The Locked Room – Northeast

The first location for the Locked Room before they expanded into two extra locations in the south. Also the first escape room in Calgary (or so I’m told). Despite them being around for so long, it took us a while before we could try them out. Another term for an “escape room” is a “locked room”, and their website description is “Calgary Escape Rooms”, so of course they’re going to be on the top of search results on Google. That’s actually really good marketing. But this is why it took us so long, as we usually play casually and book rooms the day of, whereas with the Locked Room (this location at least) it was nearly impossible unless you book beforehand. There’s not much as you go into the building, a reception table, a tv screen with their top teams on a leaderboard and the bathrooms. There’s a little mini boardroom used as a briefing room to tell you the ins and outs of escape rooming and types of locks etc, but also to prevent people who have finished their rooms to spoil anything for you. Mini puzzles and games are there to entertain you in the meantime. Beverages are available for purchase (by the honour system) by the front desk.

It’s a little hard to find the turn off initially as they only had a tiny sign before the turn and the building is part way in and hard to see the signage. They have a bit better signage now. The rooms feel a bit clunky. The puzzles are rough, they make sense but don’t all feel well fitted into the room. Some more impressive uses of props and elements with their decor. Lots of random people though. Because of how popular it is on the search results, we always run the high chance to be booked into a room with some strangers (and it just alway happens to be their first time doing a room). I didn’t find the staff here to be too personable. They do their job and they walk you through everything, but it’s just not as friendly as the staff at the other two locations (Southland has probably the best staff out of all three).