings before everything goes wrong and Act 2 begins.
As a result, the blackout felt like a genuine progression in the story rather than simply the room’s gimmick.
Glimpses of the set that we get to see in the light.
Complete and Total Darkness
Escape Ventures warns that approximately 60 percent of the game is played in complete and total darkness without a light source. That description is accurate.
The dark portion is intended to be completed entirely through touch. Blacklights can be turned on if players need them, but we were told before the game that doing so would substantially reduce the difficulty of the puzzles – and what’s the fun in that? Even the light of a smart watch would spoil the fun.
The Advanced/Expert rating comes largely from removing your ability to see—not from extraordinarily complicated puzzle logic. And I want you to be prepared for that.
You must:
Find what you need.
Remember where you found it.
Determine how it connects to something else.
Accomplish all of that without stepping on—or into—your teammates.
You will quickly need to develop your own rhythm and techniques for mapping the space, keeping track of objects, and remembering where you felt a particular texture, shape, mechanism, or opening.
The dark area also contains several different puzzles. This is not merely an extended search through a black room for one object. The puzzles were varied and required us to identify patterns, manipulate mechanisms, make spatial connections, and communicate information that normally would have been obvious at a glance.
Tactile Puzzles and Communication
Regular readers of Fun Factor know that Laura and I particularly enjoy puzzles that require the tactile manipulation of props and set pieces. Outage: No Vacancy takes that type of puzzling and removes every visual shortcut.
Ironically, if the lights were on, much of the difficulty would disappear.
There were still logical deductions to make, but for someone like me—who often needs to see something before I can fully understand and consider it—the darkness added a significant memory challenge.
Laura and I dealt with that by narrating almost everything we felt: where it was located, how high it was, which direction it faced, what its texture was, and how it related to the surrounding set. That gave us a verbal picture of the room in addition to the tactile one.
It sometimes probably sounded ridiculous:
“There is a raised shape near my left hand.”
“What kind of shape?”
“I don’t know. Sort of a wishbone…
…but possibly an eyeball.”
Despite the occasional questionable description, the communication worked.
With two experienced players, we completed the game with less than two minutes remaining. The room kept us busy throughout the entire hour, and the dark portion was both more challenging and more satisfying than the equivalent sections in several other blackout rooms we have played.
More glimpses of the set that we get to see in the light.
Team Size and Difficulty
Outage: No Vacancy can be booked by as many as six players, but I have to believe six would feel crowded in its smaller spaces—especially when everyone is moving around without being able to see one another.
Two players worked well for us, although it made the game quite challenging. Three may be the ideal number, providing one additional set of hands and another person to remember information without creating too much congestion.
More players would not necessarily make the room easier. Only so many people can examine a tactile puzzle at the same time, and too many competing descriptions could make communication more confusing rather than less.
We recommend two experienced players or a team of three.
Is It Horror?
Escape Ventures describes Outage: No Vacancy as a horror escape room. For us, it was more spooky than horrifying.
There is an unsettling story, ghostly activity, and an extended period in absolute darkness. Those elements may be genuinely scary for players who are uncomfortable when they cannot see their surroundings.
However, we did not experience it as the same type of horror found in rooms built around aggressive actors, graphic imagery, or repeated jump scares. The tension primarily comes from the atmosphere and the vulnerability of being unable to see.
Players who are afraid of the dark should take the warning seriously. Players who enjoy spooky environments but generally avoid intense horror may still find this manageable.
Location and Parking
Escape Ventures at Waterford Lakes is located in a large shopping center with plenty of convenient parking and numerous nearby restaurant choices.
We ate at Fresh Kitchen before our games. It was a convenient option for a fast, fresh, and relatively healthy meal.
Other Games at This Location
There are several other games at the Waterford Lakes location that we recommend:
Operation Arctic Storm: The Final Meltdown, a 90-minute game
Bros for Life: Fraternity Heist
Cornstalkers: Lost in the Maize, another 90-minute game—look for our review soon
Neighborhood Watcher, which has the unusual distinction of being the only Escape Ventures game at this location without a colon in its title.
Final Thoughts
Outage: No Vacancy is a strong choice for players who enjoy tactile puzzles, close teamwork, and unusual game mechanics.
The darkness is not simply atmospheric. It changes how every piece of information must be discovered, remembered, and communicated. That made the game challenging, occasionally disorienting, and a lot of fun.
If you play Outage: No Vacancy in Orlando, please let them know you saw it on Fun Factor Escape Room Reviews. Also, drop us a note—we always love hearing from you.
Until next time, keep escaping—and remember: when the power goes out, a good team can still conduct itself.
…and have fun!
