Lock’d, London – Escape Room Experience

Lock’d invited Ms B, me, and two of our friends today to try out one of their escape room experiences. I have to admit that I mainly went along, because Ms B and her friends were absolutely convinced that escape rooms are brilliant.

My 30^th birthday is quite a few years back, I consider myself a pretty level-headed person, and I’m not a natural when it comes to being locked up with other people in a room in a stress situation, having to solve a puzzle within 60 minutes in order to be allowed back to join the living out there. I watch Sherlock Holmes movies to be distracted, to switch my mind off, to loosely ponder how someone with a funny face like Cumberbatch managed to become a world-famous actor and hottie with the ladies, and to relax, not to help the detective solve his crimes (I’m not a puzzle-solver or a genius)!

BUT IT WAS A WHOLE LOT OF FUN!!!

The rooms are located in an old factory building ten minutes’ walk from Bermondsey tube station. We arrived 15 minutes before the start at 8pm after a fabulous dinner at nearby Yellow House Bar & Kitchen (read our review here). First, we were greeted by the founder Alex, who had just come back from a research trip to see what’s out there in the market and to top it. Apparently Budapest is the place to go with a three-digit number of escape room experiences on offer. He filled us in about the big plans for Lock’d and how they’re about to open a new room soon.

(c) Lock’d/Comstanta Ltd (“Grandpa’s Last Will”)

Then Mara, who clearly shares her boss’s enthusiasm, welcomed us warmly, too, and gave us the instructions. ‘Grandpa’s last will’ is about ‘our’ grandpa, Neil Morgan, a recently departed, eccentric, successful entrepreneur, scientist and world traveller having told us that he was going to leave his multi-million pound business empire, mansion, and life savings to us. However, there is a problem. He never came around to telling us where he left his last will.

(c) Lock’d/Comstanta Ltd (other escape room experiences they offer)

In order to find it, we break into his mansion, but we know that the police will be here in an hour and it won’t look good, if they find old Morgan’s grandkids going through his things. So we have to find the last will quickly.

The room is small and – at first sight – doesn’t exactly look like it’s stuffed with hints that might guide us the right way. A desk, a wardrobe, two coats dangling on a hat stand, a suitcase. Not much to go by. You are given a few hints by Mara along the way (she’s monitoring everything over camera and you can call her on a walkie-talkie), but it was hard work.

The hints you find inside the room are often interconnected, helping you to decipher another hint, and so on.

We finally found the will with just six minutes to spare. Apparently not everyone does, so well done us, yay. We will most certainly be back for more, when the new room opens its doors.

Looking for more fun things to do? Check out our posts about jetskiing, jetlevving, powerboating, punting a boat around Cambridge, or our tour of the Douro Valley.

We also do restaurant reviews, including Ichiran, Tokyo, La Scuderia, Frankfurt, and Beso, London.