Houdini’s Escape Room Experience: Escape From Titanic

By | March 20, 2019

by Houdini's Escape Room Experience Southampton (website)

19 Onslow Rd, SO14 0JD

Southampton

2-7 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

Imagine yourself aboard the historic Titanic before the iceberg hits, you have 90 minutes before the disaster. Can you prevent history repeating itself?
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Overall rating

Rated between 3 and 4.5 out of 5

based on ratings from 70 users
combined with 6 pro reviews

Your review

Player reviews

Shane Styles rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Tim Cooper expert rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 4 Time taken: 58:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulimmersivestory-driven
Anonymous expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
tatty

Poor state of repair. A cool effect that I had heard about is no longer working which was disappointing. Needs some maintenance urgently. Still a playable game but living off its reputation rather than the reality. 

Billa Babybel experienced rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 14 Aug 2022 Team size: 4 Time taken: 51:25 Outcome: Successful escape!
historicalillogicalbroken tech

Seemed easy for a 90 min room - I expected more. Good mix of puzzle types. Some things seemed to be there as red herrings (either that, or we missed a puzzle but still got out!). A prop was missing and we had to be diverted to another room so it could be added, which felt pretty poor. There were a couple of things which didn't work as they should all the whole room felt quite decrepit and in need of a spruce up. 

kman expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 19 Aug 2022 Team size: 2 Time taken: 1h10m Outcome: Successful escape!
originalillogical

First of all, this room was EXTREMELY HOT. There was no ventilation, or air-con, except for one fan in one of the rooms. We went in the evening and it was still hot.

The game itself was fairly different and there were a nice arrangement of puzzles to clear. Some puzzles were excessively long which didn't need to be, and one puzzle you couldn't hear back yourself, so you're left wondering whether you've done it right or not..

There were a few red herrings that put you off in the game, which I feel was unnecessary. One of the final puzzles was not working which was explained to us was due to the heatwave, which was a real shame.

The room also felt very dated, worn out, in need of an upgrade, and cleaning as there was a lot of dust gathered in places. 

Richard Sinden experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 14 Jul 2022 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
Adam Bravery expert rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Played: 8 Jun 2023 Team size: 4 Time taken: 47:38 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalpoor upkeep

Houdini's have been on my radar for a while and this game is supposed to be one of their best. Unfortunately, while it may have been great 5 years ago it really isn't today. The set felt very tired and poorly maintained: clearly puzzles had been removed but props were still left, some clues had numbers written in marker pen and various bits of set dressing were damaged and broken. The puzzles were not well signposted and a lot were just bland or timewasting. The floorplan is quite large, but the spaces still managed to feel tiny and boring. Our GM said this was a fully linear game which was blatantly not true and there was none of the briefing I'd heard about using their cinema screen. There was no soundtrack either, the captain would occasionally give updates on the situation but no foghorn or ship's bell to indicate if we were doing something correctly or not despite being told this in the brief. 

Just rather disappointed given I'd heard a lot about it - doubt I'll try any of their other games if this is the standard. 

Jasmine Barrett rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulstory-drivenintense

Thoroughly enjoyed this and the combination of puzzles. I personally would have preferred to play as a smaller team as I found so many people meant you werent as involved BUT that doesnt take away from how wonderful i found this room to be. If I could do it over,  I would any day of the week.

Joe Brown expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 29 Jul 2023 Team size: 4
Plenty of rooms, couple of fun bits but definitely suffered from being a bit run down and overhyped!
TeamHawley experienced rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
story-drivengreat hostingepic
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Reviews by escape room review sites

‘Immersive’ is a worrying term for a game based on the sinking of the Titanic, but fortunately they don’t take things as far as plunging players into the icy waters of the Atlantic. Instead, this game places the players in an upper class berth on the doomed ship, just as it begins to sink.

Houdini Escape excel at providing a good experience before and after the game, starting from the atmospheric lobby and the mini-cinema used for game briefings. I particularly admired the way they use a simple...

