Review: Part 1 - Barcelona’s Best Escape Rooms!
We were recently in Barcelona, Spain and we completed 16 escape rooms. This article is and overview of the best of the best. We will be writing individual more-detailed reviews on several of these rooms.
In this article, Part 1, I will given my overall observations about the Barcelona escape room market. Please see my part 2 article for mini reviews of the Best rooms we played (part 2 will be released the week after part 1)
1. Let me tell you – the Barcelona market is high-quality and varied! Barcelona has:
7 of TERPECA’s Top 100 in the World!
Almost 40 of TERPECA’s Top 400 in the World!
2. In Barcelona Escape Rooms are about the set the immersion and the story! The sets are amazing and immersive – for some reasons I packed black jeans instead of blue jeans…a good third of the rooms we played in Barcelona had many a sand element…lots of sand which is evident in many of our after-photos!
3. So…because of No 2., puzzles sometimes take a back seat to the experience. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun playing the rooms we selected .
4. None of the games we played had a lobby in the traditional sense. That is, we didn’t open a door, walk into a lobby and say “hi we’re here for the 3:15 escape room”. Every one of the rooms we played required us to be at the entrance to the location at a certain time. Sometimes there was a doorbell to ring, sometimes not. But in all cases we were greeted by someone in character and costume…and we were expected to be in character.
5. Perhaps because of Point 4 you may wonder -- what if I have to go to the bathroom? Well… this is actually a consideration in Barcelona in particular and Europe in general. That is, not all escape rooms have toilets in the lobby available for your use. Of the rooms we played however the majority did have one available to us when we arrived, we merely told the character that greated us that needed to use the toilet and they let us…most of the times. They were a few exceptions, however, where there was not a toilet accessible before the game or even after the game. And in two cases the toilet was available as a non-puzzle broom inside the escape room itself. And even I can laugh at myself the time I pointed out the characters on the wall in an ancient ruin – I pointed to the letters “WC” as if finding a clue.
6. Another consideration that is worth a close look on each escape room website before you book is for possible impediments such as physical activity and other potential limitations – like strobing lights. Sometimes these issues can be worked around – but sometimes not. I don’t remember signing waivers which are so prevalent in the US Escape Room market – but we did get exposed to daring physical elements…like real weapons – with sharp edges…and really big blades (really). Climbing to considerable heights or descending some steep slides. Don’t get me wrong – these were standout experiences…perhaps we found them more memorable as compared to what we would be allowed to do in the US due to safety and legal restrictions.
7. Timers? Not so much. We completed all rooms we played – but we only saw timers in a couple of games. I think we generally competed all the games within time – but I was under the definite impression that the Barcelona market wants to make sure you get the full experience and not focus on the timer. We were usually a group of 3 players but the couple of times it was just the two of us I got the distinct impression that the room was scaled for our smaller group by being gentle on our time.
8. Hints? I am hard pressed to think of a game where we – the players – asked for hints. Occasionally the in-game characters or game mechanics gave us a prompt but I don’t recall even having an opportunity to step out of our immersive experience and literally ask for a hint.
9. One hour? Not one of the games we played had a one-hour time limit – they ranged from 70 to 120 minutes. This suited our playing style as we like to savor the experience and become immersed and not to pressing the gas for a fast time for the leader board. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be on the leaderboard – its just not what makes for a fun time for us.
10. And bring cash, unlike other markets almost all of the rooms we booked only needed (or accepted) a deposit. There was usually not an option to pay the full balance…so you need to pay after you finish the game…but bring Euros in cash as most do not accept credit cards, in our experience.
11. And finally, we would be remiss to not remind everyone that if you come to Barcelona there are some fantastic world class architecture, parks and sites to see. These are certainly worth the while. This was our second trip in a couple of years to Barcelona so we really focused on Escape Rooms for this trip but we also took some time to take in some of what Barcelona has to offer.
Inside the amazing Sagrada Familia (buy your admission tickets in advance or be prepared for a long line)
The amazing Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau is not as crowded as other sites but this art nouveau campus once functioned as an ahead-of-its time hospital is worth the visit!