This month’s list of new escape rooms is packed with more Christmas cheer than a sleigh-load of Santas after their third sherry. 🎅 Here’s the rundown:

Greater London

🔒 Not an escape room, but The Traitors Live Experience might be of interest to some of you…

🔒 The Peril of Sherwin Hones is now open at Operation Escape in West Wickham – like their other current rooms, this was previously available at Escape Hub in Maidstone.

🔒 Escape London seem to have brought back Area 51 in place of Sector X at their Shepherds Bush site.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Room Lockdown Hornchurch: Christmas Escape

South East England

🔒 The Maidenhead branch of go-kart arena Absolutely Karting is about to open an escape room named Professor Blackthorne’s Final Invention, with what looks like a steampunk theme.

🔒 New from Eastbourne Escape Rooms is their room in Hailsham, called The Gambler’s Den; it’s running at Mission Fiit Activity Hub. (Okay, it’s actually been open since August, but I only just spotted that because booking is by phone/email only.)

🎄 Enthusiast favourite Clue Cracker need you to rescue Santa in their festive pop-up Saint Nicked.

🎄 In Winchester, ClueCapers’s seasonal room is Sleigh Bells and Sabotage.

🎄 And Exciting Escapes also have an Xmas room at their Basingstoke branch, with Operation Naughty or Nice?.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 CTRL ALT ESC (Margate): Sneaky Santa
🔒 Knockout Escape Rooms (Reading): The Locktopus
🎄 Mythologic Escape Rooms (Gillingham): The Grunch
🎄 Pier Pressure (Brighton): Christmas Movie Magic
🎄 Pressure Point Escape Rooms (Ashford): The Christmas Toyshop
🎄 The Panic Room Dartford: North Pole Panic 4
🎄 TimeQuest (Paddock Wood): Elf Magic 6: Never Sleigh Never
🎄 Unsolved Mysteries (Chatham): Locks, Stockings and Two Smoking Chimneys

Channel Islands

🎄 Through December MTG Escapes are running outdoor GPS-based trail game The Curious Case of The Crunched Carrots not just in Guernsey but also in Jersey and Alderney; as well as a mobile game A Christmas ADVENTure! that can be set up at your home (all in addition to the main Xmas game Elf Academy available on-site at their venue).

South West England

🎄 Festive jollity across the SW this year. First in the list is All Stars Escape Rooms in Weston-super-mare, with Panic At The North Pole.

🎄 Truro’s Enigma Escape Cornwall are serving up Turkey Dinner.

🎄 Escape Rooms Cornwall in Penzance are putting a criminal spin on the season with The Holiday Heist.

🎄 Escape The Game in Bovey Tracey do a Santa Escape each year, and 2025’s is Santa Escape: The Runaway Sleigh.

🎄 At Lock & Code’s Taunton branch, they have The Gingerbread Heist, in which you’re trying to recover a lost recipe.

🎄 And there’s more gingerbread with Frostbites: Mishap at Mistletoe Bakery at The Great Big Escape in Dorchester.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escapism Plymouth: Jingle
🎄 Housetrap Escape Rooms (Bodmin): Saving Santa
🎄 Kernow Escape (Falmouth): Gnome Alone

Wales

🔒 Bala Lake Hotel in Gwynedd have an escape room called Funfair as an activity for guests. Apparently it’s at least the third different room design they’ve run over the last eight years. (Thank you to the person who reviewed it and thereby let me know it existed!)

🎄 PanIQ Rooms Wales in Porthmadog have overhauled their asylum game for Silent Night, while keeping the gruesome setting – this sounds like the sort of game to choose if you want your Christmas stocking to still contain someone’s foot.

West Midlands

🔒 At some point Cannon Raceway seem to have opened a second room. There’s not a lot of information about it, but I think it’s safe to assume that Treasure of Tortuga Island is a pirate theme.

🎄 Chase The Adventure in Staffordshire have also gone for a darker Christmas theme, in which you need to rescue Santa from The Krampus.

🎄 As have Escape Live Birmingham – Killer Christmas features a Santa ‚Claws‘, who definitely isn’t in need of rescuing.

🎄 More family-friendly seasonal cheer from Top Escape Rooms in Worcester; in Freezy The Snowman you need to build a snowman (available in previous years at Lakes Escapes).

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Quests (Ross-on-Wye): Yule Be Tested- The Elf Trials

East Midlands

🎄 Madvent is the seasonal room this year at Escapologist in Cleethorpes, where the spirit of Christmas is once again in jeopardy.

