Escape Rooms started in Hungary and became a major tourist attraction there and throughout Europe. These puzzle-style rooms were them exported to the states and began sprouting across California like wildfire. I’ve done as many Escape Rooms in Southern California that time has permitted, ranging from horror rooms (e.g., the fantastic The Basement) to much more tame team-building experiences (e.g., PanIQ Room), but had never had the pleasure of doing any Escape Rooms in another country.

So the last week I went on vacation to Cancun, Mexico for my mom’s 60th birthday. We stayed at one of those all inclusive resorts, and spent our days sitting in a cabana by the beach drinking mai tais, swimming with dolphins, and eating… a lot! But one of the first things I noticed when entering is that they had an Escape Room! An Escape Room on a resort property in Cancun? Man, these things must really be wide-spread and mainstream now, but hell, it’s an Escape Room so I had to do it. So how does a Mexican-Resort Escape Room compare? Let’s find out!

The Greatest Escape Game by AthensClue is the title (what a mouthful). This was a smaller room, allowing two to five guests, and had two themed rooms (a pirate room and an archaeological room), which seemed pretty standard. But two things did surprise me: the price (30 total dollars for five people) and the age limit (all-ages allowed). So, I brought my nephew along to play the game too (he’s 7) and he loves puzzles and pirates.

So was it easy enough for a 7-year-old? Hell no. The room was no where near as immersive as anything like The Basement, but felt very akin to something like PanIQ Room. The aesthetics reminded me of a pirate-themed kid’s bedroom, which was how the first part of PanIQ Room’s The Bunker felt to me. There were barrels on the floor, shells glued onto everything, netting, port holes, and more shells on the wall, locked treasure chests, and maps filled with coordinates above a big desk. In the first room was a pirate hat and belt that I quickly put on my nephew to aid somewhat in the immersion. The puzzles were fun and challenging, and a TV displayed our remaining time. A neat addition was that every time a a menacing laugh was heard, a clue was displayed on the monitor. This helped direct us on a few tricky parts and especially on a lock that we couldn’t open, even though we had the right code. The laugh was helpful to direct our attention to the monitor because we weren’t always looking at the TV.

The puzzles were pretty standard. The first room revealed a compass that required a magnet to reveal the next clue. After solving a few puzzles and finding three sacks of shells and a scale, we weighed them–and the three-digit weight was used to open a lock: revealing a shirt (with holes in it) and a key. We had about 30 mins left (of our initial 45) and didn’t expect a 30 dollar Escape Room to have a second section, but the lower section of the large wardrobe opened, revealing a crawl space into a second room.

This room continued the theme of a kid’s bed room, and even had a boat-shaped bed with no mattress in it! A mannequin stood in the corner, dressed in a pirate costume. I quickly undressed him revealing numbers across his body (I had seen this already in CapTVT). We adorned him in the shirt from the previous room, which yielded three numbers–for another lock. This also gave a telescope, which could be used on a hole in the back of the wardrobe to gaze upon the map in the first room. Looking at the right spot with the telescope revealed a code that could be used on a lock in the second room (this was one of the more clever puzzles). Solving all the puzzles in this room revealed three separate gold coins, each with a letter and a number. Using the numbers in alphabetical order revealed a final lock box, in which a key was used and the amulet we were searching for was uncovered. This amulet also had the power of activating a touch pad to open the door for our escape.

We escaped with 13 minutes to spare (but we did have some help from clues on the tv). I’d say the difficulty was pretty on par with traditional Escape Rooms I’ve tried here. I was very happy that my nephew was able to try one, and he had a blast. We allowed him to open the final box and retrieve the amulet and he couldn’t have been happier.

In summary, it appears that Escape Rooms are not really differentiated by location, but rather by the mind that puts them together. If the owner has a novel theme with unique elements, then this Escape Room will be a must-try and people will come from all over to attempt it. But if the Escape Room is simply a corporate endeavor to cash in on this hot trend, then it will simply be a standard, yet fun, experience (maybe even for the whole family).