A good intro and cool transition into the game. A beautifully themed space, with a sense of exploration across the ship and attention to detail that really helps with immersion. Solid puzzles and good theatre throughout the game. Titanic is probably the most impressive of the games in Southampton and well worth a trip if you're in the area.
We loved the attention to detail in both the game, and the waiting area. The room itself had touches that were historically accurate, and the reception had a poster of the Titanic that was signed by the youngest survivor of the disaster.

As it turns out, the room has a lot going for it. It sprawls over several rooms (well, "cabins"), it looks fairly realistic (except for lack of motion, I guess) and proposes a few tasks I had never performed before (something I always appreciate after playing so many rooms). There are many references to real-life details in the puzzles, to the point where Titanic experts would probably be able to circumvent a puzzle or two. Yet, having said all that...

I had never heard of Houdini Escape rooms before, so when it was suggested that we do one of their rooms, I was unsure what to expect but was up for the challenge. They have multiple locations around the country and with Southampton closest we headed there and it seemed only apt to do the Titanic room. When we arrived we were greeted by the nicest host/games master who i'm so sorry but I don't remember his name. He is an absolute credit to the Houdini team. His passion and enthusiasm for his job was clear to see and he really made the whole experience, from checking in to escaping that much more fun and entertaining.



Houdinis Escape Onslow Road Southampton: Titanic

November 2022

Overview 

This was Second visit to Houdini’s in Southampton after visiting the their Tenpin location earlier in the day taking on Extinct. We had booked in at their Onslow Road location for what is arguably the best rated escape room in the country, Titanic. This was our first 90 minute room. There is a car park nearby where you then have a 2 minute walk to the location so not too bad at all. The reception area is decorated as you would expect for an old immersive experience but it is not as grand as the Tenpin location. You are given an iPad to complete your information details and sign waivers. We were taken to an old cinema style room with popcorn machine and cinema screen ready to show us our brief. 

Room impression

The room is up to 7 people, however, we would not recommend going with a group of that size. Some of the areas in the game are quite tight and as a team of 4 we did struggle a little bit in some parts. The set of the game is as you would expect, fully immersive and completely in keeping with what task we were taking on. We would say that some of the props and games in the room were starting to look a little tired and were not as impressive as Extinct that we had done earlier in the day. In saying that, they had done a brilliant job in creating an immersive experience that we did all enjoy. 

Puzzles

At the beginning of the game we found it quite easy to split up and tackle a few games on our own but as the experience went on, the games did become linear. As previously mentioned, some spaces were quite tight and this left some of our team stood watching whilst others were attempting the solve some puzzles. This put a little dampener on the experience for us and with much bigger teams, we can imagine this being quite a big issue. There were a lot of hide and seek games during the experience and at the beginning a few padlocks were to be found but on the whole, the puzzles were varied and fun throughout. It did take us a while to work out that when we did get a puzzle right, a ship’s bell would ring. We’ve not experienced this before and it was a nice touch to add to the immersive experience. 

Game Master Clues

We can’t remember asking for any help during Titanic. Our games master did keep a watchful eye on us and if we steered slightly off track then a foghorn would sound which let us know we needed to have a little re-think. We were told that if we needed a clue all we had to do was ask and she would have came over on the speaker system. 

Round Up

We had high expectations of this room and to the large part it did not disappoint. A lot of effort has gone into making one of biggest tragedies in human history a tasteful experience. You could see that game was starting to look a little tired on some of the puzzles that will probably need addressing at some point but it kind of added to the history of it all. This game is a must when visiting Houdini’s Southampton.

Let’s talk about climaxes. The one thing all good games shouldn’t do these days is to leave you unsure whether you have actually completed it. It definitely shouldn’t be dependent on the GM walking in and telling you. 

Lists

This game is part of the following user-created game lists:
  • Best UK escape rooms 2022 by Escape the Review virtuoso
    These are the 100 highest rated escape rooms in the UK, as of 31st Dec 2022, based on combined ratings from enthusiasts, bloggers and experts - every game here comes highly recommended. 
  • Best UK escape rooms 2021 by Escape the Review virtuoso
    These are the 100 highest rated escape rooms (out of 1600) in the UK, as of 31st Dec 2021, based on combined ratings from enthusiasts, bloggers and experts - every game here comes highly recommended. 

See also