Escape Rooms in Southend

So let’s talk about the fantastic escape rooms near me in Southend-on-Sea. There aren’t as many escape rooms in Southend as you might expect, but hopefully there’ll be more coming soon!

There’s a list of all the Southend escape rooms below. Accurate as of May 2024. You could just scroll down but you’d miss out on my rambled notes on the escape rooms near me which would be very sad! I’ll try to keep the list up to date, but if you know of any escape rooms I’ve missed, any new ones, or any that are no more, please ping a quick note to me on the chat button below so I can keep the list useful.

This isn’t an escape room review page. I’ll share my thoughts on the rooms I’ve enjoyed, but that’s subjective. I don’t like scary escape rooms but others love them. There are so many great escape rooms near me but search engines tend to present the same ones which means some of the Southend escape rooms don’t get the exposure they should do. Hopefully the list will help choosing your next escape a bit easier.

The very first escape room I played was on Hamlet Court Road. It was called Cell 31. A small two room escape which we played as a couple. The room would be regarded as quite a basic escape room today. Padlocks of many sorts and clever puzzles to open them. Old school. It played brilliantly and had me hooked. Designed and operated by Room Escape Southend. Over the course of the next few months we played all of Room Escape Southend’s games (Apart from their scary escape rooms or rooms with a live actor. I’m not into scares and live actors creep me out!) Each escape room Room Escape Southend built was put together with a great deal of care and attention. For a long time, their escape rooms were the only ones we played. Their christmas escape rooms became a feature of our post boxing day activities. Sadly, after a brief move from Hamlet Court Road to Victoria Avenue (where they built the excellent “Abandoned”) they have taken a break from escape rooms. We would love to see them make a return as their independent games had a real edge to them, and were one of the best escape rooms near me in Southend.

Fortunately there are other excellent escape rooms in Southend. Our favourites are the games at Escape Live Southend. As part of the Escape Live franchise the games are tried and tested, with next level puzzles, props, themes and presentation. Near me you’ve got Escape Live Southend, Escape Live Chelmsford, and then there are others further afield in Coventry, Stratford, Liverpool and Birmingham. Of their escape rooms in Southend we were fortunate enough to be the last team to play Dr Wilson’s Office and recently played its sequel, The Magpie Mystery. Both excellent. You don’t need to have played one to enjoy the other, but they make a nice pair. Our favourite though is Pirate Plunder. Pirate Plunder is a really happy game! Great presentation, some fantastic props, and a great feel to it. We went as a family and all loved it. If you’re looking for the best physical escape rooms in Southend, definitely play these games.

The VR Escape team were sorting out the 2023 xmas bash and wanted to play an escape room. Fortunately, there was still one escape room near me that I hadn’t played - Room 13. So we went along and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are another couple of Escape Rooms in Southend at Escape Southend. They have Carnival of Curiosity and The Magic Prison of Azcatraz. I’ve not had chance to play The Magic Prison of Azcatraz but we played Carnival of Curiosity and had a lot of fun with it. (Well, actually I sulked a bit because part of it is low light and my old eyes couldn’t cope - but my wife and kids had no trouble. :) ) With quite a grungy feel to it it adds to the range of escape rooms in Southend.

A list of escape rooms near Southend In no particular order:

The Magpie Mystery - Crime - Escape Live

Room 13 - Scary - Escape Live

Pirate Plunder - Pirate - Escape Live

Magic Prison of Azcatraz - Prison / Magic - Escape Southend

Carnival of Curiosities - Carnival - Escape Southend

Dragon Tower - Magic / Fantasy - VR Escape

Manor of Escape - Scary - VR Escape

Depths of Osiris - Underwater - VR Escape

Space Station Tiberia - Space - VR Escape

Pirates Plague - Pirate - VR Escape

Runaway Train - Steam Punk / Wild West - VR Escape

Time Travel Paradox - Sci Fi - VR Escape

As I hope is obvious from what I’ve written above, I opened the first Virtual Reality Escape Room in Southend not just because I’m a VR fan, but also because I’m an escape room enthusiast. I’m very fortunate to have such great escape rooms near me. In enthusiast circles the question of whether virtual reality escape rooms are better than physical rooms comes up fairly frequently. My answer tends to be this. There are good escape rooms and not so good escape rooms. Whether the scenery is real or virtual really doesn’t make a difference to that. In VR escape rooms the puzzles can make use of the fantastic - things that can’t be done in real life, and you can be put in places you couldn’t be put in a real room. Ultimately though - it’s all about the puzzles and how much fun you have solving them, and not just about the way in which you see those puzzles.