I’m a huge fan of escape rooms as I love solving puzzles and working collaboratively on a team, so I was eager to visit Lockdown Ottawa to try one of their escape rooms over the weekend. At Lockdown Ottawa there are currently three rooms, Save The Rave (a rave themed room), The Visitors (an alien-themed room), and Trudeau Towers (an elevator escape).
What To Expect
My team picked Trudeau Towers where the theme of the room is you are staying at the city’s most luxurious hotel Trudeau Towers and get trapped in the elevator en route to your room due to a bomb threat in the building. Thus your team has 45 minutes to escape the elevator and defuse the bomb and to survive.
Located in the east end of Ottawa, near St. Laurent Mall Lockdown Ottawa provides an entertaining activity to do with friends or family that is easy to get to and offers plenty of free parking. Upon arriving there is a small waiting area for your group to play with puzzle games until it is your turn to begin.
Before starting the room, we were invited to watch a video that explained the rules of the escape room and the story for our challenge which was an interesting twist, as it is the first time I’ve seen this done via a video at an escape room center. Next, we were invited to store our coats and valuables in a private locked storage room. While a private locked storage room might seem like a small feature, it is very helpful as typically at escape rooms there is a public coat room and valuables such as purses need to be stored within the escape room which causes them to get in the way, or be tripped on in tiny or dark rooms. Thus having everything stored safely before we entered the small room was outstanding as there was no chance of clues being accidentally hidden under everyone’s bags.
Once ready to begin, the elevator door opened, and you see a small elevator room which everyone has to enter before the 45-minute countdown begins and you need to solve how to escape.
Lockdown Ottawa: Trudeau Towers Escape Room
Trudeau Towers is currently the toughest room at Lockdown Ottawa, with the fastest escaping team taking 27 minutes to escape! The room is designed for 2-6 people, but a smaller group of around four people might work best so that it does not get too crowded.
As someone who has done lots of escape rooms, I found the room is expertly crafted, both the decor and the variety of puzzles within the room were outstanding. One of my favourite aspects of the room was how convincingly the room felt like an elevator, complete with elevator music. The puzzles themselves had a diverse range, with a clear direction on how to move from one puzzle to the next. I particularly enjoyed the use of sound via the elevator’s speaker through music or voice that added a richer atmosphere to the tiny room.
Somehow, Lockdown Ottawa managed to make being trapped in an elevator for 45 minutes incredibly fun! Everyone on my team highly enjoyed the experience and the creativity in the puzzles, and I’m certain we will be returning in the future to try the other rooms.