Eureka is tough to find given the mazes of small strip malls in Banff. We were greeted by Claire who made us feel warm and fuzzy amid the winter cold. She provided clues over the speakers and had a very good read on when we needed help.

We had excellent service the last time we were here to do Marv’s Diner, and that experience was definitely repeated for this visit.

This room had all types of puzzles you can think of. Logic, memorization, puzzles that used common sense, puzzles that used your five senses, puzzles for the big group, puzzles for individuals. It was a glorious display of quantity and quality.

Warden’s Cabin is one of those rare rooms that can accommodate larger groups because of the way that the puzzles are set up – members of your group can work on a bunch of different puzzles at the same time! This makes sure that everyone can be contributing and doing something for a good chunk of the room. There are alsoa good variety of puzzles, with some logic puzzles, some searching puzzles, and even a puzzle that engages your sense of taste!

I was a little hesitant about the look of the room after having done Marv’s Diner which had a lackluster decor. This room complemented the Banff atmosphere. Very cabin-y, very mountain-y. From the small knickknacks to the grander props, everything screamed of the outdoors.

This room is unapologetically Albertan. I really enjoyed the very rustic feel of the room!

You are busy from the moment you enter the room. Everything looks relevant and everyone is involved. There was a feeling of isolation from being in the cabin, and there was a feeling of anxiety from trying to break and enter. It all felt too real.

The look of the room definitely contributed to the feeling of immersion here. Another plus is that hints were delivered via voice so that someone didn’t have to come in and give you your hint.

This room took a very cliche, very run-of-the-mill theme and ran away with it. Everything associated with the word “cabin” can be found here.

For the most part, the puzzles and decor were thematically appropriate, but there was one weird puzzle that, while fun, was a bit different from the rest of the room.

DIAMOND. I know, an escape room that actually delivers in small-town Banff? It seems unlikely but this is a top-notch room. Definitely try it.

Definitely a DIAMOND. I like how this room can be done by a bigger group! If you and your friends want a break from the many outdoor activities Banff has to offer, I would definitely recommend a visit to the Warden’s Cabin.

Lockdown is located in Red Deer, the midway point between Edmonton and Calgary. They have two locations that boast several rooms, which was surprising to find out given that Red Deer isn’t a big city. Regardless, more escape rooms for Ben and I to try.

The lobby reminded me of my local video store where I would rent VHS tapes back in the day. It was cozy and welcoming enough. The staff working there was accommodating and provided hints in a non-judgmental manner. Good overall.

BEN

We stopped by to do a room here on the way to Calgary one weekend. The people here were nice, and they were very accommodating of us even though we got in a little bit late.

I thought the puzzles here were just okay. The vast majority of them were generic–those types of puzzles that you would encounter repeatedly if you have done quite a few escape rooms. There were moments of creativity here and there, but for the most part, the puzzles were too simple for my liking.

I liked the puzzles here – there was a good mix of them, including one physical puzzle that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, there were a few puzzles here that are on my list of escape room pet peeves (blacklight anyone?) which kind of dampened the experience. The iffy puzzles for me were moreso in the second half of the room.

The title and the room description on the website would have you thinking you are going to be locked up in a freezer. You get just that– a bare freezer with silver-colored walls. This was fine, but what I didn’t appreciate was the use of props that shouldn’t be in a freezer (canned goods, cakes, peanut butter to name a few). I was fine with the bare freezer look, but I thought the small props looked cheap (probably because they were literally recycled).

I liked the freezer bit. It was appropriately freezery. I didn’t think it was too bare like Mr. P. It reminded me a little of Dairy Queen, actually! There were a few other quintessentially freezery things that I think could have been in there though.

I had two distinct experiences in this room. During our first half here, I was immersed, particularly because I had an alarming sense of urgency to get out. Why? We were actually in a freezer–where it was cold. Yes, they actually turn the temperature way down. Needless to say, it was cool.

The other half wasn’t so great. It became just another generic escape room in a cramped space with a window overlooking the outside, which took me out of immersion.

Mr. P got it right. It was freezing in the freezer, and I just wanted to get out. But once we got out, there wasn’t a lot of driving force to make us move faster – it was much more leisurely puzzle-solving from that point.

