The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is 75 minutes of riddles, puzzles and immersive fun. For all intents and purposes it’s an escape room but with an added digital element (clues are accessed via QR codes using a tablet) and a rampaging hunt around the magical world of Alice and the White Rabbit. Created in collaboration with Supermassive, the experience makes excellent use of Z-Arts’ immersive experience for 0-8s, Adventures in Wonderland, pitched at older kids (9+) and their grown-ups.
Our group was two adults and two 9-year-olds and it was a good mix. The tablets were an interesting twist on a typical escape room. They make sure all members of the party are involved and it’s useful being able to refer back to the hints without everything getting too circular. For our own group I’m not sure how much it added compared with a clue written on paper, but I can imagine for some mixed age groups it would be a nice addition that would retain interest, and it was very useful in keeping track of which of the Mad Hatter’s friends we’d found and our remaining time. In terms of ages, while the objective – to save the 12 animals before tea went cold – seems aimed at children, a lot of the actual content of this escape room provided a good level of challenge, and on a par with escape rooms for adults.
There were a few hiccups with our tablet/the QR codes but once we’d got the knack of it we were off. Armed with our tablet, a map and our curiosity we worked through the twelve puzzles to locate the animals. There was a great combination of tasks, some of them the traditional escape room type puzzle and some more physical. A few of the tasks had multiple stages and the girls really enjoyed working through them and unlocking the next part. Our favourite puzzles related to the giant game of chess, a bookshelf and the ‘pool of tears’ (a ball pool with small slide). Our young companions’ overall verdict was that it was “a good amount of tricky”.
At most of the stations there was an opportunity to explore or dress up which delighted the girls, although they did say there was a lot to distract you from the puzzles. In retrospect 75 minutes is an ample amount of time and we finished with about 15 minutes to spare, so we could have been more relaxed about them exploring Wonderland while we played (or at the start) rather than try and keep them laser-focused on the task at hand. (As an aside I cannot imagine being a Year 4 teacher; I’ve never shouted “focus, girls. FOCUS!” so much in my life).
The space itself was beautiful and enchanting, thoughtfully laid out with something for everyone. The Mad Hatter was the right amount of helpful, on hand if we needed direction, and the tablet offered clues if needed (which we only did on a couple of occasions). The staff at Z-Arts were friendly and welcoming as always, and the cafe there was a great place to regroup and refresh after our victorious escape. As with other escape rooms at Z-Arts I’d highly recommend it; cost-wise it’s about on a par with (or a bit cheaper than) other escape rooms and not much more than a lot of other children’s activates and definitely worth looking at for birthday parties. Well worth a visit!
Pippa Hebborn-Gibson for Canal St Media
Booking link: https://www.z-arts.org/events/