An escape room is an adventure game where you and your team are confined to a physical location. And while inside you need to find, hints, clues, and secrets in order to “escape” the room. A clever name I know.
These escape rooms are similar to situations that you might find yourself in while playing various video games.
You’ve also probably seen some horror or adventure movie at some point in your life. Where the main characters were stuck in some situation and they had to find a way to get out.
Well, that’s kind of like the escape room. Or recently there have been actual Hollywood films come out called Escape Room.
Usually, these games are set in a variety of “themed” locations. Maybe it is a medieval-style room, set in the old west, or maybe something straight out of the Saw movies, or the Walking Dead, or maybe a science laboratory on a space station—you get the idea.
This is a really good group date activity, or you could go as a couple and team up with a group to complete their team.
Grab your Sherlock Holmes sleuthing hat, get your adventure on, and see if you can escape the room. Better yet, leave the hat at home.
Want to watch a celebrity escape room video? Check out this video and watch as Jack Black leads Courteney Cox, Adam Scott, Ben Stiller, and Lisa Kudrow to play this awesome game. They played it to win money for charity. And it is pretty hilarious.
What you need for this Escape Room group date idea:
Look online and find the closest escape room venue to you. They are located all over North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, East Asia, Russia, and South America.
Most major metropolitan areas will have a few. This activity has grown in popularity over the years and keeps getting even more popular.
Make sure to make reservations and maybe even dress the part for whatever the theme is. You could plan to eat beforehand as a group or grab dessert after since they usually only last about an hour.
The prices usually range between $25 and $40 per person. Not the cheapest group date idea, but definitely worth the money. They get even more popular during October, so plan ahead if you want to do one during that month.
My Escape Room Experience:
This is something I have always wanted to do since I first heard about them. I have a friend who actually owns a couple of escape room venues.
I finally had the opportunity to participate in an escape room. And it was awesome. There were 4 of us couples all trying to figure out clue after clue to solve the puzzle and win the game.
We chose a place called Paradox Escape Room. It wasn’t too far from my house, only about 20 minutes away. Our group first met beforehand for dinner, which was nice. Our original plan fell through because the restaurant was only doing takeout, so we wound up just picking another place close by, called Freddy’s. Freddy’s is a large change of fast food burgers and frozen custard.
After dinner, we went to Paradox to try our luck at the game. The theme that we were doing was the 1920s/30s featuring the one and only Al Capone. We were trapped in a room made to look like an old speakeasy. I won’t go into the details, because I don’t want to spoil the game for any future participants. It was a blast and we wound up escaping with 16 minutes still on the clock. It was a super fun experience and an awesome group date idea.
Usually, after escaping or not escaping the room, you take a group picture. Maybe you’ve even seen similar pictures of your friends on Facebook who’ve posted about their experiences escaping the room. And yes, we took a picture and one of my friends from the group posted it on Facebook.
On another occasion, for a board game night, we played an “escape room” in a box. The real thing is much better, but this one was still kind of fun.
And just recently a group of friends and I, not really a group date, went to another escape room. The theme was some rich guy’s mansion, that had the stolen “Mona Lisa” painting and we had to find it.
If you are looking for something different to do for a group date, try this date idea out!
Watch the video I made about this group date idea:
You can buy a copy of the book 101 Creative Dates: ideas, tips, and personal experiences from the life of a hopeless romantic here or visit the shop.
Here are some other group date ideas you may like: