As previously mentioned, this year is the Year of Escape Rooms, so we are going to be trying out as many as we can. Last year, we went to Escape Hunt Lakeside for their Alice in Puzzeland room, which was pretty good, so we figured we’d try another one there. This time, we went for Blackbeard’s Treasure – which, you may have guessed, is a pirate-themed escape room.
It has been nearly a year since we went, so we were surprised to see that they were pushing drinks so hard. When we arrived, they asked if we wanted drinks. We said no, they then started talking about how hot it gets in the escape room and that drinks were essential, but we still didn’t want to order drinks. We then waited around for our host to come and prep us (I guess this would have been a good time to have drinks?) before out host explained the room to us. They then also asked us to get drinks. We said no again, and they explained that we could use the hint system bell to order drinks and they’d charge us when they came to the door, but we still didn’t want to get drinks. I have no idea why there was so much pressure put on drinks and honestly am not sure where we would have put drinks if we did take them into the escape room.
Once we were in Blackbeard’s Treasure, we found the room itself (the starting room) to be quite big! There was a recorded voice of a pirate that spent some time explaining the room (which isn’t included in your time limit, we were told) before we could start. Kai instantly solved half of a little barrel puzzle, Amelia and Robin started finding puzzle pieces, and Dann started working on another puzzle. The number of puzzles in the first room was good and we only really used one hint. The hints were done by ringing a bell, and then someone would give you one over a speaker. Once we unlocked the second room, however, the trouble started.
Blackbeard’s Treasure at Escape Hunt Lakeside had clearly been a well-loved escape room. And by that, I mean there were lots of broken things. We had actually solved a puzzle that simply didn’t work due to a sensor coming lose inside one of the trinkets – and we kept asking for hints, but because the cameras couldn’t actually see that we had “solved” the puzzle, they didn’t really help us. Halfway through we started getting hints from another person (who spoke in character) but it was extremely hard to follow them due to the amount of stuff ripped off or completely worn down in the puzzle. This was extremely frustrating, especially as the hints were just telling us to basically do stuff we were already doing. There is one extremely long piano bit, and despite Amelia being so good at piano, the keys just didn’t work half the time so we spent a good 15 minutes trying to do that.
Though we did end up escaping Blackbeard’s Treasure in the end, we all agreed it was our least favorite escape room and that the place needed some updating and fixing of the items there, from the smaller things not having the stickers used to tell them a part to sensors being completely pulled out of items. If they updated the room and kept it up to standard, it might be more fun.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!