🔒 For anyone looking to scratch off that elusive ’sports theme‘ panel on their scratch-off escape room poster, Road To Glory is back open at Trapp’d, now at their Chester House location in Wellingborough.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Chesterfield Escape Rooms: Elf-Who Dunnit?
🎄 Mission Classified (Grimsby): Santa’s On A Diet
🎄 Rushden Escape Rooms: Santa’s Stowaway
🎄 Tension Twisted Realities (Lincoln): Mission: Christmas
🔒 Trapp’d Chester House (Wellingborough): Nightfall: Operation 404

East of England

🎄 A few more Christmas rooms for the region to join last month’s flood, starting with Lost Star of the Xmas Market at Clue Finders in Basildon.

🎄 Funky Snake Escape in Leighton Buzzard have The Great Christmas Heist, which also involves finding a lost star.

🎄 Those paying attention will notice that CryptX’s wardrobe-related game Not A Regular Noel Inspired Adventure has the acronym N.A.R.N.I.A.; it’s 75 mins long, and only here until the end of January.

🎄 Santa’s North Pole Problem! at Great Yarmouth Escape Rooms is an „Indoor Escape Room Lite“ which I think is a tabletop-style experience.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Absolutely Escapes Hemel Hempstead: Sherlock vs Moriarty
🎄 Bishop’s Stortford Escape Rooms: Christmas Cat-astrophe
🎄 Chelmsford Escape Rooms: Christmas Cat-astrophe
🔒 Cluetopia Braintree: What the Duck?!
🎄 Cluetopia Clacton (Clacton-on-Sea): Santa’s Little Oopsie
🎄 EO Escape Rooms (Sudbury): Joey’s Christmas Wish
🎄 Escape Rooms Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds): The Magic Star
🎄 Hourglass Escapes Downham Market: Wish Upon A Star
🎄 Keylock Games (Wickford): The Puppet Christmas Carol
🎄 PerpleXed Escape Rooms (Soham): The Christmas Calamity
🎄 Principal Escape Rooms (Ely): Snowy Sleighs Again
🎄 Suffolk Escape Room (Saxmundham): The Key To Christmas

Last call for:
❗️ National Horse Racing Museum (Newmarket): Accumulated (closing 28 Dec)

North West England

🔒 The latest new branch of Houdini’s is in Warrington, and is running three of the chain’s newer designs: Apocalypse: Shelter 23, Captain Blackheart’s Curse, and Sneaky Finders.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Escapism Chester: The Ice Crown
🎄 Mystery Quests (Crewe): Santa’s Workshop Rescue

Yorkshire and the Humber

🎄 This year The Escaporium in Halifax have replaced A Christmas Advent-ure with a new festive room, Glow Rudolph Glow.

🎄 Of all the scrapes that Santa needs you to save him from, getting stuck in a chimney seems particularly suitable; and that’s what Escape Rooms Beverley need you to do in The Great Chimney Escape.

🎄 At Eskape Whitby, Christmas have been stolen not by the Grinch but by an ominous witch, in Jeannie’s Christmas Curse.

🎄 Project Escape Middlesbrough give you the option of playing both sides: save Christmas in Santa’s Last Hope or spoil it in The Grinch’s Revenge, or do both as a head-to-head challenge.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escapable (Wakefield): North Pole Postal Panic
🎄 Escape Room Scarborough: Who Stole Christmas
🎄 Hollym Escape Rooms (Withernsea): Operation Santa Suit

North East England

🎄 The Christmas Express is a revamped version of Northumberland Escape Rooms’s Morpeth Express room, with all-new puzzles.

Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Rooms Durham: Operation: Save Santa!
🔒 Pirate Escape (Whitley Bay): The Last Gift
🔒 The Escapologist Gateshead (Newcastle upon Tyne): Sin

Scotland

From last month’s update:
🎄 In Time (Ayr): The Elf Academy
🎄 Nomad Escape (Glasgow): A Christmas Escape Room
🔒 The Locked Door Escape Games (Aberdeen): A Mysterious Ascent

I’ve only listed new Christmas pop-ups here, and there are just as many returning from previous years. For the full naughty/nice list, see https://escapethereview.co.uk/location/xmas.

Also, do remember to cast your TERPECA votes if you’ve played 100+ escape rooms – the deadline is tonight! (Or rather, 8am tomorrow morning, because of time zones…)