MagnificoEscaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLPRO TIP: If you are expert escape room enthusiasts, try to book the first room of the day. We all loved this room. How can you not? The only problem is that we are really good at escape rooms, but they have multiple groups going through this room like a pipeline, so you can't move on to the next part until the group in front of you is out of it. (and similarly, they won't let you run behind either). Everything is on a tight timeline.... which for us meant that the actors had to vamp....alot... for minutes at a time. We talked to them afterwards and they said at one point we were 10 minutes ahead of schedule. It was exhausting and boring and made the room feel really long. When we were cooking through puzzles time flew by... when were were watching our 2nd dumb magic trick or 3rd attempt at juggling to pass the time waiting for the groups ahead of us, much less fun. We totally understand why they have to do it this way, but it doesn't make it any better. Therefore, my advice for all of the big rooms at Escaparium Laval is to try and get the first room of the day and ask them to let you go through it at your speed. That being said, of course this room is amazing. It's #1 in the world for a reason. Everything is over the top with things you've never seen before. There are actually some good puzzles too that we really enjoyed. (It's not all theatrics.) The puzzles were on theme and really fun. If we would have been able to run through this room at our own pace, it would be absolute perfection. As it was, it was a really great room, even with all the vamping. Absolutely a must play for everyone. Worth every penny.
La Cathédrale Oubliée [The Forgotten Cathedral]Escaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLEscaparium Laval is just on a different level. It's easy to see why this room is rated so highly. We really enjoyed this room. This was our 4th room at this location and, just when you think they can't come up with anything new, they do. We really liked the set. Really awesome. The puzzles were super fun. What we like about this room vs. others at this location is there didn't seem to be another group ahead of us so we got to go through it as fast as we wanted to instead of being slowed down. That made it really fast paced and fun. This is another must-do room.
Le Château du Supplice Éternel [The Castle of Eternal Suffering]Sauve Qui Peut - Saint-JeanEscape roomIRL
Le Château du Supplice Éternel [The Castle of Eternal Suffering]Sauve Qui Peut - Saint-JeanEscape roomIRLNew #1! We’ve done 85+ escape rooms at this point including some great ones like Ctrl Alt Reboot at Escaparium Laval and this is by far the best room we’ve ever done. Love love love love. Absolutely worth the drive if you’re in Montreal for escape rooms. We came to Montreal to do escape rooms, only able to fit 9 in during this trip. This was the only game we played at this location. After this room, I wish we would have done another room here to see what it is like. This is definitely a must play. I almost wasn't going to book it since it is in the opposite direction from Escaparium and Immersia, but it is 100% worth it. And I'm really glad we did. I literally felt like I was trapped in an evil castle. I lost all sense of time and space. The puzzles were awesome. And what makes this better than Ctrl Alt Reboot. That is more of a live theater experience with a couple puzzles. This has actual puzzles and they were great!! It also had THE coolest escape room thing that we’ve ever experienced. I don’t want to spoil it. But WOW! Unexpected and so fun!! I wish I would have booked more rooms at this location. We’ll need to come back. HIGHLY recommend.
L'Île perdue de la Reine Vaudou [The Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen]Escaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLThey told us we are the new record holders for this room. So that is cool. We loved this room. The theme is awesome and the set had a special feature that we have never seem before and also a super unique puzzle we have never seen before and I doubt we will again. One of the characters is also super cute and really well done. Very creative and I really enjoyed it. Because we got out so quickly, we had lots of time to talk with the gamemaster after the fact and he showed us around the set. It's fantastic. So over the top and awesome. The puzzles were also alot of fun and on theme as well. Definitely another must-do at Escaparium Laval.
Ctrl Alt RebootEscaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLI gave this a "Love" because it would be insane not to give a room like this a big ol' heart, but this was our least favorite of the 6 rooms we did at Escaparium Laval (Magnifico, Voodoo Queen, Cathedral, Final Stop, and Golden Jubilee being the others). There weren't very many puzzles in this room compared to the other rooms. There is a character that is so unique and awesome and we really enjoyed it. But that same character basically told us how to do every puzzle as soon as we got to it. We are super fast at escape rooms. It wasn't like we were struggling and taking too long. The hints were given almost as soon as we got to the puzzle. So that was really annoying. For us, too few puzzles and then not being given a chance to even try without hints are a big no no. The set is insane as with many of the rooms here. I would have been just as happy skipping this room except for the fact that I liked the character.
Lockbuster Video60 to Escape - SchaumburgEscape roomIRLI just love 60 to Escape. The theming is so good and the puzzles flow so smoothly. Great tech. This one was really easy. We went as 3 as our usual 4th (my older son) is off at college. We went slow and took our time just to enjoy it and still almost got a record— missed it by 6 minutes. The puzzles are linear and not difficult but still a fun room the way it unfolds. I would recommend no more than 2 experienced players.
The Body ShopRed Fox EscapesEscape roomIRLThe theme is very nice (different and cute). None of the puzzles were very difficult, but there are alot of them which is good. Like the UBoat room, alot of locks in this room. Which is fine, just not as fun as more high tech things. We liked our gamemaster, she was very nice, but were a little disappointed because we had just completed the U Boat room with the same gamemaster and she raved about what a great team we are and how we finished with more than 15 min left. After this room, she said she has the ability to make this room harder. She made it a little harder for us, but should have made it ALOT harder. What the heck? We finished this room with more than 15 min left also. So that was annoying. But to be fair, she showed us the 2 other puzzles she would have added and we would have also easily solved those. We were already looking at those pieces and knew what needed to be done.... but anyways..... if you want this room made harder for you, this is your warning to ask in advance!
Le Grand Immersia Hotel [The Grand Immersia Hotel]Immersia Escape GamesEscape roomIRLWhen planning our trip to Montreal for escape rooms, I could only pick 8 rooms. This was the 9th room on my list... but after we completed St. Onge's Case and loved that one so much, I asked if they had this room open to do immediately afterwards and they did, so we got to play a 9th room after all. This was a super fun room. The set is straight out of The Grand Budapest Hotel. I mean, it felt like we were on the set. The puzzles were fantastic. Lots of things to work on. Fun character interactions without being character driven. I would definitely recommend this room. I'm so glad we got a chance to do it.
Pirates Of The Spanish MainEnigma Adventures - Maple GroveEscape roomIRLThis room is exactly why I love the Morty app. On the outside I would have looked at this room inside the Whirly ball place and say there is NO WAY this will be good. But Morty has spoken so we gave it a try and I LOVED IT! One of the best rooms I’ve done in a long time. One of my to favorite rooms ever of 75! The atmosphere is great. The game play is fantastic. So much to work on simultaneously and everything fits together so well. My husband and I (both experienced players) went with my BIL and SIL (this was their 5th room). We all had things to work on that ended up coming together seamlessly. It was super cool. There is also an awesome reveal and an unintentional jump scare that was hilarious. Loved this room! It’s a must do!
Invasion60 to Escape - MilwaukeeEscape roomIRLWe drove in from Chicago for the day to do this and the pirate room having done all the games in Schaumburg and most in Gurnee. This room was super fun. Like all of the 60 to escape rooms the theme and set design were awesome. Super immersive and lots of fun surprises. My husband and 16yo got hung up in one area thinking they could solve it when they didn’t have all the info yet which left my 19yo and I to do a good portion by ourselves and it was much more fun that way. LOL. So those 2 didn’t enjoy this room as much but my older son and I loved it. Highly recommend this and all the 60 to Escape games. Worth the drive!!