moviESCAPE Stockport — Attraction in Stockport

We have visited moviescape before as a team of 3 and escaped from the merlin room. We enjoyed the room and thought the themeing was great, the only issue we had was that the clues were a little unresponsive, but given that we only need a couple of clues, it wasn't a problem.

Today we visited the sherlock holmes room as a party of 7, all of whom have done a large number of escape rooms before, we wish we hadn't bothered. We were given no clues after being stuck for 30 minutes and repeatedly ringing the bell. When we did finally get their attention they ask you where you are up to and tell you exactly what to do next. In all other escape rooms I've been to your progress is followed and clues are cryptic. Clues are designed to keep the game moving so it doesn't get 'boring'.

At the end of the hour (although I think it was over an hour as we'd been forgotten about) a young girl came in and said she's never done the room before so she can't tell us what we missed but she thought we were about 4 or five clues off. I suspect we would have needed 30+ minutes to finish the puzzle as there was so much we still hadn't done. Escape rooms work when they keep moving. There was no clear story, like saving the professor ect. Some things were just random rather than clues.

After speaking to the manager at the end, he did nothing to reassure us that he was listening to our concerns. Just said things such as, we can't give you clues all the time (we didn't have any for the first 30 minutes). The main problem was, our game was just not being watched as they did not have enough staff for it. The girl told us at the end that they were short staffed and they had four games going on with two staff.

I appreciate that it was a busy day just before Christmas, but it you do not have the staff to support that number of games, they shouldn't be booked in. Staff need significantly...

Staff were friendly and the introductory video was professional and well done with good humour. We did the Merlin escape room. It's set in a medieval castle but low lighting levels really spoilt the experience, it was very difficult to see, eg when putting in codes to locks in hard to reach places. The staff said in other escape rooms they provide torches. The candle nightlights were inadequate. I would suggest since it's a magic theme, wands with illuminated torch ends would have helped a lot and not broken the immersion?

One of the clues has been physically removed that was supposed to be fixed to the wall. One 'special lock' didn't seem to work properly. The helper was speaking with a Gargoyle voice but was very difficult to understand; plus communication was only possible in one area, so this did not work very well. I suggest the cctv/ helper's communication facility should be extended to cover all areas. Rooms were understandably very bare, with lots of locks.

I have enjoyed other escape rooms much more. Such a pity, I was really looking forward to this, I love the Harry Potter world. At the moment I feel disappointed and would not recommend personally, however with improvements to the lighting and coms it could be a significantly better...

Myself (21) and my partner(23) got a voucher for the escape room as a Christmas present, booking was easily done via the phone as our code wouldn't work online. We received the email confirmation straight away and also received a reminder email the day of the event. Upon arrival it was easy to find and we were greeted by staff at the door, forms were easy to fill our and the video told us everything we needed to know before heading into merlins magic accademy , once in the room a lady gave us some more information and told us where to start and how to leave if we needed to for any reason.

Upon completion of the room (it took us 1 hour exactly) staff were waiting outside the door for us and asked if we would like our picture taken which was free, they also had food and drink available to buy at a good price.

Overall a pleasant experience and we are already looking at going again with a bigger group to do one of the horror theme rooms

Edit 31/07/2022 - we visited again as a group of 8 for my partners birthday to complete the haunted house room, amazing experience as a bigger group and we are again looking at going back in October for my birthday to do the...