Since Friday’s historic Brexit vote, even though I like to think of myself as the glass half full type, I had somehow worked my way into a very sad state. So, what should a blogger do when she’s feeling so down?

Well, the best way to escape the worries of this world is to immerse yourself into a make-believe realm.

So that’s exactly what I did.

On Monday, The Escape Room in Manchester hosted a bloggers night. So I took my Fantastic Four crew and we geared ourselves up for an evening of mental challenges. Having tried rooms at Breakout and Locked In, I was intrigued to see how escape rooms differed, if at all, and what they had to offer.

 

Location

A fab location in the city, The Escape Room is on Chapel Street, literally a five minute walk from Selfridges. They share an entrance with the Bijou Club, so you won’t miss it, both are quite well sign posted.

If you’re driving in, being so close to the MEN sorry, the Manchester Arena and Victoria Station, there are plenty of car parks around dying to take your business, and if you’re lucky, you might even find some street parking. However, if there’s a group of you going it might be worth pre-booking your parking at the the Q-park nearby (directions on The Escape Room website) where you can receive a 10% discount code (also on the website).

 

Venue

Unlike other experiences I’ve been to, Escape Rooms has distinguished itself as a real venue. What was once part of the Bijou Club, is now home to five individually themed rooms ready to challenge the brave. The entrance is spacious and there are a number of seating areas plus a bar catering to pre and post escape room drinks. There’s even a lovely communal space right outside, looking out over the canal.

Although no food is available on the premises, they do provide an outdoor catering service – more specifically a made to order barbecue for anyone who wants to book an event here. Great idea for parties or work-dos.

 

 

Experience

You want it to be hard, but not too hard (we’ve been in a room where we literally spent the last half hour not having the foggiest idea what to do and no clue could help us). You also want the puzzles to be the kind you can work on as a team. The rooms available here are:

• The Mummy
• Prison Break
• Slaughter House
• Room 13
• The Secret Lab

 

We chose to do the Slaughter House, mainly because we fancied a fright. From chatting to the staff the rooms that tend to freak people out are the one we did and Room 13. The most popular seemed to be Prison Break (apparently it involves handcuffs?!?).

If you’ve never done anything like this before, the basic idea is that each room has puzzles and tasks that are tailored to its theme. You have 60 minutes to solve them all and ultimately ‘escape’ from the room you are locked in at the start of the game.

If you happen to get really stuck (as we did a few times) you can always ask for a clue – sometimes, no matter how hard you look at something you just can’t get it. I think that’s my favourite thing about these experiences, the sheer frustration it can cause!

 

 

We broke out of the slaughter house in 38 minutes – sadly this did not make the Wall of Fame. But, having a Wall of Fame makes me determined to return and try another room to get our pic on there to bask in glory (wishful thinking on my part, but hey we all have to dream).

And the finale to the evening, well no escape room is complete without the obligatory winners’ photo where as a team we can proudly smile and tell the world we conquered our room together and we stand here united.

 

 

Kinda like the British did all those years ago when they conquered countries and created the Commonwealth. And now we apparently prefer to do things on our own. Funny that…

 

** We visited The Escape Room as part of a Blogger event organised by Ledigo PR. But as always, all opinions and thoughts on here are entirely my own **

 

 

Have you visited The Escape Room? If yes, do you have a favourite?