Christina’s 300th escape room was supposed to be a simple endeavor. I pegged our trip to Alaska as a great way to make Christina’s 300th memorable by solving a world famous room as #300.
Christina solved room #296 almost a month prior to our trip – Dormi Cito at Panic Escape in Hoffman Estates. It took all our self control not to play any other games near home in August, especially with a new 60 to Escape location opening five minutes from our home. But we exercised restraint- I had ambitions to revisit Alaska Escape Rooms in Anchorage and try their new game, plus play 1+ games in the ports the cruise would stop at.
We successfully avoided escape rooms for most of August. Then the other shoe fell- Alaska Escape Rooms would be closed the day we were scheduled for Anchorage. Even worse- in the past year, the ports we were visiting went from three escape rooms to zero. We now had a logistical challenge on our hands- find a way to solve three more escape rooms, 297-299, when there was no convenient way to do so.
The easiest modification was in Anchorage. I planned our stay to be walking distance from Alaska Escape Rooms, but we were an Uber ride away from two other businesses. Our group was tired after a day of travel but we still comfortably fit in a trip to play one game at Escape Alaska!
That was #297. At this point, it was time for our cruise to start, and I was getting desperate for options. I was even considering looking for ways to contact the closed businesses to see if we could assemble a quick approximation of the room to play the discontinued games. I had already researched games in Vancouver, after the cruise and before the bus ride to Seattle, but I had ruled those out due to insufficient time between the earliest available slots and our bus ride.
#298 came to us like a miracle. Day 1 of the cruise, the same day we boarded, the ship’s agenda called for participants to sign up for the shipboard game, Be-jeweled. We weren’t out of the woods yet- I had concerns that the game might not count toward Christina’s total. For whether something counts as an escape room, I follow the guidelines used by TERPECA. The crux is that the game needs to have a live game master and a fixed time limit, so getting a self-governed package game wouldn’t fit the bill.
I was extremely relieved when the time for Be-jeweled came and the game satisfied the conditions for a live escape room game. Another one down, #298!
As part of my bundle of benefits for the cruise, I received 150 minutes of free wifi access. On the final sea day, I used that internet time to scour Vancouver up and down, left and right. Our ship would be arriving early, with first departures at 7:30, giving us a large window to play a game before we needed to reach our bus around 12:30. The problem was that no businesses opened early enough.
I spent time looking further away from the port, thinking that even if we drove 30 minutes to and from the escape room, we would still have enough time if there were any rooms starting at 9 or 9:30. Unfortunately, there were zero, even within a broader radius.
I reexamined options in downtown Vancouver. The Exit chain typically opens at 12, but one location had a game starting at 11:30. penciling in 11:30 – 12:30, then hoping we could get to our bus in <10 minutes, seemed to be our best option.
In an earlier post, I already shared what happened- Exit Gastown was able to get us started a few minutes early, and we cleared the room in only about twenty five minutes, leaving us with a reasonable amount of time to catch our bus. #299 solved!
The rest is history- we boarded our bus and went to Locurio that evening. Summer and the Locurio team surprised Christina with a wonderful bounty including cupcakes, a poster, and a certificate. A hard-earned #300!
I don’t know what we would have done had we not found a way to make it to #300. I suppose we would have had to decline the cupcakes in shame! I’m really glad things worked out and we could unabashedly celebrate Christina’s #300 in style!
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