Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Crewe: Escape From R.M.S. Titanic

Myself and my teammates had a fantastic time at this beautifully themed room in a fairly new venue in Crewe. Everything about these escape rooms is well thought out and executed well, right from the entrance stairwell to the gorgeous room itself. This is themed exactly as you’d expect, and was what really made the room stand out for me, as it was unlike any other themes I’d encountered before and - from my knowledge of the Titanic - there had been a good deal of care and research that had gone into it, right into the music that started playing as we got the announcement from the captain that the ship was going down! So this room is definitely going to float your boat if you’re a Titanic fan (pardon the pun!).

There are quite a few wee surprises and nice unusual quirks and mechanics which we really appreciated and which made this one of the more original rooms I’ve done recently. None of the puzzles is all that hard, but there is quite a lot to just get done in the time limit, and you need to be very observant! Lovely and non-linear though which is great for groups that enjoy splitting up and cracking on with different things. 

There were a few teeny wee niggles: the clueing system - which looked the part and would have been awesome if it had worked - was broken on the day we were there, which is unfortunate especially for a newer room. Instead, when we needed to communicate with our host (which was not too often, fortunately) , he actually needed to come into the room, which broke the immersion somewhat. Fortunately, he (Leon) was an incredible host and we really didn’t mind this too much! He was friendly, kind, funny, and respected our request for no clues, only popping in to give us a few vital bits of info - in one case, a key was not where it should have been, in another, we were concerned about whether we were solving a puzzle correctly as there was no audio feedback when we’re expecting there to be - and one clue, when we asked for it. 

On the topic of immersion, there were one or two anachronisms (the use of number padlocks, and - most gratingly - the use of a tablet screen in one key part of the room which could have been better thought out so that it needn’t have used a modern portable device so obviously), and, as I mentioned before, a couple of the puzzles had no discernible effect when being executed/solved, which was a shame (I’m thinking especially of the two final things you need to do to escape), but all in all this was a very satisfying and enjoyable room which is a strong contender to go into my personal top 5! We are returning to do their other room (Alcatraz) very soon!