Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Cheshire Oaks: Escape From Alcatraz

"Would you like me to be nice, sarcastic or horrible?" The perfect start to our game!

We had the BEST host and he made us jump, scream and laugh, sometimes all at once.

The puzzles were smart and well thought out.

The Prices Are Criminal

I came with friends as a group of 6 to Escape from Alcatraz. The instructional video at the start of the game went on far too long and basically repeated everything our host told us. Speech in the next video introducing the story was too quiet to hear.

Story

Escape your cell in Alcatraz before you’re taken to the electric chair.

Puzzles

Some of the puzzles and their solutions were far too tenuously linked: there was one in particular where I was just like…well how on earth would you know how to do [that] with [that]. None of them were particularly innovative, either. Our host, Claudia, was lively, invested in our experience and offered hints in the best way. Whenever we asked for one, questions like “Do you want to know what to do with X” or “Would you like a riddle?” were posed to us, so our team could choose how much or little assistance to receive.

Mise-en-scene

Sure, Escape from Alcatraz is a solid (but generic-themed) break-out-of-jail escape room, but £25 per person- a price that doesn’t change whether your group is a 2 or a 6- is unjustifiable. Take a good luck at the discount page before paying, as there’s lots. We got money off with Blue Light Card, but it was still £21.25 per person.

Final Comments

I may be giving a harsh critique here, but my point is that, for a room priced at £150 per play, jaws should drop, and minds should be blown. While this didn’t happen, we still had a fun time.

I don't really like leaving bad reviews, but it has to be said.. This game was worst game we've every played and unfortunately was down to a combination of the hosting and mistakes. 

The actual game play itself was very generic and the theming was fine, but we couldn't enjoy or remember much of the game play because of how badly the game was hosted. 

Firstly the clues were given through a hatch in the initial room, and made it very awkward to come back for clues.  On top of this, once we had progressed  beyond the first room where the clues were given,  this room was then locked whilst we were wondering around... We were given a clue and naturally headed towards where clues are given.. we headed back to find the door firmly locked... not understanding, or thinking we had accidently closed the door.. we pressed the green button to open.. once opened we found the host resetting the first room and was very aggressively initially. Straight away this has ruined the game and everything basically went down hill from here. 

During the game, there is a typical wooden "electric chair"  Randomly our host came in and sat a member of party in the electric chair - Now bare in mind that is peak pandemic and distance and masks were important.  - They then fumbled and locked our party member in to the chair both hands and feet . Confused, we just thought this was part of the game and didn't question it.  Once they had finished we asked what the point was.. and their reply was "Its just a bit of fun.. Everyone really enjoys it"  - So this had nothing to do with the game at all and during the peak pandemic, our game was interrupted for no reason at all. 

Amongst the numerous issues, a final nail in the coffin was a prop clearly not reset in the room. We searched numerous times in the container, and the host told us it should be in there. Eventually our host entered the room and couldn't find it either... then left... then told us to check the container again. Magically the prop was now there. As experienced players, we couldn't have the wool pulled over our eyes, and this was really unforgiveable. 

Overall our game was completely ruined by our host and left a very sour taste in our mouth about returning to Houdini, which is sad as we'd heard amazing things about the brand. 

A final note - Maybe some GDPR training is required as our address was recognised by our host and even suggested we could give them a lift home as they didn't live far.  On top of everything we had experience made us feel physically sick. 

Please avoid this centre at all costs and spend your money somewhere else more deserving. 

the worst of houdini's escape rooms that we've done so far - the most glaring issue being that in the other rooms the host speaks to you via something in the story (an ai on the ship in space break, a parrot in the pirate ship for the pirate one etc.) which keeps you immersed even when engaging with the host. for this room there is no such system in place and you have to shout for the host who then physically runs into the room, completely taking away from the immersion aspect of the room.

the puzzles also felt fairly uninspired, a few really good ideas sprinkled in (which is why the rating isn't lower) but the room was predominately number/code locks which begins to be a drag after a while. the pacing of the room also feels off where you're given stuff pretty much immediately that isn't used until close to the end, 2 rooms later. while i can appreciate that there is going to be some misdirection in these rooms it's just frustrating when you've got maybe 4 numbered locks to open of varying lengths on the go at the same time and one of like 2 clues you immediately have is completely irrelevant for the next 30+ minutes.

one other issue we had was there's a moment where you've got to open something and it takes a decent amount of force as it seemed to be held shut by a magnet but the host specifies "no excessive force needed" so we assumed it was just closed and needed to be triggered to be opened for probably half of our time in the room while it was supposed to be accessible the entire time. it's a small cabinet type door and it took considerably more force than full sized doors took to open so take from that what you will.

theme was okay, but again not really up to the standard of the other rooms. this also extended to the props which just felt lacklustre once again in comparison to the others.

overall it was a disappointing room as i could see some pieces of great ideas just completely let down by the other aspects of the room, which ultimately just led to a monotonous experience. the ending was also underwhelming and didn't really feel like an ending, caught us off guard that it was over. story and plot line similarly just felt disjointed. i'd recommend against doing this room unless they address these issues, and just go ahead with one of their better rooms as the difference in quality is like night and day.

We made an evening out of playing two games at Houdini's Swindon. Despite only having been open a few weeks a number of puzzles were broken or missing. Both rooms were disappointing