It all started a couple of years ago. My wife asked if I’d ever try an escape room. My first thought was, why would I pay someone to lock me in a room for an hour.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a challenge. I like to think of myself as a critical thinker, and pretty clever. And I love puzzles and games. So I tell her sure. Let’s try it.
Our first escape room, is still our favorite. The story behind the room is that a doctor keeps having patients die. You’re hired by the family of his victims to discover why it’s happening. After making your way into his office you discover that you are locked in, and if you are not out when he returns in a hour, you will become his next victim. From finding clues and tearing things apart we barely made it out. Actually there were just two seconds left on the clock when we opened the door. Afterwards the staff let us know that we were the first team of two to ever make it out of that particular room. We were hooked. In fact as we were leaving the room my wife and I had a huge adrenaline rush. My wife said, “I wonder if this is what if feels like to rob a bank.”
We basked in the glory of our win for a while. Then the itch to try another one came over us. From having to shut down a factory before it blows up the town, to missing movie starlets we tried many. Then we got family and friends involved.
Another one we did was with my two brother-in-laws, and their spouses. The one was a little different. We were in competition with another group in identical room. Plexiglas divided us, and we could sabotage them, and they could do the same to us. We came out victorious in this one as well. So far we had a perfect record. And them my son wanted to try one. From a wild west themed room and a revolutionary war room, he got hooked just like we did. And yes, we won those as well.
Some friends of ours wanted to try out an escape room, and asked us to join. They said they needed the experts. We joked around saying that they better not screw up our perfect record. Locked on a train on our way to a prison camp was the theme of that room. And we missed the record time of getting out by about 2 minutes. Again, what a rush!
Well a couple of weeks ago, after a basketball tournament for my son, the kids said, hey, can we try another escape room. Now, let me explain. Our 7 year old daughter had never been to one, and she was constantly bugging us to go to one after our 11 year old son had already done two. So we found one that we thought would be good for younger kids. Right away the kids were digging for clues, solving puzzles and opening locks. Needless to say, we got out with several minutes to spare. The smile on my daughters face was priceless, since she was the one that put in the code to open the door. So that makes us a perfect 8 for 8.
They are already asking about when we can go again! I have to say that this is great family entertainment. It gets them off electronics, and make them do a lot of critical thinking.
If you’ve ever thought you might like to try one, I encourage you to do it. It is great for groups, families, friends. Just be cautios of who you are going to be locked into a room with for an hour!
