The UK might just be the world leader in Christmas escape rooms – they’ve become a tradition here in a way that I’m not sure exists to the same degree anywhere else. Here are some stats for you:
- This year there are over a hundred Christmas games across the country.
- More than one in six escape companies have at least one Christmas room.
- Some companies have three different Xmas games in the same location (I’m looking at you, Top Escape Rooms and The Locked Door); Breakout have two games at each of their three branches; Know Escape have a total of 5 different Xmas games across their various branches.
Full map of Christmas games in the UK: https://escapethereview.co.uk/location/xmas/
Here’s your November update, full of Christmas crackers plus a number of other new rooms sneaking in like cacti among the Christmas trees.
Greater London
🎄 Kicking off the roll-call of Christmas rooms is Chronos One Escape Rooms, who are running The Secret Christmas Workshop.
🎄 Cluequest are also getting into the festive mood, with a modified version of their original game called Plan 52 – Snow Way Out. Note that the puzzles are largely the same as the standard version, despite the change of theming and story.
🎭 Gourmaze have a new experience called The Taco Trade – if you haven’t heard of them, they combine city trails with foodie experiences.
🔒 Kingston Escape Rooms added Sausage Surprise to their line-up, a game that you might have come across in Chesterfield or Witham.
🎄 No Escape have temporarily replaced The Breakout at their Holloway branch (a.k.a. Enigma Escape) with Christmas game Christmas Chaos.
🔒 And Room Lockdown in Hornchurch opened The Rock, their latest prison escape game.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Greenwich: Murder Mystery Evening
South East England
🔒 The Donnington Manor Hotel near Sevenoaks has opened four escape rooms. If the names sound familiar, it’s because they’re from Escape From The Room: Cabin in the Woods, Chambers of Champions, The Ghost of Old Maid Milly and Enigma Express. (I’m not yet sure which of the four different Enigma Express games are being run here.) It looks like there’s a branch of this company coming to High Wycombe soon, too.
🎄 I’d thought they were gone for good, so it’s great news to see Time2Escape back up and running with an Xmas room called Secret Santa. (That’s in their Frittenden location not Stroud.)
🎄 In Winchester, Clue Capers have a pop-up Christmas room called Operation Jingle Bell (note that it’s not at their main venue).
🎄 TimeQuest in Paddock Wood regularly run a festive game, and this year’s is Elf Magic 4: Claus For Concern.
🎄 CTRL ALT ESC offer a choice of Xmas rooms in Margate: Operation Partridge in a Pear Tree is rated ‘very easy’ and is intended for children, whereas Operation 12 Days is rated ‘very hard’ and is for the rest of us. As usual for this company, the games are 90 minutes long.
🔒 There’s a new room in the hotspot of Reading: Knockout Escape Rooms have opened crime investigation room Dirty Money.
🎭 Paradox Parlours are again running their children’s puzzle trail Mouse’s Present Presenting Problem in Dorking.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Plan LIVE (Chatham): The Naughty List
🔒 Escape Windsor: Cannibal Cabin
🎄 Gatwick Escape Rooms (Horley): Christmas S.O.S!
🔒 Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Southampton: Dragon’s Hoard
🎄 Major Mind Games (Horsham): The Scruffalous has nicked Christmas!!
🎄 Mythologic Escape Rooms (Gillingham): Sneaky Santa
🎄 Pier Pressure (Brighton): The Great Elfscape!
🎄 Pressure Point Escape Rooms (Ashford): Santa’s Gift
🎄 The Escape Goat (Dover): Elfy is Missing
🎄 The Panic Room Gravesend: CSI – Christmas Scene Investigation
🔒 TimeQuest (Paddock Wood): The Farm
🎄 TimeTrap Escape Rooms (Reading): Otto’s: Escape to 1901 Christmas
South West England
🔒 Escape Entertainment in Cheltenham will be closing permanently on 17th December – if you’d been meaning to pay them a visit, best get it in quickly.
🎄 In Helston, Cornwall’s Great Escape Rooms have a rather different take on the season with A Very Krampus Christmas, featuring what might just be a zombie Santa.
🎄 Lock & Code have Bah Humbug! in their Taunton branch and A Frosty Christmas in Weston.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cornwall’s Great Escape Rooms Newlyn: The Christmas Express
🎄 DreadLock Escape Rooms (Bodmin): Christmas at Gran’s
🎄 Escape Rooms Cheltenham: Candy Cane Kitchen
🎄 Escape The Game (Bovey Tracey): Santa Escape – Frosty’s Christmas Wish
🎄 Escapism Plymouth: Santa’s List
🎄 The Great Big Escape (Dorchester): Saving Santa’s Magic
Wales
🔒 At Rhondda Escape Rooms, their room based on The Last Of Us series is now open.
🔒 This might be a first: The Escape Game Carmarthen are now taking bookings for their new room, but the room’s name is still secret. Or maybe “Redacted” will turn out to be the actual permanent name.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Blackwood: Christmas Escape
🎄 PanIQ Rooms Wales (Porthmadog): Christmas Chaos
West Midlands
🔒 The first of two new branches for Houdini’s this month is in Worcester, opening mid December with three of their games (Alcatraz, Titanic, and Room 13). There’s more in the pipeline – the company’s ‘coming soon’ page lists a further eight cities.
