Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Gloucester: Escape From Alcatraz

By | September 26, 2021

by Houdini's Escape Room Experience Gloucester (website)

Tenpin, Barnwood, Gloucester GL4 3HR

Gloucester

4-7 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

The year is 1952, you have been convicted of multiple murders that you claim you're innocent of. With only an hour to go before your execution, surely it's too late for your brother to finally prove your innocence and save your life?

​Can you escape your prison cell in the infamous Alcatraz before the guards come to take you to the electric chair?

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Overall rating

Rated between 2 and 3.5 out of 5

based on ratings from 48 users
combined with 5 pro reviews

Your review

Player reviews

Anonymous expert rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5

A mediocre game made worse through the addition of extremely difficult searching requirements. 

Byromodon experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 15 Apr 2023 Team size: 5 Time taken: 43:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
story-drivenillogicalquite difficult

Great idea well presented. Great props. Good hosting. Some illogical puzzles and host controlled elements made it slightly frustrating 

Joe Brown expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 3 Jan 2022 Team size: 4
pretty standard room and puzzles, just a little worn for a fairly newly built room. No frustrations apart from the game master offering up solutions a bit too quickly!
Nichola Morrison experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersiveintensebroken tech

Good room, good set, needed a couple of clues and one particular puzzle was worn out so we could see which "buttons/keys" needed to be pressed. Host said no one has ever noticed that so perhaps we are just eagle eyed.  We also skipped a whole puzzle without realising and still completed the room. 

roberts0502 experienced rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 24 Jun 2022 Team size: 6 Time taken: 58 Outcome: Successful escape!
overpriced
Jemileh experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
Billa Babybel experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 6 Apr 2022 Team size: 2 Time taken: 59.00 Outcome: Successful escape!
intensepoor hostingquite difficult

Good fun room, but cant help but think we were delayed on some of the puzzles by the GM laying it on a bit thick regarding your "cellmate" in the briefing. Maybe we took this bit a little too literally... lesson learnt! Phone torches were needed as the mini ones provided are crap.

Anonymous experienced rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
Played: 25 Aug 2021 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalpoor hostingplain

I don't really like leaving bad reviews, but it has to be said.. This game was worst game we've every played and unfortunately was down to a combination of the hosting and mistakes. 

The actual game play itself was very generic and the theming was fine, but we couldn't enjoy or remember much of the game play because of how badly the game was hosted. 

Firstly the clues were given through a hatch in the initial room, and made it very awkward to come back for clues.  On top of this, once we had progressed  beyond the first room where the clues were given,  this room was then locked whilst we were wondering around... We were given a clue and naturally headed towards where clues are given.. we headed back to find the door firmly locked... not understanding, or thinking we had accidently closed the door.. we pressed the green button to open.. once opened we found the host resetting the first room and was very aggressively initially. Straight away this has ruined the game and everything basically went down hill from here. 

During the game, there is a typical wooden "electric chair"  Randomly our host came in and sat a member of party in the electric chair - Now bare in mind that is peak pandemic and distance and masks were important.  - They then fumbled and locked our party member in to the chair both hands and feet . Confused, we just thought this was part of the game and didn't question it.  Once they had finished we asked what the point was.. and their reply was "Its just a bit of fun.. Everyone really enjoys it"  - So this had nothing to do with the game at all and during the peak pandemic, our game was interrupted for no reason at all. 

Amongst the numerous issues, a final nail in the coffin was a prop clearly not reset in the room. We searched numerous times in the container, and the host told us it should be in there. Eventually our host entered the room and couldn't find it either... then left... then told us to check the container again. Magically the prop was now there. As experienced players, we couldn't have the wool pulled over our eyes, and this was really unforgiveable. 

Overall our game was completely ruined by our host and left a very sour taste in our mouth about returning to Houdini, which is sad as we'd heard amazing things about the brand. 

A final note - Maybe some GDPR training is required as our address was recognised by our host and even suggested we could give them a lift home as they didn't live far.  On top of everything we had experience made us feel physically sick. 

Please avoid this centre at all costs and spend your money somewhere else more deserving. 

TeamHawley experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
quite difficult
Ronnie Meade experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

I actually thought this was better than Titanic. The puzzles are clever and flow with the rooms and transitions. A more difficult game than Titanic which makes it more satisfying to complete. 

ratsontour expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 14 Nov 2021 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivequite difficult😨creepy
liam and rosie experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 2 Time taken: 45
Scotus0 expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 22 Jan 2022 Team size: 6 Time taken: 53:42 Outcome: Successful escape!
overpricedplainunoriginalquite difficult

The Prices Are Criminal

I came with friends as a group of 6 to Escape from Alcatraz. The instructional video at the start of the game went on far too long and basically repeated everything our host told us. Speech in the next video introducing the story was too quiet to hear.

Story

Escape your cell in Alcatraz before you’re taken to the electric chair.

