We were looking to do an escape room in the Vancouver area during our trip and luckily, one of my friends is in a group chat of escape room enthusiasts and they recommended us to try Pandora's Locks. Apparently there are many bad escape rooms around Vancouver but Pandora's Locks is definitely one of the good ones.
We were able to reach the owner through the group chat and he offered us to beta test their new room free of charge, which we gladly accepted. We set up the appointment for the 2 rooms, as booking is generally required for escape rooms.
The first room we tried that day was their beta testing room, Where's Becky, which is 80s themed in a girl's bedroom. Even though the room only has 1 room, unlike many of the other escape rooms I tried that have multiple areas, the storyline was definitely really interesting and it slowly unfolded as you solve more puzzles. Since the room was still in beta many of the features were unpolished, but it allowed us the opportunity to provide suggestions which was pretty cool. You can definitely tell the owner is really passionate about creating his escape rooms and he prides himself on creating a rich backstory for the setting. He told us he would never put combination locks in his rooms as he wants his mechanics to be interesting.
The second room we tried was their most popular room, the Vault 405. The price was $25/person with tax included and they accept credit card. This room is set in a futuristic post-apocalypse vault and you're job is to get the machines to work. Similar to Where's Becky, there is only 1 room in the entire place but there were a lot of puzzles to solve to get to the ending. Some mechanics were cool and overall the puzzles were logical to solve and would lead to the next puzzle. We had to utilize the hint a few times as this room definitely felt more difficult than Becky's, and their policy is that they offer unlimited hints.
And how can you end an escape room experience without taking some pictures? They have a few props for you to hold along with a few signs with funny/whitty phrases. Overall the experience was awesome and it was great chatting with an escape room owner who's passionate at creating the best experience for his customers read more