Wirral Escape Rooms – The Curse of the Golden Lion
Venue: Wirral Escape Rooms
The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot, JM
Date: 19/01/2018
Wirral Escape Rooms popped up on our radar late last year, and we’ve been keeping a watchful eye on them ever since. Now they’re finally open (hurrah!) and tonight was the night for us, so after picking up Mr Carrot and JM we made our way there with only one slight navigational error due to roadworks, which very nearly saw us taking the ferry to Ireland.
We had a different destination as our goal tonight though. We were heading deep into the jungle to see if we could escape The Curse of the Golden Lion… and I’m happy to say it’s a corker too, and has earned itself a
The Story:
Famous adventurer Hathaway Brown has mysteriously contacted you. Being past his prime he has picked you and your team for a very important mission… Hathaway once spent some time in the Jungles of South America, where he claims he found the Golden Lion. The only problem is, he left it in his jungle shack, which was padlocked up in a way that only Hathaway could execute… with puzzles & riddles!
Only someone of outstanding wit, with an adventurer’s heart and a keen brain could solve the puzzles, reclaim the Golden Lion and escape the curse… Are you brave enough to answer the call of adventure?
The turn off from the main road for Wirral Escape Rooms isn’t immediately obvious so I was glad I’d previously taken a look at the very clear and well laid out directions on their website, and we were pleased to find this led to a good sized parking area which is always a welcome sight.
Ian, one of the owners, greeted us at the door. We were a little early for our appointment so the other owner, Amy, joined us while Ian finished resetting the room. The reception area was still a bit of a work in progress, but this is something that Amy and Ian are more than aware of. It seems all in hand though and will no doubt be finished before too long. Once again, like at our Christmas visit to Lakes Escapes in Cumbria, it was great to hear a room owner than was so genuinely enthusiastic about Escape Rooms.
Now… I’m sure that most people that might read this will know, but for the record at this point I hadn’t realised who Amy was, despite knowing of her. If you’re a bit of an Escape Room noob like we are and also don’t know, then read on to the end…
We received our briefing just outside the room and discovered that there were a few little bonus things to achieve inside. As well as finding the Golden Lion and escaping, we had the optional side quests of retrieving four other objects that we’d learn about as we progressed. This is a great idea in my opinion, as it caters extremely well for both the experts who would fly through the main part in no time, and people like… well… us. We were also relieved to hear that Wirral Escape Rooms has the philosophy that we’re there to have fun and not be frustrated, so we could get as many clues as necessary. Phew!
Upon entering the room itself, we found our starting point was outside a shack in the jungle. The light levels were atmospheric, but thankfully in a good way as we didn’t struggle to read anything. There were a couple of nice easy bits to start us off, including one that despite being easy and something we’d encountered before we still managed to fail on miserably and need a clue for. Possibly even two clues. Oh the shame!
When we eventually managed to find our way into the shack, we were immediately impressed by the general feel and build of the place. We were especially pleased that a few ‘tactile’ type tasks were involved – nothing strenuous or too avant-garde, but what was there was used really effectively.
I think we had our hands on the Golden Lion with one of the extra bonus items with maybe about eight minutes left, so we decided to carry on and go for more… but unfortunately time caught us up and we made our exit with just a couple of minutes to spare.
What made this room so enjoyable for us was the fact that it was so well rounded. The light levels, easy entry puzzles moving onto trickier ones, good variety of searching/mathematical/mental/physical tasks, extra items to find – all the bases were covered by excellent room design, wrapped up in a package with genuine and friendly hosts, which leads us to…
I mentioned earlier that I hadn’t realised who Amy was, but we found out as we were chatting afterwards that she’s the author of the Brit of an Escape Habit blog which I’ve referred to many times in the past when planning Escape Room visits. It seems that with well over 200 rooms played and reviewed Amy and Ian have definitely picked up on what’s needed to make a room work for all levels of player and implemented this experience into The Curse of the Golden Lion.
An extremely well designed and constructed room, and I definitely look forward to seeing more from Wirral Escape Rooms in the future.
Result: Escaped in 58 minutes
(We would have finished a little earlier but we were going for bonus items)