Puzzles

Some of the puzzles and their solutions were far too tenuously linked: there was one in particular where I was just like…well how on earth would you know how to do [that] with [that]. None of them were particularly innovative, either. Our host, Claudia, was lively, invested in our experience and offered hints in the best way. Whenever we asked for one, questions like “Do you want to know what to do with X” or “Would you like a riddle?” were posed to us, so our team could choose how much or little assistance to receive.

Mise-en-scene

Sure, Escape from Alcatraz is a solid (but generic-themed) break-out-of-jail escape room, but £25 per person- a price that doesn’t change whether your group is a 2 or a 6- is unjustifiable. Take a good luck at the discount page before paying, as there’s lots. We got money off with Blue Light Card, but it was still £21.25 per person.

Final Comments

I may be giving a harsh critique here, but my point is that, for a room priced at £150 per play, jaws should drop, and minds should be blown. While this didn’t happen, we still had a fun time.

Kelly Archer experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

A fun room, though it has a few hidden items that we missed on searching - it seemed like these were deliberately sneaky. The puzzles were solid and pretty clear, though I think we needed a few hints.

The GM was really full on which split our team - you'll either love her or loathe her. 

Tim Cooper expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 4 Time taken: 44:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivegreat hostingplain
Darren Miller expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!

A fun room, but we had a couple of inventory issues (after repeated crashing it opened into an area we hadn't got to yet), and a GM who was so into his character, and his well rehearsed quips, that instructions had to be repeated several times to before he heard.

PurpleB expert rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: Jul 2019 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
Lots of puzzle variety and a great game master made this a very enjoyable game.
imrahil experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
😺Lianne experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: 1/7/2018 Team size: 5 Time taken: 58 Outcome: Successful escape!

The room was well built and had some clever puzzles in that fitted the theme. There were a couple of extremely sneaky ones that I can't imagine how we were meant to have just come across them. 

Our gamesmaster was a fantastic actor and set the mood well at the start. However during the game his hints and help, when asked for, were really awful - so unhelpful that it felt like he was trying to frustrate us rather than help us. Really wished that rather than speaking in nonsensical riddles, he instead gave us simple and clear hints.

The main issue we had with the game was it was during a 30C heatwave and there's no real air circulation or ventilation in these basement rooms. It was so unbearably hot and sweaty that we struggled to stay focussed on the game - and at one point I gave up and just sat in front of one of the desk fans to cool off for a few minutes.

Despite these issues, we enjoyed the room much like the other excellent rooms at Houdinis for its ingenuity and theme.

Peewee Stevens ッ rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Richard Sinden experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
Arjay Henshall expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 15 Aug 2021 Team size: 3 Time taken: 45 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalplainunoriginal
EmmaSmiley rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalpoor hostingdangerousquite easy
This escape room is poor and does not meet  houdini escape rooms usual standard. The host kept giving us every answer. It was difficult to complete the room as most of it was done in the dark with a broken torch. Alot of odd placement puzzle that didnt fit the storey.
🤘The Pick of Destiny expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
TheCLAMS expert rated this:Rated between 15 and 15 out of 5
Played: 20 Aug 2023 Team size: 4 Time taken: ~45mins Outcome: Successful escape!
broken techpoor hostingdangerous

We booked 3 Houdini's rooms for one day and gosh was it disappointing! 

The second worst escape room (out of 88 so far) we have ever done (second only to the Titanic room at Houdini's).

This room has been open for a month and a half and already half the puzzles were completely broken. It was very frustrating - we would complete the puzzle, it wouldn't work, so we would go off and try something else thinking we didn't have everything for the puzzle yet and the 5 minutes later the GM would appear to tell us it was broken. There was also a hole in the wall which we rummaged around in (pulling out insulation and a loose screw) only to be told once we had finished the room that it wasnt part of the room and that someone had damaged the wall the week previous and they hadn't been able to fix it yet. Why on earth wouldn't they tell us before we went into the room?

The end to the room was so anti-climatic we didn't even realise we had completed the room until the GM appeared (for the 9th time in the game) and told us it was over. 

And be warned - the clue system for Houdini games (at least in the Swindon branch) is the GM just appearing in the room to give you hints. It's very disconcerting and completely ruins the immersion. 

We'll never do a Houdini's room again!

Sandie Morris rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 11 Feb 2024 Team size: 2 Time taken: 58 Outcome: Successful escape!
story-driven
Not as enjoyable as Titanic was.Some nice logical puzzles, some we missed completely (think we were having a slow day)Little bit of broken tech, but host noticed before it slowed us down.
browngate experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
RJ Chowdhury experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 9 Jan 2024 Team size: 6 Time taken: 44:50 Outcome: Successful escape!
great hostingnice storyillogical
Nice room, we did Titanic and this back to back, and it was great. This one had a little less signposting, and parts were a bit too dark. It was a great room though and a worthy room for my 49th! 
Adrienne Ward rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
poor hostingunoriginal

Host just kept walking into the room and standing there. Felt a little bit patronising. Abit weird. First room was great head high expectations. Some red flags to waste time. I like to be able to guess a clue and still be able to open it. With this game they won't allow that. It's all manually triggered. The last clue wasn't even in the room. It was thrown in. The game was completely controlled by the games master

Tatie experienced rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!

