Level99 is opening soon in Disney Springs, and we were given a preview of the new experience and all it has to offer.

Level99 Opens Next Week at Disney Springs

Level99 has officially cut the ribbon on its new Disney Springs location, offering invited media an early look at the company’s largest real-world gaming venue to date.

The ceremony was held on Thursday, June 25, four days before Level99 opens to the public on Monday, June 29. Tickets are already available online.

Level99 founder and CEO Matt DuPlessie and board chairman Ron Shaich participated in the ceremony alongside Disney executives Debbie Hart and Megan Crosby. In place of oversized scissors, the group used a ceremonial axe to cut the ribbon.

The unusual implement referenced Axe Run, one of Level99’s signature games. During the challenge, players must cross a narrow beam while avoiding a series of swinging axes – a harrowing game that DuPlessie then demonstrated for guests at our preview event.

The two-story venue encompasses more than 46,000 square feet on the West Side of Disney Springs. It is located next to the Drawn to Life theater and across from House of Blues.

Level99 Disney Springs offers 63 physical and mental mini-games, giving it the largest game collection at any of the company’s four operating locations. Challenges range from logic puzzles and tests of coordination to obstacle courses requiring strength, balance, and agility.

Most games last approximately one to four minutes and accommodate groups of two to six people. Guests are free to attempt the challenges in any order and replay them throughout their purchased time.

Players receive an RFID-enabled Veloband when they check in. The wearable device provides access to the games and records each player’s progress. Accounts can be used during subsequent visits, allowing returning guests to continue collecting achievements, compete on leaderboards, and work toward additional rewards. Level99 previously shared more details about the system and its Disney Springs games.

In addition to Axe Run, announced challenges include Ninja Swing, which tasks players with navigating platforms using hanging ropes, and Mansion Banquet, a logic game involving the seating arrangements, meals, and drinks requested by a collection of particular dinner guests.

More than 40 original works of art are installed throughout the venue’s first and second floors. Some pieces are incorporated into scavenger-hunt-style activities, giving guests something else to explore outside the individual challenge rooms.

A two-story bar forms the centerpiece of the Disney Springs location. The food and beverage menu includes Detroit-style pizza, wagyu burgers, loaded elote guacamole, cocktails, and a range of craft beer.

Several specialty cocktails are served in a novelty foil pouch, including a dirty martini pouched topped with a stuffed olive. Guests may place orders at the first-floor kitchen window or bar, while satellite beverage carts are positioned upstairs.

Matt DuPlessie’s Escape Room Background

Level99 founder Matt DuPlessie has worked in location-based entertainment for more than two decades. After earning a mechanical engineering degree from MIT, he contributed to design and construction projects for theme parks, museums, and aquariums before completing an MBA at Harvard Business School.

He then founded 5 Wits, an immersive attraction concept that debuted in Boston in 2004 – many years before commercial escape rooms became widespread. Its themed walkthroughs combined puzzles, storytelling, and elaborate environments, earning DuPlessie recognition as an early pioneer of the escape-room format.

DuPlessie later established Box Fort, which produced interactive environments and effects for clients including Walt Disney Imagineering, the Smithsonian, and Blue Man Group. He drew upon that design experience and lessons from operating 5 Wits when creating Level99, adapting escape-room-style gameplay into shorter, replayable physical and mental challenges.

The first Level99 opened in Massachusetts in 2021, with Box Fort subsequently becoming the company’s internal design and production team.

How Level99 Evolves Immersive Entertainment

Traditional escape rooms generally require reservations, dedicate an entire experience to one group, and offer a limited amount of replay value once the solution is known. Level99 adapts the collaborative puzzle format into an open-ended collection of short games that guests can approach in any order.

The model combines several entertainment categories. Some rooms resemble condensed escape-room puzzles, while others draw from obstacle courses, arcade games, scavenger hunts, and television competition programs. Persistent player profiles and leaderboards introduce elements more commonly associated with video games.

Shorter challenges also allow more groups to circulate through the facility while encouraging repeat visits. Level99 develops and manufactures its games internally, with challenges rotated among locations as new concepts are completed.

You can find a detailed look at the dozens of games and challenges available at the Disney Springs location from Level99’s website.

DuPlessie began developing Level99 after compiling ideas for improving capacity, accessibility, and replayability at 5 Wits. Funding was secured in 2018, and the first Level99 opened at Natick Mall in Massachusetts in 2021.

Shaich, the founder of Panera Bread and current chairman of Cava, joined the project as an investor and business partner. Level99 subsequently expanded to Providence, Rhode Island, and Tysons, Virginia, before arriving at Walt Disney World.

Four additional venues are under development in West Hartford, Connecticut; King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; Paramus, New Jersey; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

A single ticket for 1.5 hours is $29.99 most weekdays, $39.99 on Saturdays (and Friday, July 3), and $35.99 on Sundays.

A 2.5 hour ticket is $10 more — $39.99, $49.99, or $45.99. Ticket pricing is the same for adults and minors, and kids under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

A premium upgrade is also available with expedited check-in and additional gifts.

The first 500 guests to enter Level99 on opening day will receive a commemorative pin. The venue opens to the public on Monday, June 29.

The massive venue, which replaces the much-maligned NBA Experience, bills itself as a “social gaming” destination, perhaps returning to the space’s spiritual roots, where it was once DisneyQuest.

Have you visited another Level99 location? Tell us all about your experience on social media!

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