The Villa Travels: The Great Escape

It's my first trip back home to Florida, since I relocated to Washington D.C. Upon landing, I almost felt like I was in a foreign land. And before I knew it, I felt at home again.

Alyssa and I got the chance to experience one of her favorite things to do since her discovery last Christmas, the escape rooms. As a parent, you learned to do what your child does, even though you yourself, have no desire in such activities! Hey, isn't that sacrifice?!?! We did have fun, but solving problems and puzzles, are not my thing. As it turns out, the level of difficulty as well as rating, was probably not as appropriate as I imagine, especially for children under 13. Nevertheless, it was a valuable learning experience and was definitely not for nothing.

Lessons Learned

1). Use your resources wisely, and you can maximize your time.
2). Name-calling and screaming can be detrimental to achieving the goal, that is to survive.
3). The team member must obey authority. Example: In this case, Alyssa has great mathematical and puzzle solving skills. But to divide and conquer as she and the "over-head" voice said to do, I believe we didn't fully tap into our gifts to make the most of the situation. She did not listen to her mother to solve the puzzle first and, as it turns out, the puzzles were not even all there. We had to unlock more keys to get the remaining pieces. Yes, by 30 min., I was thoroughly frustrated. Sorry honey, I really didn't mean to scream at you.

Result = We almost made it. Now I said almost, because we opened the tunnel and was in the last room, which was quite dark and quite scary. The wind grew louder, I actually screamed for the staff to turn off the eerie sounds..Too close to reality. The sound of the wind, the cobwebs, and the whispering voices grew louder and louder. Within seconds, Bo and Alyssa ran back to the front of the room, as we could not go forward with the fear and pressure in a dark room.

I can't say I was proud. But upon reading reviews on Trip Advisor, I felt so much better when a team of nine could not escape either. LOL, God says don't compare! And I shouldn't. But I needed to know how bad we did. Turns out we were part of the 90% that didn't escape. What a relief.