Elves and reindeer everywhere you look – the Christmas escape room season is upon us. There’s also a tasty menu of non-festive new rooms to get excited about too though. Here’s the full list:
Greater London
🎄 Escape From The Room have opened A Christmas Crisis at their Epsom (Sutton) and Wallington branches, as well as High Wycombe.
🔒 No Escape are bucking the season with two new horror themes at their Aldgate branch, The Orphanage and The Witch’s Curse. Or maybe The Orphanage involves giving out presents to happy children? Nope, not this time.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Enigma Quests (Central London): Inventor’s Odyssey Through Time, The Billion Pound Heist, The World of Witchcraft and Wizardry
🎄 Room Lockdown Hornchurch: Santa’s Grotto
Channel Islands
🔒 I completed missed MTG Escapes opening earlier this year in Guernsey with Secrets of the Stellar Horizon. They’ve just opened their second full indoor room, The Wish Factory; they also have a mobile game and an outdoor walking game.
South East England
🔒 Trapped In Fiction (outside Basingstoke) are about to launch their second room, Trapped In… Peter Pan – I’m surprised this theme hasn’t been used more.
🔒 New at Escape Kent and opening on Monday is their Egyptian themed room The Mummy.
🎄 Unsolved Mysteries in Chatham will be running All Alone On Christmas, which might sound like a charity appeal but is in fact inspired by the Home Alone movies.
🎄 TimeQuest have a long history of doing Christmas rooms, and this year they have Elf Magic 5: Missing Magic.
🎄 In Margate, CTRL ALT ESC have a festive room called Santa’s Workshop Rescue.
🎄 The Panic Room’s new Dartford branch also have a Christmas game, North Pole Panic 3: Jingle All The Way Out.
🎄 As above: Escape From The Room have opened A Christmas Crisis at their High Wycombe branch, as well as at Epsom (Sutton) and Wallington.
🎄 Gatwick Escape Rooms are running Elf Academy, which isn’t one I’ve seen at the Know Escape collective before.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Plan LIVE (Chatham): The Naughty List
🎄 High Wycombe Escape Rooms: Christmas Candy Chaos, Elf Isolation
🎄 Major Mind Games (Horsham): The Show Must Go On: Christmas Special
🎄 Mythologic Escape Rooms (Gillingham): Sneaky Santa
🎄 Pier Pressure (Brighton): Mince Spy Mystery
South West England
🔒 Co-Decode is open again, after many delays – Sub Terra is available now, with CREW due to re-open in the near future.
🔒 Kernow Escape (Falmouth) opened Number 4 last month, a theft game that might have scary edges; and they’ve also opened Christmas room The Curious Incident of the Elf in the Nighttime.
🎄 Bristol Christmas Market is running a popup seasonal game, Candy Genius – candy canes galore?
🎄 I was going to give Cornwall’s Great Escape Rooms Newlyn the prize for most unexpected combination of themes with Kraken Christmas: The Pirates Holiday – but actually I can think of at least one other festive pirate room this year. They’re the first to include a Kraken though.
🎄 Cryptology Swindon (a.k.a. Incarcerated) are running Ho Ho Hurry Up!, also available at the Nottingham and Sheffield branches.
🔒 Dreadlock in Bodmin opened a room with the refreshingly direct name You Plonker, in which you’re stealing back a diamond from a towed car.
🎄 Also in Bodmin, Housetrap have festive game Ho Ho No!
🔒 Escape Plymouth have a new wild west game, Wanted: Dead or Alive.
🎄 House of Frankenstein in Bath are now running The Gift, an unwrapping puzzle challenge with a rather fiendish picture of Santa.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 11th Hour Escape Rooms Limited (Bromham): Yo Ho Ho Ho!
🎄 All Stars Escape Rooms (Weston-super-mare): An Elf’s Journey
🔒 Escape Hunt Bristol: Eye of the Sun God
🎄 Escape The Game (Bovey Tracey): Santa Escape – Santa’s Christmas Star
🔒 Escapism Plymouth: Showtime!
