In the previous years, escape rooms have been popping up all over the Netherlands, creating a popular new pastime for groups of friends looking for a challenge with atmosphere.
An escape room is an interactive adventure game for small groups. Participants will be locked into a room or area, and they will have to escape within a set amount of time by solving riddles, finding hidden objects and beating team games.
Most escape rooms come with a specific theme and a set story, that explains why the team is trapped and sets a certain atmosphere, often mysterious or scary.
Here is our selection of Escape Room organisations you should try out.
Please note that all the Escape Rooms mentioned can be played by English speakers, but a language adaptation may need to be requested when making reservations.
Amsterdam is full of escape rooms with all kinds of themes:
My Escape Club really sucks you into its stories, with two escape rooms full of exciting puzzles, special effects and immersive scenarios.
- Back to USSR is perfect for first-timers and smaller teams. The puzzles vary in difficulty, and the atmosphere is comical and relatively relaxed, with a lower pressure element than most escape rooms.
- Judgment Day is a technologically advanced escape room. Highly realistic, very dynamic, with lots of electronic puzzles and sound/video installations, you will feel like you are the main characters in a movie.
In Zombie Escape Amsterdam, you have been selected for a tour at Gen Lab Z, a high-tech institution that is working on a cure for mortality. Be careful, the tour just might go awry, leading to a full-blown zombie outburst that you will have to escape from.
Sherlocked is a set of unique escape rooms, each outfitted with an intriguing story.
- The Vault
Break in to Amsterdam’s most beautiful and highly secured vault complex as a team of skilled thieves, and steal a mysterious object from deep inside an old safe-complex with a state-of-the-art security system.
- The Architect
Hidden within the catacombs of the old Beurs van Berlage lies the old office of the building’s architect. Find out his secrets about the mysterious secret society that he was a member of.
Utrecht is a hub for board games, fantasy and pop culture, which is reflected in these escape rooms:
Taking place in one of the medieval wharf cellars that line the Oudegracht canal, Mysterium is a world of hidden puzzles, interesting technical challenges and creative solutions.
TIME is the first Virtual Reality Escape Room in the Netherlands. 90 minutes of impressive special effects are sure to sweep you up into a dazzling story.
Escape rooms in The Hague are good and creepy:
Go Down the Hatch and escape a blocked-off research bunker through hidden puzzles, challenging riddles, hints and unexpected events. Get out before you run out of oxygen, and take care not to get radiation poisoning!
Floor 13 is a thriller experience with great reviews. Find out why people have been disappearing in this little flat. Be warned, high-class light and sound effects make this a pretty creepy challenge.
Scheveningen has its own popular set of adventurous escape rooms:
You are now a group of spies, tasked with breaking into (and back out of) a lab and stealing a deadly virus in the challenge Mission Impossible. Also upcoming in Unlock Scheveningen: The Mummy and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Have you always wanted to join the Chinese mafia? Then this is the escape room for you! Mobster boss Jong Un will lay down great challenges for you and you friends, to see if you are worthy.
One company in Rotterdam tells stories in three different rooms:
Escaping Rotterdam presents three rooms to take on. Defuse the bomb in The Engine Room, battle confusion in The Fantasy Room, and The Office has to be broken into, rather than escaped from.
Leiden played an important role in the life of Rembrandt, and now he is back in their escape room:
Discover the secret of Rembrandt and find your way out of his workshop in a special location: Het Kruithuisje. This monument is a tower from the Middle Ages, and is filled with ancient secrets that you will uncover in Escape Room Leiden.
Last but not least, check this one out:
Three rooms in Escape Room Zandvoort will delight teams who love adventure. You find a hidden Grand Prix race car, help out on a fisher’s boat on a stormy sea or discover the dark truth behind the hidden gold in a collapsed mine.
Escape Rooms are perfect for small groups of friends like bachelor parties, but office outings can also greatly benefit from the fun team building challenges. The rooms will usually allow two to six or seven players.
What is your favourite escape room, and did you make it out in time? Let us know in the comments below!