Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Sherlocked - The Lost Cabinet Review (The Netherlands)

Hi all

The seventh room on our May/June 2024 child-free trip to Holland was The Lost Cabinet at Sherlocked Escape Rooms. It is located in Amsterdam, but the specific location where the game can be played is subject to change.

Having previously played Sherlocked’s The Vault room online during the pandemic, and then having played The Alchemist room the night before, we were excited to get our hands on The Lost Cabinet.

The Locked Cabinet is a unique experience. It is steeped in secrecy – in fact, if you go and take a look at Sherlocked Escape Rooms’ website, you won’t find any mention of The Locked Cabinet. I only learned about The Locked Cabinet from a review by Room Escape Artist, which you can check out here. Sherlocked - The Lost Cabinet [Review] - Room Escape Artist

The only way to (attempt to) book in The Locked Cabinet is by sending an email to lostcabinet@sherlocked.nl. You cannot book this experience on their website.

The Lost Cabinet was our 297th escape room experience. We played as a team of 4 and here is what I thought: 

  • one of the owners of Sherlocked Escape Rooms, Victor, was our host. The Lost      Cabinet can be moved and played in different locations, but our experience was enjoyed at Sherlocked Escape Rooms’ offices, which are located about a 15-20 min walk south of their main Amsterdam location. From memory, we played on a Sunday morning, so the office was empty and after setting us up with tea/coffee, Victor walked us into a separate room where The Lost Cabinet was waiting for us;
  • the experience is a locked box experience. At the time of playing The Lost Cabinet, I had played a number of different locked box experiences, of varying levels of quality and difficulty. The Lost Cabinet was easily the best experience of that type we have played to date;
  • the quality of craftmanship in The Lost Cabinet is unrivalled. There were so many intricately-constructed elements and so many concealed items. My only concern was that some of the elements felt like they could easily be broken with a modest amount of force, so we were VERY careful at every step. This did not detract from the experience at all, but it did explain why Sherlocked is careful to screen those players that they allow to play The Lost Cabinet;
  • the puzzles within The Lost Cabinet are varied, intricate and of varying difficult levels. There were nice ‘wow’ moments with certain elements that I will not forget. The puzzles all made sense to us, although there were a few that had us scratching our heads for a little while;
  • thematically, the story of The Lost Cabinet is a precursor to the Alchemist. We ultimately played the experiences in the opposite order, but this did not detract from our enjoyment of either;
  • I do not recall how long it took us to work our way through The Locked Cabinet, other than being told that our time was better than a certain legend…..ary actor 😉 I would allow yourselves around 2 hours for this experience.

We all really enjoyed The Lost Cabinet. If there is a better 'escape room in a box' anywhere in the world, we are yet to see (or hear anything about) it. 

Where:                 Beurs van Berlage, Damrak 247, 1012 ZJ Amsterdam

Duration:            Allow 90-120 minutes

Themes:              4 themes

Price:                    Prices from 249€ per team

Overall Rating:     The best ‘locked box’ experience we have played

More details:        https://www.sherlocked.nl/  


No comments:

Post a Comment