Want to challenge the kids this half term? Puzzle solved!
We’ve scoured the country to find the best escape rooms.
The Lost Passenger — 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.
While many escape rooms are filled with random padlocks and paper-thin plots in unconvincing settings, everything here fits with the internal logic of the game.
Immersive storytelling, logical puzzles using real-world props, and genuine scares in an authentic (and dusty) setting make this a must for urban explorers and fans of classic horror.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60 mins
- Our team size: 2
- Our escape time: 55m 37s
- Best for: Ghost busters and train spotters
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Temple Quest — Clue Cracker in Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Perfect for kids of the ‘80s, Temple Quest summons up the spirit of Spielberg with this very physical escape room, filled with pre-Columbian ruins littered with human remains.
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.
Just like a summer blockbuster, the thrills come thick and fast throughout, while fans of The Goonies will have their minds blown when they uncover a certain silver screen-inspired artefact.
Clue Cracker offers two other fantastic rooms too.
- Difficulty: 6/10
- Time to escape: 60 minutes
- Our team size: 2
- Our escape time: 53m 21s
- Best for: Overgrown Goonies
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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.
Spellcraft, however, still provides plenty of challenge in a very slick, family friendly setting that Harry Potter fans will 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: 2
- Our escape time: 59m 58s
- Best for: Ravenclaws and Slytherins
Magna Carta Murder — Escape the Towers in Canterbury, Kent
Step inside Canterbury’s 14th Century Westgate Towers and you will be charged with thwarting a heist that takes place in a real-life 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: 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 narrative-driven adventure filled with surprises, special effect, and the wrath of the thunder god.
- Difficulty: 6/10
- Time to escape: 75m
- Our team size: 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 room design feels authentic throughout, and the many diverse puzzles range from easy to mind-melting, but they are always fair.
Best for groups of four or more.
- Difficulty: 8/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size: 2
- Swag value: £1.1m
- Best for: Offenders, young and old
Quartz — Escapement in Broadstairs, Kent
Squarely aimed at gamers and movie buffs, this high-tech escape experience 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.
Appropriately set within a bomb shelter transformed into a secret laboratory, with sound-and-lighting cues executed with professional West End theatrical equipment, the whole diqeselpunk production is littered with sci-fi easter eggs, referencing everything from The Terminator to Windows 95.
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
- Our team size: 4
- Our escape time: 63m 12s
- Best for: Super-powered patriots
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
- Our team size: 3
- Loot taken: 48/52
- Best 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 phone box, a record store, jewellery shop, and antique markets line an underground cobbled street that sets the scene for a high-stakes heist.
Perfect for players who fancy a challenge, Loot 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: 2
- Our escape time: 59m 57s
- Best 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 52 is still their best game.
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It may not be as flashy, and the office theme might not blow your mind, but the puzzles are fun, challenging and logical, and not as prone to failure as their high-tech games.
- Difficulty: 7/10
- Time to escape: 60m
- Our team size: 2
- Our escape time: 57m 32s
- Best for: Codebreakers and spy kids
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