Houdini’s Escape Room Experience - York — Local services in Great Britain

Truly the WORST escape rooms that we've ever played. I'd like to preface this by saying that we've played lots of games and I also used to Game Master for another company, so we are very experienced.

We booked two games back to back - RMS Titanic and Escape from Alcatraz.

We arrived on time for our briefing and we were greeted by the sight of one of the Game Masters (GM) laid with her head on the desk. She appeared most irritated that we'd arrived and immediately started being rude and dismissive towards us. We had to scan a QR code and complete a waiver, and one of our party had done the waiver for the first game incorrectly so it did not complete. The GM was incredibly rude and condescending about it, when it was clearly just a mistake which she quickly rectified.

The same GM then launched into the loudest/shoutiest and fastest briefing that I have ever heard. There was a group present who had never played before and they looked utterly bewildered, and I'm not surprised. I only followed along as I have briefed groups myself. The briefing was far too long and included crazy things like "stay inside the room if you hear the fire alarm" which I absolutely WOULD NOT do, the instruction should be to leave the building via the doors you came in through - the layout of Houdini's really isn't that complex. It honestly felt like we were being told off during this briefing. Not only that but they absolutely flew through lock explanations, including the directional padlock which the other group had never seen before.

Then on to the games, as if this experience could get any worse. RMS Titanic is abysmal. This room is rated 4/5 difficulty, but it is difficult because there is critical information MISSING that you would not get without asking for a clue. That is NOT how a game is meant to be, in my opinion. You should be able to solve the game without clues, if you are switched on enough. I am not for a moment suggesting that we never need clues, but a clue should not give you NEW information that is not in the room. Some things made absolutely zero sense, and the eventual "escape", which we did manage in 52 minutes, was such an anti-climax that it took us a second to realise we'd finished!

Then a quick break before the next briefing for the Alcatraz game. They began this by making fun of the inexperienced group that had just left, by telling us that they'd spent 40 minutes with the correct code entered into their directional padlock but hadn't opened it... probably because they didn't have a clue from the 100 mph briefing!!! Very unprofessional to sneer at a group too. Wouldn't have dreamt of it when I was a GM.

Alcatraz was, you guessed it, absolutely awful. Again, missing critical information (for the company reading - I'm referring in particular to the use of a name of a famous prisoner. Literally no idea how we were meant to know that, and the GM said "you just are"!). But that's when it got even worse... the clues for this room are delivered by the GM walking from their monitor room to the "cell door" to orally deliver them to you, so it takes a few moments. This becomes an issue when the same GM has to deliver physical clues/props to you when triggered by various events. The timing is so bad, we had no idea why the GM entered and threw a belt at us. Turns out, a puzzle we solved 30 seconds prior was the reason. Caused masses of confusion. Not only that, but there are decoy pieces of information in this room to eat up extensive amounts of time - prisoner files that give you zero useful information. Again, we were bewildered when we were told we'd "escaped"!

Overall, it was a massive waste of £50 each (thank God for the discount code we used!) and our Sunday afternoon. I have no idea how this is the "#1 escape room in the world" on TripAdvisor. The terrible attitudes of the staff really need to be addressed - an escape room is an exciting activity to do with friends and they made it feel like a chore and that they didn't want us there. I don't care how bad a day you've had, you NEVER take it out...

Disappointing. The host asked us if we wanted clues given freely or only if we asked for them. As we've done quite a few escape rooms, we said we didn't want clues (unless we got stuck and asked for them, obvs). Despite that, the host was constantly giving clues – different sounds if we were on the right lines or the wrong lines, and a couple of times entering the room to tell us what to do next, even though we had only been thinking about it for a couple of minutes. The host also entered the room 2 or 3 times to explain that something was missing/broken and so we just had to skip a bit of the puzzle. Although it was rated as 4 stars for difficulty, we had had so much (unwanted) help that we escaped in 33 minutes – and that was despite some of the clues being misleading and a storyline that didn't really hang together very well. Quite a few of the puzzles were so simplistic that we completely overshot because we assumed they would be slightly complex, and there was a lot of just looking for number codes rather than actually doing any thinking or puzzling. The staff felt like they were out of their depth and were struggling to keep the place running, maybe we just caught them on a bad day but they didn't instil a lot of confidence. And unlike most escape rooms, which charge you less per person for larger groups, Houdinis charge the same price per person regardless, so if you've got a big group then you're paying a LOT. The least satisfying visit I've had to an escape room out of about 8 different venues I've been to over the years, for so many reasons, and the first one that I've said I will...

I booked 'Room 13' for my son's 16th birthday this weekend along with three of his friends. The woman on the front desk, who unfortunately then turned out to be their game master was incredibly rude right from the moment we walked in. This woman was rude, hostile, and obnoxious to me and the four boys within literally seconds of arriving. It felt as if she didn't want us (or anyone) to even be there, her attitude was very strange and we didn't know what to make of it. Once I'd finished filling out the waiver forms for the boys (at approx 4.15) she proceeded to tell us to leave and wait outside as we were "far to early" (booked for 4.30). My son and his friends took part in the escape room where the game master was unfortunately this same woman. Following the experience, my son and his friends proceeded to tell me she continued her rude/obnoxious behavior towards them. On the occasions they called on her for help or advise she was continuously rude, at one point accusing them of trying to break the bottle props (which was nonsense by all accounts), and she proceeded to mock them when one of my sons friends asked if the Room 13 experience worked in a similar way to the Titanic room experience. This person should in no way be in a customer facing role, and it made for an uncomfortable and unenjoyable experience for them on my son's birthday. Having read other comments of a similar nature in these reviews I suspect this relates to the same person. I never generally judge a person on a first meeting, people can have bad days of course, but I suspect this is not an isolated...