🎄 Lock & Code Escape Rooms Taunton: A Frosty Christmas
🎄 The Great Big Escape (Dorchester): Tincleton’s Twisted Christmas
Last call for:
❗️ Salisbury Escape Rooms: Death at the Lab (closing 31st Dec)
Wales
🔒 New at Exitus is There’s Something Outside, an original name for a game set on Mars in the underused genre of space horror.
🔒 The Escape Game Swansea are also going for fear over festivities, with Sealed Fate, a game for two people where each of you must escape a coffin.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Beyond Breakout (Powys): Christmas Adventures and The Magic Potion
West Midlands
🔒 Escape Time’s Burton branch opened scary room Dolls House.
🔒 Casino Heist, previously at their Coventry branch, is now available at Escape Live Birmingham.
🔒 A double dose of sad news for Worcester; not only is Top Escape Rooms closing in mid-Jan (although flourishing over in Kidderminster), but Cyber Q announced they’ll close on Christmas Eve, leaving the city with only Houdini’s and Escape Hunt as the main providers. (There’s also an independent game running at The Commandery museum though!).
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Kidderminster Escape Rooms: Elf School, Jingle Joyride
🎄 LevelUp Escapes (Shrewsbury): Snowbound Express
🎄 XscapeNow (Telford): Locking Around The Christmas Tree
Last call for:
❗️ Cyber Q: all games closing 24th Dec or earlier
❗️ Top Escape Rooms: all games closing 13th Jan
East Midlands
🔒 Those who like scary themes will be delighted to hear that Rushden Escape Rooms’ newest is Apartment 666: The Hellgate Ritual, a 75 minute game that comes with a promising list of content warnings.
🔒 The latest branch of Houdini’s is in Derby; it’s running the chain’s newest design Space Break, along with Creepy Carnival and Alcatraz.
🔒 Lincoln’s Tension Twisted Realities will shortly open New Theatre Royal – Snow White.
Also in Lincoln, Gamesaints (re)opened their fifth game Dead Centre – note that feedback so far seems to be that so far they’ve barely changed the games from the previous Escape Lincoln versions, other than the name changes.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Chesterfield Escape Rooms: Santa’s Final Checklist
🎄 Cryptology Nottingham: Ho Ho Hurry Up!
🔒 Horton’s Emporium Daventry: The Castle of Memories
🔒 Horton’s Emporium Nottingham: The Wizard’s Chest
🎄 Mission Classified (Grimsby): Operation Save Christmas
East of England
🔒 Long anticipated, Pier Pressure’s Welwyn branch is opening fully on the 21st in time for Christmas. They have an Xmas room The Great Elf Escape, and also Otto’s Oddities – which you may recognise from Time Trap in Reading.
🔒 Escape Hunt reaches Cambridge; the available games are Aladdin & The Magic Vault, Alice in Puzzleland, Dracula, Excalibur, Eye of the Sun God, Our Finest Hour, and the chain’s three city trail games.
🔒 Angle Escape in Peterborough opened Postal Panic, an original premise involving finding and delivering your lost post.
🎄 EO Escape Rooms opened their Christmas room for this year, Joey’s Christmas Cracker.
🎄 Escape Rooms Suffolk also have a Christmas game, The Night Before Christmas: The Great Rudolph Rescue.
🎄 Escape Basildon’s festive room is Lollipop Lane, now open.
🎄 Escape Colchester have Don’t Wake Santa, which sounds like it might have an interestingly different play style.
🎄 PerpleXed Escape Rooms in Soham offer The Christmas Calamity.