🔒 The Traitor is a new game at XscapeNow – although you may know it as TimeTrap’s Station X. As in its original incarnation in Reading, it’s set up with two copies to allow competitive play if you like.
🎄 More festive puzzling at Shrewsbury’s LevelUp Escapes, who are running A Merry Mayhem.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 The Puzzle Room Cannock: Emergency Landing, Operation Nuke & The Riddle Master
🎄 Top Escape Rooms (Worcester): Elf Who
East Midlands
🎄 One of only two Christmas games in Lincolnshire, The Missing List is now open at Cypherquest in Boston.
🔒 …though Deadlock in Maplethorpe have a new game that sounds pretty family-friendly too, with the sweet shop room Candyland.
🎄 Over in Rushden, the Christmas game at Rushden Escape Rooms is The Incompetent Elf.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Chesterfield Escape Rooms: Elves on the Shelves
East of England
🎄 There’s a Christmas sequel at EO Escape Rooms, with Joey’s Revenge.
🎄 I feel confident in saying that CryptX’s Elf Hard is the only Xmas escape room you’ll see this year (or any year?) that has Alan Rickman’s face on the poster.
🎄 Ware Escape Rooms are running a 2023 version of Saint Nicholas, which appears to have a new story and new puzzles.
🎄 Escape Space in Sawbridgeworth have announced The Missing Suit, which at time of writing doesn’t appear to be available in their booking system but presumably will be any day now.
🔒 Get Out in Wisbech sadly closed their doors – wishing the owners and staff all the best for the future. Their other venue, CypherQuest in Boston, Lincolnshire, is open as normal.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Agent Brains (Letchworth): Mobbery
🎄 Cluetopia Harwich: Grinch On The Run
🎄 Escape Rooms Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds): The Night Before Christmas: Operation Snowflake
🎄 Keylock Games (Wickford): National Elf Service
North West England
🎄 The Atherton branch of Adrenaline Escape has the group’s only Xmas game for this year, with Twelf Days.
🎄 Whereas Breakout are offering an overdose of Christmas: Night Before Christmas at the Chester branch and A Crimson Christmas at all three branches (though under the name A Christmas Nightmare in Liverpool). The Liverpool branch has also opened Christmas Chaos, which is also available at Manchester.
🔒 Breakout Manchester also opened a new non-Christmas room, Murder on the Dancefloor.
🔒 New at Lockdown Ormskirk is Viking game Valhalla.
🎄 And moviESCAPE in Stockport have a new 2023 version of Santa’s Cabin.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Compendium Escape Rooms (Bury): Bad Elf and the Key to the Sleigh
🎄 Escape Quest (Macclesfield): Mistletoe Mysteries
🎄 Lakes Escapes (Workington): Freezy The Snowman
🎄 Lucardo Rawtenstall: Seriously Elfish
🎄 Exit Strategy (Douglas): Christmas Unlocked
North East England
🔒 The second room at Northumberland Escape Rooms is now open: it’s called The Stolen Magic, in which you are hunting dark wizards.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escape Rooms Durham: The Magic of Christmas
Yorkshire & the Humber
🔒 The other new Houdini’s branch is in Sheffield, located as usual at the Tenpin bowling alley. From 22nd December the available games will be Creepy Carnival, Room 13, Alcatraz and Titanic.
🎄 Escapable now has a shiny new town centre location, and the first game there is their Xmas offering, Santa’s Presents Got Stuck Up The Chimney. They also have Elf HQ at their existing branch.
🔒 The season might seem a little chilly for a water park, but North Yorkshire Water Park is now running a WW2-themed Escape Room as well as a Puzzle Room experience designed for competitive play.
🎄 Escape Room Scarborough are running both Elf Made Christmas and Spirits of the Season – the latter looks like it might be a little less heart-warming than the former.
🎄 Escape Rooms Beverley also have two Xmas rooms, Christmas In Wonderland and The North Pole Express. These replace Down The Rabbit Hole and Mystery on the Yorkshire Express respectively, but are I believe entirely distinct games.
🎄 Escape Games (Middlesbrough) have a Christmas room, called Ho Oh No.
🎄 Also in Middlesbrough, Project Escape Middlesbrough are running Christmas Crisis.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cryptic Escape Rooms Hull: Grinchmas
🔒 Escape Games (Middlesbrough): Wise Guys
Scotland
🚐 They’ve actually been around almost a year, but I’d missed them until Exit Games Scotland pointed them out: Ayrshire Mobile Escape Rooms have three mobile escape rooms, Dr Puzzle, Monster Mash, and Treasure Island, with a Cluedo themed one available from next week.
🎄 It’s somehow the only Xmas room in Scotland south of Aberdeen, so In Time are providing a community service by running Reindeer’s Arms.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 The Locked Door Escape Games (Aberdeen): Christmas Carnival
Northern Ireland
🔒 Escapade HQ’s new room might sound cheerful but is the antithesis of festive cheer: Jester is a serial killer theme.
Apparently it’s Christmas soon…
🎁 When shopping for gifts, escape room vouchers are always a good option (for your friends and family, not for me! although if you’re offering… 😛). You might also find some ideas in our list of play from home games.
🏆 And do submit entries for the enthusiast categories in the Lock & Key Awards!