Room Escape Artist

By Kate Wastl and Kurtis Rohlf [with commentary by Christina Rohlf]

Location: Hilversum, Netherlands

Date Played: October 10, 2025

Team Size: 6; we recommend 0

Duration: 70 minutes

Price:  Priceless

Ticketing: Sheer Bad Luck

Accessibility Consideration: All players must stand for long periods and be prepared to follow Fire Department instructions.

Emergency Exit Rating: [F] No Exit Available; Emergency Communication Broken

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

Honestly, we were just trying to stay awake. [It worked!]

After flying across the Atlantic for the REA Escape Immerse Explore Netherlands Tour, we had booked four escape rooms on our first day, just so we could force ourselves to stay vertical. I’m sure you can relate… escape rooms are the perfect distraction for jet lag, after all.

What we did not realize was that after knocking out our first three rooms, we would be faced with a (very non-optional) extra room for the day.

It all started out innocuously enough in a small Dutch city center with a ton of one-way streets and terrible street parking. There was really only one option in town: the parking garage in the center. Comforted by the fact that seemingly everyone was also selecting this option, we parked, escaped a really excellent room, grabbed a quick dinner, and headed back to our car to go to our fourth and final room for the day. [At dinner Christina and Kate received an ironically small portion of gnocchi, especially in comparison to Kurtis’ portion of spaghetti. In hindsight, the small portion sizing may have been a blessing in disguise.]

After a fair amount of wandering to even find an open entrance to the parking garage [the parking garage was attached to a mall and the mall was closed], we piled into the elevator with a very pleasant Dutch family. Things went as expected for the first, oh, 12 seconds, then a sudden shudder before the escape room group and nice Dutch family exchanged awkward side glances and nervous laughs as the elevator came to a halt. Surely it would get going again soon? I mean, on the bright side, we still had lights… [A nice use of foreshadowing here!]

But wait! All elevators have emergency help buttons! Yes, we shall call for help. Well…that was certainly a hope that we clung to for a good few minutes as we tried in vain. Literally nothing happened as we attempted (and failed) to call for help…the button was jammed. [The good news was the alarm button worked! And started up an ear splitting noise only audible within the elevator. Needless to say we decided against that route.] Next up? 911. Well…wait…next up is finding a phone with service. Then…googling what 911 is in the Netherlands (pro-tip: it’s 112). As we’re on the phone with the really nice emergency dispatcher, we got some welcome help from our fellow trapped adventurers of the Dutch variety on our exact location. On that topic, these people we were trapped with were amazing. Cool-headed, chill, and so very welcoming despite the fact that we were all suddenly forced to occupy the same small space for an indeterminate amount of time.

After contacting emergency services, we figured the very best thing to do would be to let SOMEONE besides the Dutch emergency services know where we were. So, we reached out to David and Lisa with a short message of our location and predicament. And essentially, that was the last proactive action for 70 minutes that we could take. [Kurtis also contacted the company that we were supposed to be heading to for our next game. I bet that was the first time “stuck in a lift” came up as an excuse for running late.] Besides dutifully updating David & Lisa every ten minutes with the (lack of) progress, we were at the mercy of some amazingly capable firefighters.

Two things became clear rather quickly. Firstly, this was not going to come to a conclusion soon and second, we were the muggles. Once the firefighters and elevator tech arrived each update was given in Dutch, which is fair since that is the native language and we hadn’t requested this room to be in English. Thankfully, the family graciously translated throughout our adventure. [Some things didn’t need translation. My favorite was, “oh, oH, OH,” spoken with increasing urgency and volume.]

As minutes ticked by there was the appropriate amount of noise for first responders manually gaining access to the elevator shaft. Things eventually quieted down when it became apparent that our situation was more complicated than simply opening the elevator. [The comment “normally if you do this it works” also wasn’t encouraging.]

Eventually, our elevator technician decided they needed a hint and was able to call a more experienced colleague. [We really should be more careful about how we mix teams in a split room.] This is where our adventure got more interesting. Suddenly darkness! Not really a game mechanic we prefer, but nonetheless we were forced to experience it for the back half of our time in the elevator. [At least we were allowed to use our phone flashlights!] The power cycled on and off intermittently for the next 35 minutes as the two gentlemen completed troubleshooting over the phone.

It was getting hot in the tiny elevator with six people. After another ten minutes with no luck restoring movement to the elevator, the firefighters were able to get one of the inner doors open to provide a bit more air. As the doors opened it became shockingly apparent why things were escalating. We were greeted by a concrete block wall and a tiny bit of light well above us in the elevator shaft.

The extra air and small amount of light provided some comfort [I made the mistake of looking down the shaft when the doors opened. We were very high up. I have to admit I was less than comforted that the door was now open.], and the phone conversation between the technicians seemed to be reaching a solution. The sudden jolting movement of the elevator downward caused us all to make a surprised yelp, including the elevator technician who was still on the top of the lift when the elevator moved. The kind Dutch family translated for us as he spoke to his superior. Apparently, the buttons for up and down were swapped, but “this was normal.”

As the technician got their bearings with the controls, we braced ourselves as the lift was lowered to the closest floor. [Remember how I said I looked down before? I was less than thrilled about this finale to our adventure. Right up there with scariest horror room…]

The brave firefighters came into view and helped each of us exit. They had bottles of water for us and made sure we were all ok. [More like we stood there wondering if we could leave. We had another game to play, after all, that we were now very late to. Many thanks to One Hour Lockup for still letting us play their great game!] The adventure had come to an end, and we gratefully walked up a few flights of stairs to our car. If you find yourself in Hilversum, we wouldn’t recommend this escape room to anyone. Even though it was free. We recommend you take the stairs.

Epilogue: Kate returned to the scene a few days later. The lift was still out of order. It didn’t surprise us that this experience was still closed due to safety issues. Hopefully, we were the last ones to play it.