🎄 Not to be left out, Ware Escape Rooms are running Santa’s List.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Chelmsford Escape Rooms: Christmas Candy Chaos
🎄 Cluetopia Braintree: Runaway Rudolph
🎄 Cluetopia Walton: North Pole Hotel
🎄 CryptX (Knapwell): Pantomonium
🎄 Exit Rooms – Cambridge Escape Rooms: Victoria’s Christmas Challenge
🎄 Keylock Games (Wickford): The Grunch
🎄 Principal Escape Rooms (Ely): Snowy Sleighs
🔒 Sudbury Escape Rooms: The Crazy Cat Lady
🎄 Suffolk Escape Room (Saxmundham): Operation Mince Pie: Countdown to Christmas
North West England
🎄 Lakes Escapes are running Christmas Chaos for the festive season.
🎄 Whereas Lucardo Rawtenstall have 45 min room Rudolph’s Route.
🎄 moviESCAPE will shortly open Santa’s Express, changing things up a little from the Santa’s Cabin games they’ve run in previous years.
🎄 Adrenaline Escape’s Atherton branch are going heavy on the puns and rhymes with Yule Be Sorry!.
🎄 Cryptic Escape Rooms Manchester have flipped the script with The Christmas Heist, in which you’re helping the Grinch steal the Christmas cheer.
🔒 Escape Hunt Manchester opened Aladdin & the Magic Vault, replacing Worlds Collide.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Compendium Escape Rooms (Bury): Bad Elf 2: The Key to the Sleigh
🔒 Escapism Chester: Showtime!
🎄 Lucardo Manchester: Elf Control
🎄 Lucardo Rawtenstall: Inspector Christmas
Yorkshire & the Humber
🔒 Having opened their doors in Scunthorpe in summer, The Paint Shop’s second game The Chapel opens on Monday, with a third due to follow after Christmas; the three rooms seem to form a single narrative with increasing scare levels.
🎄 Enigma Rooms Wakefield have a Christmas room this year called Christmas Quest, in the solve-all-you-can style.
🔒 Cryptic Escape Rooms return again to one of their favourite themes; their Hull branch opened Upside Down: Fight For Hawkins.
🎄 Escape Hull are running a 30 min escape room, Christmas at the Castle.
🔒 Mr E Room a.k.a. Escape Room Scarborough’s new Wizard Quest room is Sparkwright’s Wizard Quest, the third in that series.
🎄 In Leeds, Locked In Games also have a Christmas game, The Nap Before Christmas.
🎄 And so do Stuck In The Riddle in Huddersfield; theirs is Elf & Safety.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cryptic Escape Rooms Hull: Despicable Grinchmas
🎄 Cryptology Sheffield: Ho Ho Hurry Up!
🎄 Escapable (Wakefield): Jack Frost in: No Globe
🎄 Project Escape Middlesbrough: Last Wish of Christmas
🔒 The Great Escape Game Sheffield: Quest for Atlantis
North East England
🎄 Bringing the total number of Xmas rooms in the region from 3 to 4, Northumberland Escape Rooms opened Saving Christmas.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 EXIT Newcastle (Newcastle upon Tyne): Help Save Christmas
Scotland
🔒 Game Vault officially open in Ayrshire tomorrow, launching with no fewer than four rooms: The Heist, The Kill Room, Treasure Island and Office Murder Mystery. At least, I think they are; at least for now all bookings are on request.
🎄 Escape Dundee are also running 30 min escape room Christmas at the Castle.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Case Closed (Edinburgh): The Brief Cases #1: Director’s Cut
🔒 Escape Stirling: The Wizard’s Apprentice
Northern Ireland
🔒 Cluerooms in Newcastle (County Down) opened their second room, Murder In The Mournes, a murder mystery theme set in the 1920s.
🔒 GoT To Escape also have a new room, with the edgy name of Bastards – like their original room, inspired by the Game of Thrones series.
And also…
🏅 If you’ve played 100+ rooms and you’re reading this on the 30th, you have a precious few hours left to get your TERPECA votes in for 2024!
Looking for the Xmas rooms closest to you? Try https://www.escapethereview.co.uk/location/xmas for a complete map, including the ones returned from previous years.