Again, there were two themes here. The main selling point for this room is the fact that you are trying to escape from a literal freezer. That is a fantastic and innovative theme. After that though, the experience becomes something else, and that something else was very meh.

I think there was maybe too much going on in this room. You have to escape, but there’s also a bomb, and you’re in a freezer. I would’ve been pretty happy with just being stuck in a freezer, but I felt that the add-ons diluted the experience a little bit.

Overall, I would give this room a #silver. It was fun being in a freezer (despite the cheap props), but once you get over the novelty and move on to the second half, the experience becomes very disappointing.

This room gets a #gold for me. Like Mr. P said, the first half was fantastic, but the second half was a little bit off.

We decided to do a day trip to Banff to visit the mountains. We looked up “escape rooms banff” without expecting to get results and stumbled upon Eureka, located in the heart of downtown Banff. When you go to Banff, it’s already an escape in and of itself, so having an escape room there might seem unintuitive. However, this shouldn’t come as a surprise because escape rooms are popping up everywhere nowadays.

The lobby itself wasn’t anything new. It was more of a waiting area. We were greeted by a very friendly, all-smiling, professionally-dressed gentleman by the name of Ethan. He was very enthusiastic during the debrief, and his energy didn’t let up even after when we escaped.

Ethan was our game master for Marv’s Diner, and he was incredibly friendly and one of the most energetic game masters we’ve ever had! It was a lot of fun just talking to him!

The reason I docked a point off of service is because the first room was being reset while we were in the second room, which was a little bit weird.

This was advertised as a room that requires using all the senses. I was dubious about this because usually it’s just sight and hearing that are involved. Here, however, you will require all five senses (and I hope this isn’t a spoiler because it is advertised on their website after all). I appreciated this because it was out-of-the-box compared to the norm.

As Paulie said, this room uses all the senses, which is really creative! The smelling puzzle was unfortunately not working too well when we did the room though. What I really liked was the taste puzzle – I promise it’s not as weird as it sounds! It was delicious and straightforward.

There was one puzzle where you need to have some knowledge of 50s and 60s music. You can technically get away with not doing this puzzle, but I don’t like that you need to have specific knowledge of something that isn’t necessarily common knowledge (at least, to people who didn’t grow up with 50s and 60s music).

The room looked like an actual diner, complete with black and white linoleum floor, vinyl discs, a juke box, Coke from glass bottles, and even a menu with references from the 50s. The look, however, became progressively bare as we moved through the different stages of the room. Only the first portion looked like a diner, whereas the other portions were just white walls with puzzles.

This room was a well-lit diner, which was a nice change from all the dark rooms that we do. They had a lot fun with the decor here, with lots of throwbacks to the 50s (that I, in all my youth, did not completely understand). I also really liked how they were able to play with lots of colour to fulfill their candy store theme. My only suggestion for improvement was to have a little bit more to look at in the later stages of the room because, as Mr. P said, it becomes a little bit more bare.

Immersion was the room’s weakest component because of several things. There were only sound effects in the first room and no music at all in the succeeding rooms. I thought they missed an opportunity to use the jukebox or the vinyl discs they had in the room. The walls were also paper thin, so we could hear the music coming from the main office.

There was also a puzzle here that required outside knowledge, so we felt stuck and had no choice but to brute-force a combination. When a room requires outside knowledge, it’s taking you out of the hour-long experience because you’re not using clues and props from within the room itself.

Aside from the lack of music, I would say that the first room is fairly immersive! However, the bareness of environment further into the room is a bit jarring and takes you out of the experience.

There was a disconnect between the first part of the room (which had the true diner theme) and the rest of the room (which had more of a candy factory theme). Half the puzzles were diner-themed, half the puzzles were candy-themed. I guess the overall theme is food, and I’m fine with that.

Diner meets candy store. I loved this theme! While there wasn’t any music and the backstory wasn’t particularly compelling, the sheer whimsicality of the room just won me over. This room was also quite playful in its execution of the “candy store” aspect – it wasn’t quite a store, but more of a flavour lab, which I thought was really cute.

I give this room a #gold rating. If you’re looking for something to do in Banff and want to spend time away from tourists, this is a good room to do. There are things to do for both adults and kids. This is a great room for families to experience.

This room gets a #gold from me. Like Paulie said (he steals everything good to say), this is a fantastic room for a family to do if you’re ever looking for an indoor activity in Banff!