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Meet Lucas D’Onofrio of Adventure Vault in Boca Raton

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas D’Onofrio.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lucas. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It started with when me, my brother and my wife came across an Escape Room a few years back when there was only a handful of Escape Rooms in all of South Florida. The idea seemed great and original, so we had to try it out.

As we are getting to the location, we realize the place looked very sketchy… to the point we thought we were lost. We park and we see the building and we say to each other, surely this can’t be the place. We open the door and the place looked completely different on the inside. It was a nice and clean lobby where a gentleman escorted us to our first Escape Room. The outside definitely gave us that eery feel, but once we were in the room, we had a blast.

These were some of the first Escape Rooms, só there weren’t really much “high-tech” puzzles or anything like that, but we loved the idea of being trapped in a room with your own group without a phone or anything and having to get out with only your wit. Coming from a history of videogames, the idea of being in a “live videogame” was exhilirating and we couldn’t stop. We started booking rooms every weekend and next thing we know, we were pretty much done with every Escape Room in South Florida.

Having played videogames most of our lives, I asked my brother what he thought of us coming up with our own escape room. We noticed some of the escape rooms had similar puzzles and I thought we’d be able to make something more original, something the consumer would love since we were coming from the consumer’s end from both the Escape Room and Videogame industry.

I decided to sketch up a theme for a room and next thing I know, I have a million ideas flowing and within the first week I had two fully sketched out rooms with rough drafts and everything. My wife and brother both loved it, so we decided to get some more opinions. Everyone loved it, so we decided to pull the trigger and build something that we love and we thought people would as well.

Fast forward a few months and we had the keys to our unit and building out all of our rooms!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Definitely not a smooth road… especially coming from a perfectionist like myself. Our rooms were not high-tech, so when we first opened up, I was scared about everything. I wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible, but as every Escape Room owner knows, this is the wrong industry for perfection. When we had opened up, my brother and wife didn’t want me anywhere near the camera screen because I would anxiously pace up and down the halls hoping the puzzle would work and that we would have a great reaction. All I cared about was how the teams would come out of the room. I wanted to know they had a great time and everyone was enjoying themselves, because at the end of the day, we were that group one day and a great experience makes a world of difference for the costumer. After everything started going more smoothly, I was able to calm down a bit and I got permission to watch the cameras again, lol.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Adventure Vault – what should we know?
We work in giving our customers an “adventure”. We want our customers to come in, put their phones and technology away and come together as a family, friends, or even a group of strangers and work together and have a great time. We love when we see groups that lose track of time. To me, that means we did a great job in giving them their own adventure to lose themselves in and forget about their problems for an hour. We see that happen so many times, whether it’s an old grumpy man who comes in and doesn’t say a word, and 5 minutes in the room they are the most active player in the group, or a kid who’s just not having a good day will come in with their family pouting, but leave the room with the biggest smile in their face asking their mom if they can do another room right away. That’s what we are in the business for.

I’m the owner along with my wife Tamara and brother Daniel. My role in Adventure Vault is to come up with all the themes, story and puzzles for all the rooms. It might seem easy, but it is a very hard thing to do. When we had our first test run, it took our friends 2 hours to complete the rooms… with lots of help. I’ve had to go back and forth to the drawing board all the time. Even after your room is open you have to still go back to the drawing board because there’s always something you want to remove or add. It’s definitely a time consuming job, but it’s my favorite part. I love immersing myself in a story and putting myself in the customers shoes and then seeing them actually doing it and getting excited. The best part for me is when a team will solve a puzzle or unlock a hidden door and they will all cheer and celebrate together. That is the best feeling in the world for a puzzle-maker.

And I think, that’s really what sets us apart from other Escape Rooms. I’ve seen a lot of Escape Rooms open up ever since we’ve opened Adventure Vault and I’ve seen a lot of them who are just in it to make a quick buck. Whether the puzzles were bought from the same place as the Escape Room down the street, or something breaking and it not being replaced or fix, or even the customer service. Some really aren’t into making puzzles, or into immersing into a story, it’s just to throw a group of people in a room with objects and take their money. In my opinion it puts a bad taste in the consumers mouth and can really hurt other Escape Rooms who love what they do.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We had a tremendous amount of help and support from our friends and family. My number one supporters would have to be my wife Tamara and brother Daniel who put their trust in me and this venture and were there working day in and day out. We all had full time jobs when we opened up Adventure Vault and the 3 of us easily put 120 hours a week each working our full time job and the Escape Room. Our other brother Filipe, helped a lot in creating our graphics and his wife came up with our amazing name.

And that’s not to leave out our other family members who helped in the entire process, whether it was painting, installing things, building out all of our rooms. My mother, father, cousins and the entire in-law family helped in one way or another build our location. We could not have done without everyone’s help, that’s for sure!

Pricing:

  • Our bookings are $28.00 per person
  • If you book out the entire room you will receive 20% off

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Adventure Vault

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