Escape U- Utopia of the Seas’ Escape Room
Our family really enjoys escape rooms because we enjoy puzzles and challenges that test our intelligence and ability to work together. So, we have done a variety of escape rooms on dry land and on cruise ships. Escape rooms can vary from taking place in multiple rooms that you unlock as you progress through the clues to everything taking place in one room. Sometimes escape rooms involve cameras and staff helping you through phones or speakers and sometimes the staff simply stays in the room with you. Finally, the themes of an escape room can vary wildly and some may be of more interest to some than others.
Perhaps because of space and other limitations, the escape rooms on cruise ships are typically in one room and have the staff member in the room with you. They are there to guide you, give you hints or simply make sure that you aren’t cheating or breaking things. On Royal Caribbean ships there are a variety of themes that we have seen. Some ships have the same theme as other ships, some have more complicated and intricate themes, and some have themes that are fun but with a more simple set-up. We were told awhile back that if the ship has the same theme as another ship that the puzzles would be different so it would still be a different experience. We have never, however, experienced this first hand to verify if this is indeed true.
Our family just got off the Utopia of the Seas and so we decided to give the fleet’s newest escape room a try. Their theme was called Escape U and took place in what looked to be a classroom. In the classroom, there were desk, maps, whiteboards, book cases, filing cabinets and other items that you might find in a classroom. One big difference with this escape room is that the challenge is for only 30 minutes instead of the usual 60 minutes. The challenge was to solve all of the puzzles so that we could locate the professor in time.
We were with a group of 6 others and we found that we all worked really well together. There were a number of puzzles that could be worked on simultaneously, which made it easier to get into smaller groups. This also made it so that there didn’t really need to be a group leader, which was nice because usually my husband thinks it should be him, lol. We finished the challenge with 11 minutes to spare, which is pretty good.
Overall, we enjoyed our experience in the escape room and feel that the $39 price tag was appropriate, although we aren’t sure if we would pay much more. It seems to us that this escape room has a “been there done that” set-up, so we probably wouldn’t want to do it again. We do recommend it and found that since it was on the easier side that it would be great for younger cruisers.
