Houdini's Escape Room Experience - Greenwich

Pretty terrible escape room. There is no light throughout and you’re expected to use your phone as a torch. Some puzzles are really clever but most just rely on you being able to notice really minute detail in the darkness. Whoever put this together clearly thought ‘hidden away’ = ‘really difficult’ and went with it. Also there’s no heating so don’t go in winter months as you’ll freeze to death (there is a fan though, presumably for summer months??)

Amazing experience. It was my first time doing an escape room and I honestly wanted to do another one straight after. Definitely worth the money!!!!

(I initially shared this feedback privately with the team at Houdini’s but didn’t get any response from them) I live in the Greenwich area and had friends visiting London for the weekend, so was keen to show off the neighbourhood. Having hugely enjoyed the two other venues on the same site (Davy’s Wine Vaults and Vintners Lanes, both excellent), we had high hopes for the Titanic Escape Room. On the plus side, our host - Sam, I think? - was great! He was really welcoming and did a brilliant job throughout. We also enjoyed the challenges, and found them to be just the right level of frustrating. However, we were really surprised by how shabby so much of the content was. I appreciate that the nature of an escape room means some wear and tear is to be expected, but not to the extent we experienced. So many of the props were soiled, tatty and damaged; this was especially true of the chaise lounge in the cabin and the chair in the bridge area. The heating covers hadn’t been secured properly in either room, which made both spaces feel neglected. And the wooden doors in the hallway area were so grubby that it became unpleasant, given that there’s a need to put your face against two of them while solving the puzzles. The life jackets contained in the storage chest were so obviously dirty that we decided not to wear them; also, the passenger names had been written on them in capitals with a pen so they looked really downmarket (and jarringly unauthentic, when compared to the printed cursive versions in the promotional photos). The bridge area in particular was a huge disappointment, especially when compared to the official images online. The ship’s wheel was covered in modern hazard tape (which I’m sure was done for a good reason, but it completely destroyed any illusion). There was no view of the front of the boat from the “windows” in the room, and there was no ladder going to an upper area – both feature on the Houdini’s website. I’m genuinely keen to support local initiatives wherever possible so had planned a return visit later in the year to give the other two rooms a go, but don’t feel as inclined to do so unless they’re currently of a higher standard than the Titanic one (or there’s a bit of a refresh in the pipeline)