Alice's Adventures Underground — Attraction in London

It’s the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland so I’d expect to see a lot of themed activities and events popping up this year. Also, as you should know by now, I’m a lover of immersive theatre so when I discovered that the two were to be combined at the Waterloo Vaults in the spectacular Alice Underground I booked some tickets pretty much immediately and waited impatiently for the day to arrive.

After a delicious brunch and an ice cream by the river we set about finding exactly where to go and had a bit of trouble… The entrance to The Vaults on Google maps shows it as being inside the tunnel road opposite the London eye but actually you can’t get in this way and instead have to enter via a different entrance on Launcelot Street. Not a big deal but it did mean that instead of being close to an hour early we were there just in time!

My first tip would be to go to the toilet before you arrive if possible as there are only three in the entrance area and the queue can get a bit long.

Secondly, it gets hot underground so I definitely recommend that you check in coats and bags at the cloakroom. Take some money with you if you plan to hang out at the bar afterwards. Three, order a tea party cocktail. It’s only a fiver, tastes really good and definitely adds to the atmosphere of the tea party scene.

It might not seem fair but it’s totally possible that you won’t have the same experience as whoever you are there with. Sure you have a choice of following the ‘Eat me ‘ or ‘Drink me’ route but even at that point it is possible to be separated from the people you are with. My friends and I went the ‘Drink me’ route and I ended up going a different way from them anyway but it all makes sense when all of you gather again for the finale.

Tip number four would be just to go with the flow and enjoy. It’ll allow you to compare notes afterwards too!

I’m not going to go into the details of the show as I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you but upon entering the first room I was amazed by the attention to detail. I know it’s not really fair to make comparisons but this really was on par with Punchdrunk in my opinion. The room isn’t as big as it looks so be prepared to squeeze up (there are 52 of you at each show) and look around! The sets are stunning (the caterpillars room being my favourite), the puppetry (in particular a wonderful maniacal Cheshire cat) and acrobatics (those twins!) used in the show are so perfectly coordinated everything works in a madcap way that is just right for an adventure like Alice’s. I have to make specific mention of some truly wonderful uses of tricks of the light that really help the show...

We went as a team event, there were about 50 of us so we booked the one show just for ourselves. The booking experience was ok, even though we were corresponding with the event team through email chain they seem to always forget what we discussed earlier in the email.

Anyway, the show was great, the team enjoyed it very much.

The drama came after the show. We had agreed and booked in advance with the organisers that we have a reserved area and pre ordered food with food preferences such as gluten free, vegetarian and vegan. We also have a big budget for free flow drinks at the bar. All of which the organiser (Matthew) confirmed on the day. After the show we were given meal voucher and drink voucher worth £10. There were no pre served space. So 50 of us had to stand around. We pretty much stood near the burger stand as the burger ran out very quickly and only had chips and Mac n cheese left. Don't go for the mac n cheese by the way, they are awful! I ordered falafel burger which came over an hour later. They made about 4 burger each time, and clearly wasn't enough for the crowd coming out from the show. The capacity for each show is 50 people so they should be prepared with enough food.

The organising was totally unprofessional, which was a huge disappointment after a great show.

When we complained to the, supposedly, manager behind the counter, she called Matthew, and Matthew denied that we had pre ordered food and reserved a space. He only "remembered" after we said we have email proof! The lady told us she was sorting it out, after one hour we still didn't have the food we ordered and the place we reserved. Due to hunger and tired of standing around, a lot of the staff started leaving. After most people have left the manager decided to give us bunch of drinks vouchers which is meaningless to us as people had already left.

Hugely disappointing ending to the night....

Very imaginative, but not a good place to go as a couple. Early in the show they handed out cards that assigned what suit you belonged to but this immediately separated a lot of the couples, friends and families who went together. In my group I saw three couples separated. For a fun experience you want to share this seems illogical and it makes it impossible to return together. Later when one of the couples saw each other and tried to sit together I saw them being told not to be childish. To be honest i wouldn't have spent 110 pounds plus for two people to visit separately. Overall feeling wasn't helped by security guard who threatened to confiscate phone when we took a photo on the way to the exit after the show. Plus it was really hot most the time. What was generally an amazing show, spoilt by a couple of things that are...