This year is the year of Escape Rooms, as each year our children pick something that they want to explore more of. As with most things that start at the start of the year, we have gone all in using the winter days to explore new escape rooms. Previously, we have done the Sherlock Holmes Room at Panic Room Harlow, but we do want to try out their other rooms this year, so went with the Return to the Tomb.
The Return to the Tomb had been re-done, but we didn’t see the last version, so aren’t sure how different it is! At first, we were warned that there would be crawling and some darkness, before our host switched into acting mode and told us all about our exciting adventure. His friend had sent some information to him about a lost tomb, but he is unable to go check it out and his friend has been seemingly missing. We are being sent in to see if we can solve the mysteries of the tomb and find his friend – or at least make it out alive. The escape room does look extremely small at first, and you are given some knee and elbow pads if you want them, before being shut into a room that we all barely fit into.
But, quickly, we made our way out of the room and found that much of this area is quite bigger than we seem. The Return to the Tomb has a lot of expansion and many different puzzles that do make you think. There isn’t a big reliance on locks and instead it’s sort of about looking around, problem solving, and keeping an eye out. There is a lot of searching generally, but so many little trap doors pop open or smaller pieces find themselves out – it’s a really well made escape room! There are even points when we needed to go all the way back, which was wild, and we did have a booklet from the lost person that helped us along the way.
In case you do get stuck in the Return to the Tomb, you do have a walky talky that you are able to use to call for a clue. These are given in character and do help just enough, which is great. There was one bit, specifically with a mummy, where we were doing everything right but the mummy itself has had quite a beating, which resulted in us feeling stuck when we were not. Otherwise, we had a fantastic time crawling about, going through sandy terrain, and solving a lot of the puzzles without any help! At the end, you can even pose for a picture with a few of the prompts, which we of course did. We also got a time card.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!