Didn't active puzzles when they had been completed, felt as if host wasn't watching the game

buzzywuzzy experienced rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Played: 24 Aug 2023 Team size: 4 Time taken: 42 Outcome: Successful escape!
broken techpoor hosting😨creepy

Newly opened but lots of puzzles damaged, GM had to come in to the room to correct a few things and bring missing items/fix broken items

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 27 Oct 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 60:00 Outcome: Failed 🙁
illogicalbroken techpoor hostingquite difficult😨creepy

The room design was great and the starting puzzles made sense.

After the first part is over the puzzles become random so they didn’t follow on logically and it was just a case of open as much as you can quickly. 

Our games master was terrible, he was rude to us despite telling us “you must ask for help if you need it in this room”.

Because there is no intercom system it breaks the atmosphere every time you do ask for help and the host has to come in and check if props work or if you’ve done something right.

Again when asking for help our games master did not communicate well, he spent at least two minutes staring at us like we were idiots, and then at certain stages began opening the door, wondering in, and taking items from us when they didn’t work. He started unlocking items himself without explanation, and even began throwing props we would need into the room at us.

We were only two puzzles away from escaping in the end but I wasn’t convinced by the time keeping as the watch is set showed we still had five minutes. I think the games master was having a bad day and ended up taking it out on us. Really made us feel like fools and treated us poorly.

flyingoctopus expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Stevie Davies expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 4 Time taken: 51 mins 30 secs Outcome: Successful escape!
clever
WinglessArchangel experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: 20 Aug 2023 Team size: 3 Time taken: 53:28 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulstory-drivengreat hostingquite difficult

We returned to this venue after a fantastic experience a few days earlier with their other room, Titanic. We also really enjoyed Alcatraz!

Once again, the theming was on point! This is, in my view, what this venue does incredibly well; that, and the fantastic staff. Once again, we had Leon as our GM, and we were really happy to see him - he’s a credit to the company.

The room is logical and flows well, and we enjoyed the good variety of puzzles. Some were a bit more familiar than others, and no one puzzle stood out as being especially creative or unusual, but they were still all pleasing and satisfying to solve. We were offered the choice of doing the room “in the dark” or with lights on, and we chose the former (in spite of my reservations about poor eyesight - I was kindly told I was allowed to use a torch!). We were glad we did as I think the atmosphere would not have been as apt with them on. 

There were two puzzle solutions - one in particular - that were very challenging to find, and that was my only gripe, as it became a little frustrating and meant we needed a couple of clues, which we like to try and avoid. That said, they were a fun reveal when we realised what we’d been missing! 

So far there are only two rooms at this venue, but we hope that there will be more to come, and we will definitely be back if that’s the case. Thanks, Houdini’s!

SupertrampEcho experienced rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
Chris Metcalfe experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!
quite easy
ShaneKarlSmith experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
tonitea experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 3 Time taken: 50
immersivegreat hosting

Amazing host, gave option of immersion level, would highly recommend full immersion, makes the clues a little more cryptic.

Room was well decorated, puzzles were logical and had plenty going on for the size of us and maybe larger groups.

Speedy Sloth expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
quite easy
StaceyF expert rated this:Rated between 15 and 15 out of 5
Played: 6 Dec 2022 Team size: 4 Outcome: Failed 🙁
illogicalpoor hostingunoriginalquite difficult
Escape_2023 expert rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Gemma Victoria rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: Jan 22 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
funnyimmersivegreat hosting

"Would you like me to be nice, sarcastic or horrible?" The perfect start to our game!

We had the BEST host and he made us jump, scream and laugh, sometimes all at once.

The puzzles were smart and well thought out.

Lawsome Foursome rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: 22 Jan 2023 Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!
cleverstory-drivenfamily friendly

Another excellent room from Houdinis.  Followed by pizza on a Sunday morning.  Enjoyable

Jazz Hans Perry experienced rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 23 Feb 2023 Team size: 5 Time taken: 58 minutes Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalpoor hostingunoriginal😨creepy
Roory experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 19/10/2019 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

Reviews by escape room review sites

When reviewing games I rarely say much about the venue outside the game itself. A polished intro or an enthusiastic welcome from the host can get the experience off to a good start, but for me at least is rarely a large factor in how I feel about a game afterwards. Houdini Escapes put so much effort into their hosting that it would be a crime not to mention it. Not only is their reception very nicely decorated with a first-rate selection of free drinks on offer, the briefing then takes place in ...

An well rounded experience from the moment you enter the shop to the moment you walk out the door. A tough start for novices but good plenty of good puzzles. Let down a bit by a couple of awkward moments in the game.
Prison break rooms are probably one of the most common themed rooms out there, but this is one of the better ones. Quite a search heavy room at times, but the puzzles were fair and the signposting was decent.
The theming of this room is absolutely excellent with twists and turns which we have not experienced in other rooms.

See also

Other copies of this game in other locations:(Different copies of the same game sometimes have significant differences.)