Review of Escape Hunt Sydney - Murder in the Pub Theme

My group of friends (2 guys and 2 ladies in our mid 30s) checked out Sydney Escape Hunt the weekend that it opened back in August 2014.

The atmosphere there is pretty cool.  When you arrive, you sit down in a large room and are given a series of different puzzles and games to play to warm up for the hunt.

Our group did the Murder in the Pub challenge, which is their most difficult room.  This was the first escape room that my group had done (although my wife and I have done others overseas).  First off, I'll say what I enjoyed most about Sydney Escape Hunt:

• it was really professionally run - there were a lot of staff members;
• given that they have so many rooms (3 themes but they have several identically themed rooms), they are a good option for corporate events where you have large groups;
• the atmosphere in the warm up room was really good; and
• the quality of some of the puzzles and challenges in the room was really good.

Now, for what I didn't like so much:

• one of the puzzles in particular was incorrect.  Due to poor print quality, certain shapes didn't align correctly and this made the puzzle very difficult to solve;
• we asked for a hint for this puzzle and the hint that we were given was wrong (it actually made it more difficult to solve than if we had not asked for a hint at all).  The staff member gave us a bum steer;
• although some puzzles were of good quality, many of the locks were not (one of the locks/chain fell off in our hands even though we had not found or used the key); 
• the theming was very weak.  The plot was about a murder in a pub, but it mattered very little to the escape (in fact, even though we escaped just in time, nobody in our group knew "whodunnit"); and
• the pricing is a little steep.  They don't seem to have many coupon opportunities, unlike many of their competitors (although they did have an opening special).  

We did have a lot of fun and I suspect some of the negative issues above may have been due to the fact that they had just opened (and hopefully have been fixed up now).  

Where:                   4/393 George Street, Sydney

Duration:               60 minutes

Themes:                 3 different themes (but multiple rooms of each theme)

Cost:                       $38 each (4 players) (But watch out for coupons/midweek specials))

Overall Rating:     3 out of 5 stars

More details:         http://sydney.escapehunt.com/