This half term, challenge the children! Puzzle solved!
We’ve scoured the country to find the best escape rooms.
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The Passenger Who Has Gone Missing — Mission: Breakout in Kentish Town, London
Set inside the former South Kentish Town Underground station — which has been closed since 1924 — The Lost Passenger is the most immersive escape game we’ve ever experienced and sees players descend beneath London’s streets and scramble behind the scenes of a very spooky tube station.
Although escape rooms can be filled with paper-thin plots and random padlocks, many of these are not in keeping with the game’s logic.
This is a must-see for urban explorers as well as fans of classic horror. It features immersive storytelling, real-world props, logical puzzles, authentic scares, and authentic (and dusty!) settings.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60 mins
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 55m 37s
- Ideal for: Train spotters and ghost busters
Temple Quest — Clue Cracker in Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Perfect for kids of the ‘80s, Temple QuestThis very physical escape room is sure to bring out the Spielberg spirit. It’s filled with precolombian ruins, human remains, and other pre-Columbian treasures.
Channeling The Crystal Maze’s Aztec Zone, players will feel like Lara Croft or Indiana Jones as they navigate by the stars with sand underfoot, and tackle hands-on challenges and ancient traps.
The action is intense, much like a blockbuster summer movie. The Goonies fans will be amazed at the discovery of a silver screen-inspired artifact.
Clue Cracker has two more amazing rooms.
- Difficulty: 6/10
- Time to escape: 60 minutes
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 53m 21s
- Ideal for: Overgrown goonies
Spellcraft — Tulleys Escape Rooms and Games in Crawley, West Sussex
Any one of Tulleys’ five excellent rooms could have made our top-ten list, with their horror-themed (and incredibly difficult) game, Nethercott Manor, being a firm favourite among escape enthusiasts.
SpellcraftHowever, the setting is still challenging in a family friendly environment that Harry Potter fans love.
Splitting your group in half, with one group beginning in a sorcerer’s sweet shop and the other in an arcane potions laboratory, Spellcraft pits light against dark and sees wand-wielding players both co-operating and competing with each other as it warps you from one fantastical setting to the next. Pure magic.
- Difficulty: 9/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 59m 58s
- Ravenclaws & Slytherins: Best for
Magna Carta Murder — Escape the Towers in Canterbury, Kent
Step inside Canterbury’s 14th Century Westgate Towers You will be charged to stop a heist from taking place in a working museum.
By day, the city’s iconic gatehouse functions as a gallery showcasing its collection of historical artefacts.
At night — by means of cleverly concealed puzzles hidden in and around the medieval exhibits — it transforms into an elaborate crime-themed comedy caper that has players battle artful art thieves while exploring spiral staircases that lead to areas of the structure usually closed to the public.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 56m 28s
- Best for: Sure-footed sleuths
Viking — Extremescape in Disley, Cheshire
Thor’s legendary hammer, Mjölnir, has been stolen by the trickster Loki (think Norse gods rather than Marvel characters), and it’s down to you to retrieve it before the ice giants destroy an undefended mankind.
Viking takes place entirely within Thor’s feasting hall in Asgard but — due to genius set design — this one space holds a huge number of secrets that dramatically reveal themselves over the course of the game, with each puzzle solved making more of its epic story unfold.
Expect a story-driven adventure full of surprises, special effects and the wrathful thunder god.
- Difficulty: 6/10
- Time to escape: 75m
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 47:12
- Best for: Valhalla’s finest
Daylight Robbery — Cryptology in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
While there’s no shortage of bank heist themed rooms in the UK, Daylight Robbery — which tasks players with stealing the Daylight Diamond for their boss while looting millions for themselves — is easily one of the best.
Set inside a real former bank vault, you’ll hack security systems and cameras, dodge lasers, and override the vault to fill your swag bag with as much loot as possible before your time runs out… but if you don’t get that diamond you’ll be fitted for concrete boots.
The overall room design is authentic and the puzzles are varied, from simple to difficult, but always fair.
Ideal for groups of 4 or more.
- Difficulty: 8/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size is 2
- Swag value: £1.1m
- Ideal for: Young and old offenders
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Quartz — Escapement in Broadstairs, Kent
Aiming squarely at movie buffs and gamers, This high-tech escape experience is a great choice pits players against an AI computer from the 1940s, built by a German physicist working for a shadowy organisation that reminded us of Marvel’s HYDRA.
The whole diqeselpunk production has been set in a bomb shelter turned into a secret lab. The sound-and lighting cues are executed using professional West End theatrical equipment.
You’ll need fast-thinking and a quick trigger to defeat the AI’s final form. Hasta la vista, baby.
- Difficulty: 6/10
- Time to escape: 90m
- The team is 4
- Our escape time: 63m 12s
- Ideal for: Patriots with super-powerful abilities
UI-55 — Compendium in Bury, Greater Manchester
A German WW2 submarine has been found in the Thames, stuffed full of British treasure, and it’s your job to jump onboard and retrieve as much as you can within an hour.
UI-55 offers a different spin on the traditional escape room: the challenge isn’t finding your way out — which is relatively simple — but solving the scores of varied puzzles to retrieve Britain’s looted wealth.
The U-boat setting makes for an atmospheric, tense experience, while the large space (taking up the entire ground floor of Compendium’s premises) and the fact you can tackle — or abandon — puzzles in any order makes this a great game for teams of up to 12 players.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- The team is 3
- Loot taken: 48/52
- Ideal for: Puzzle pirates
Loot the Lanes — Pier Pressure in Brighton, East Sussex
This subterranean escape room immediately wows visitors by accurately recreating a parade of typically Brighton shops, all crammed incredibly into the basement of a local café.
A cobbled underground street with a telephone box, a record shop, jewellery shop, and antique market makes for an ideal setting for a high stakes heist.
This is the perfect game for those who enjoy a challenge. Get out and about in the Lanes doesn’t hold your hand or drop any big hints about how to tackle your mission, leaving you to figure out for yourself the clever tricks required to break in to the various buildings and snatch the swag.
- Difficulty: 9/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 59m 57s
- For: Criminal masterminds
Plan 52 — ClueQuest in King’s Cross, London
One of the UK’s exit game pioneers, ClueQuest is escape-room megastore with multiple copies of each of its four rooms, which all revolve around the same secret agent theme united by a common nemesis, Professor BlackSheep.
Thanks to its ingenious Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Kids production design, CQ Origenes is a firm favourite with many escapologists, but we think the spacious, straightforward Plan 52Their best game is still playing.
While it might not be as exciting and the office theme may not make you think, the puzzles can be fun, challenging, and logical. They are also not as likely to fail as high-tech gaming games.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size is 2
- Our escape time: 57m 32s
- For codebreakers and spy children