Review of Mission Escape - Vampire Castle Theme

My group (of 4 adults) checked out Mission Escape Sydney back in September, not too long after they had opened.  We had all previously tried out Sydney Escape Hunt and were excited to see what other escape room outfits had to offer in Sydney.

Firstly, they can be a little tricky to find (although we had no problems).  You enter through glass doors on Pitt Street into a small foyer area between a hairdresser and a Vodafone store.  You then take the lifts up to level 3.


The atmosphere there is cool.  When you arrive, you sit down in a small waiting area where you are given instructions.  We did the Vampire Escape theme.

First off, I'll say what I enjoyed most about Mission Escape Sydney:

• to be honest, I had some initial concerns (based primarily on their website) that language barriers might have been an issue for us.  However I can confirm that I worried for nothing and this was all fine;
• the atmosphere was really cool.  To be fair, this place was not run nearly as "professionally" as Escape Hunt Sydney in that they had much less staff members than other outfits (but I found this a plus).  We had a lot of fun.  We were blindfolded and had to walk from the waiting room into the hunt room - which was both silly and fun (and a nice way to start the room);
• the quality of the puzzles was far better and more high tech than I had envisaged.  In fact, we spent too much time thinking about the puzzle mechanisms (and how they worked) rather than just getting on with the puzzles; 
• we had a heap of fun even though we didn't escape in time.  What I really liked was that the owners let you keep playing beyond the clock and give you hints so that everyone can see how to escape the room; and
• the theme was incredibly well done.  I can't overstate this enough.  It was eerie, at times scary and the high tech puzzles made the over all theming 100% perfect.  

Now, for what could have been improved:

• to be honest, not much could be improved here;
• the only item we had issues with was one puzzle, which has a delay before it activates.  This was confusing for us because we had it all correct, but when we didn't get an immediate reaction, we assumed we were wrong and tried different things.  After some time, we realised that we had it right all along, but there was about a 10 to 15 second delay before the puzzle reacted.  This was frustrating, because it was the very last puzzle and if we had not taken so much time on this one, we would have easily escaped in time; and
• the only other negative here is the price, which is the highest of all escape rooms in Sydney. The price of the Dr M theme in particular is very steep (at $45 a head).  It is a little hard to justify $90 a couple for a 70 minute escape.  I think if their price on each room dropped by $5 to $10 per person, they would increase their patronage.

This outfit was my favourite escape room in Sydney, hands down (at least of those that I have tried as at 18 December 2014).  I've already booked in for their next room, Dr M in January and can't wait!

Their tripadvisor reviews also rank them as the best escape room in Sydney, which was completely unsurprising to me.  

If you think that you might only ever do one escape room, then I would choose either this one or ParaPark (although I bet that if you try Mission Escape, you will get the bug and will come back too!)  

Where:                   Suite 301-303 Pitt Street, Sydney

Duration:               60 to 70 mins (depending on theme)

Themes:                 Currently 2 (Dr M and Vampire Castle)

Cost:                       $35-45 each (4 players)

Overall rating:      4.5 out of 5 stars

More details:         http://www.missionsydney.com/