With Father’s Day just over a month away I was excited to try out an Experience Days Voucher to see what types of experiences for men they had to offer.  I think it always helps to get a little inspiration when picking gifts.  Especially if it means you can expand their horizons trying something new and exciting.  We opted to do an escape room as a family (costing £60) at Breakout Liverpool.

It’s been something the kids and I have wanted to try for a while.  Booking our experience was easy enough.  We had to email Breakout and then they booked us in after we provided the Experience Days voucher code we had been sent.

Before confirming our booking, we had already spoken to Breakout on the phone and found them to be very helpful.  We had given them the ages of our children and they had suggested the most suitable escape rooms.

The Heist

So last weekend we headed off to Breakout in Liverpool to do The Heist.  We were a little nervous as we were not sure what to expect.  Although we were quietly hopeful that we would escape the room in the hour.  My husband has quite a technical mind so I thought he would enjoy the puzzles and give us an advantage.

John introduced us to our room.  He was such a lovely guy.  Hat’s off to Breakout for having such welcoming friendly staff.  He really made our experience all the better.  First off, he gave us a bit of backstory.  We were notorious bank robbers, but my eldest son had set off the alarm!  We had an hour to escape before the cops would haul us off to jail.  My youngest was given the bag to stash our gold assuming we could get it out of the vault in time!

Then we entered the room.  I don’t want to say too much here and ruin the experience for anyone else planning on playing.  But what I will say is I was very impressed with the level of detailing.  Everything was so realistic.  You are not allowed to take pictures in the room, so not to spoil it for anyone else.  They do really think of everything at Breakout.  Although some things did surprise me they have had to label wires etc with “do not touch” as some overly enthusiastic players have literally pulled rooms apart before!

A Little Helping Hand

Once the clock starts going down you soon feel a heightened sense of panic.  But luckily John was on hand to provide a few clues when we needed them.  He watched us through a monitor so he could assist if we were having difficulty.  It was the right level of support too.  He didn’t need to jump in during the first 30 minutes as we seemed to be solving one puzzle after another working effectively together as a family.

We did hit a brick wall (not literally) and thankfully John saved the day with a few clues.  I think we had exhausted our brain power in the first 30 minutes, so he had to make it quite clear!  Other than that we didn’t do too badly.  He said we should try a higher-level difficulty next time!  So, we were must have been doing something right!

At the end we escaped with 5 minutes and 3 seconds to spare!  We left on such a high and are so keen to come back and try another room.  It really is a lot of fun.  The boys were eager to have a picture with the gold we stole!  In the feature picture we are wearing the masks that hide our bank robbing identities.  It’s great you can really get into the character your playing.

If you haven’t booked an escape room before I can recommend using Experiences Days to find one.