Last year, at Robin’s international evening at school, she won a raffle prize and picked vouchers for the Panic Room in Harlow. As it’s been a year since that’s happened, we finally got around to using the vouchers, as this weekend was extremely rainy and we needed a good indoor activity. We’ve done several escape rooms previously, which is probably why Robin picked this voucher among all of the toys that were on the table. Panic Room Harlow has a few different rooms to pick from, but Robin chose the Sherlocks Holmes room, primarily because she’s a detective and he’s a detective, so it sounded like a great fit.
We booked up online, inviting Kai’s girlfriend as well, and all headed there 15 minutes ahead of our start time. There were some waivers to sign before the day, but it turns out they make you do it there so they can see you do it, so it’s best to just do it when you arrive and start your game. We were given a games master, who was a fantastic, in-character host, unlike other escape rooms we have been in. He dressed the part and claimed to be Sherlock Holmes’ neighbour. He had some house rules like no using those strange portable internets to take pictures and no lifting things or breaking things either. After our briefing and a bunch of story, he let us into the room where some audio played giving us even more story before the start of our game.
There were 6 of us in total; Robin, Amelia, Dann, Kai, Kai’s girlfriend and myself. We were all pretty pumped to get started! The Sherlock Holmes room at Panic Room Harlow had a lot of locks, lots of puzzles, and a fun hint system where a timer board would display hints if we yelled for help from our neighbour. These hints were clearly hand-typed by the games master, as he did use this way of communication when we mistakenly broke a piece of the escape room, which everyone was fine about! The puzzles were great – lots of finding riddles, solving them, and then finding the next. We all even got dress up items at one point, to help with a puzzle, and all got dressed up. It was really so much fun! We also got a little card that said our time on it at the end.
At the end, we found we solved it with less than 30 seconds left, which matches the other times we have done escape rooms in the past. Though we aren’t able to take pictures inside, as that would spoil things for others, the games master took an official picture for us along with another of us out of costume! The room itself did seem small at first, but it was the classic more than meets the eye. It’s a really fun escape room, probably one of the best.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!
That is so so cool…I am glad you managed to solve it right on time. I love escape rooms, they’re so much fun to do but only if you have a good team.
I have wanted to do an escape room for a long time, we are lucky to have a few near us so no excuse really. Well done for escaping in time
Wow less than 30 seconds left, that’s impressive. I tend to find I get out of escape rooms 10+ mins early, or don’t get out, very little in between x
This is the escape room for me! I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fan. I love the books and the movies were a nice adaptation, as well. I’d love to try this!
This is fully awesome! I love that you pulled it out at the end like that. The whole vibe of a Sherlock Holmes escape room is amazing.
I love the Sherlock Holmes themed escape room! This sounds like a lot of fun!
It sounds like you all had an absolutely cracking time, and the in-character games master and unique hint system really make it stand out. That photo at the end is just superb – glad you had such a fantastic and thrilling experience!