Escape rooms have grown in popularity over the past decade, offering a tactile and safe experience where you have to use brainpower to puzzle your way out of a room.
Arizona has over 50 escape rooms, with the vast majority in the Phoenix Metro area.
Tucson has a burgeoning escape room scene as well, with six locations, most of which feature multiple themed rooms.
Here are some escape rooms to try next time you’re in the Old Pueblo:
Fox in a Box Tucson
972 E. University Blvd.
Hours: 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Fox in a Box Tucson has four games, one of which can be played in the lobby.
Their rooms have themes like bank robbery, zombie lab, and wild west.
Robot Rescue, the lobby game, costs $25 per person. The other three rooms start at $84.79 for two people and can be booked online.
Ace of Escape
406 N. Church Ave.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
12 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday.
12 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday.
12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday
Ace of Escape offers three levels of difficulty across their six rooms, so it’s a great place to check out if you’re a beginner to the world of escape rooms.
In That 70s Room, you’re house-sitting for your neighbors and accidentally discover a portal in their basement that teleports you to the 1970s. The goal of the room is to return to the present day.
Ace of Escape’s most difficult rooms are Mad Medicine and Illusionist: Murder Mystery. In one, you need to rescue a friend from a mad doctor, and in the other, you’re on the hunt to bring a serial killer to justice.
Rooms start at $60 for two people and can be booked online.
Will You Escape?
2577 N. First Ave., Tucson
Hours: Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
1:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday
11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Will You Escape? boasts the difficulty of their rooms, posting the success rate of each on the company’s website. They have four rooms, and half have an under 50% success rate.
One of their rooms is called Santa’s Naughty List, where you travel to the North Pole and look to erase your names from Santa’s naughty list before he returns. Will You Escape? lists the room as medium difficulty, and it has a 75% success rate.
Their newest room, Warden’s Ruse, is rated very hard with a mere 25% success rate. In it you are wrongfully convicted inmates looking to escape prison while exposing a corrupt warden’s crimes.
Rooms start at $29 a person and can be booked online.
Escape Room @ Grant
2606 E. Grant Road
Hours: 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday
Closed Tuesdays
12 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday
Escape Room @ Grant has three rooms to choose from. In one, you wake up after a night of partying in Las Vegas and need to find your friend’s wedding ring.
In another, you’re a cowboy in Tombstone looking to steal a rival gang’s gold, and in the third, t you’re a detective looking for the will of a recently deceased painter.
Rooms are $28.60 per person and can be booked online.
Illusions Virtual Reality
4500 N. Oracle Road ,Suite 429
Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday
11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
If you’re worried about claustrophobia in a locked room, you can test out your puzzle-solving skills at a virtual escape room.
Illusions Virtual Reality offers 12 different escape rooms, more than any other company on this list, since they don’t need the physical space to lock you in.
Each “room” is an hour-long experience, and they have themes like cyberpunk, “Alice in Wonderland,” and Christmas.
Prices for a virtual escape room start at $15 for 2 games, much cheaper than any other option. If you’re a novice to escape rooms, VR is an excellent place to start. Tickets can be bought online.
Mystery Escape Room
4500 N. Oracle Road #150
Hours: 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday
11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Mystery Escape Room has five different rooms to choose from. They have a Sherlock Holmes room, a Dracula’s Castle room, and a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea room.
Each room starts at $139.99 for a group of four, with each additional person adding $29.95. Rooms can be booked online.
Robert Gundran Robert Gundran grew up in the Southwest, spending equal time in the Valley and Southern California throughout his life. He graduated from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in 2018 and wrote for The Arizona Republic and The Orange County Register.
