Another very different at home proposition, Escape from the Grand Hotel, is a table top, envelope-based escape experience. 

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The story... Five years ago, the Grand Hotel was the only place to be seen. The owners, the Blossom family, transferred the hotel into their sons name, however the day before his 21st birthday, he disappeared. With the son gone, the owners struggled to keep up and it fell on hard times. Five years later, the son returns with his new wife in tow. They have returned to save the hotel. Your job is to understand his disapperance, his sudden return, his new wife and what mysteries hide behind the closed doors of the hotel rooms. 

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This is a really interesting concept. You are presented with a series of different envelopes, each designed as the exterior to one of the rooms of the Grand Hotel. You must work your way around the hotel, carrying out each of the puzzles contained within the envelope. When finding the answer to the puzzle, this will then give you a hint to the next room you need to move to. To win the game, you must answer all the puzzles within the envelopes, escape the hotel and work out what is happening behind its closed doors. 

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We played this as a group of five (4 adults and a nine year old). We were really impressed with the vast majority of puzzles contained within the envelopes. The quality of the puzzles was also very good and varied - despite the limitations of being a table top game, the designers have certainly structured a well flowed, thoughtful game, with great variety. Some were very tricky and even with the hidden clue within the envelope, still didn't quite appreciate how the answer was achieved. Even so, we battled on and found this to be a hugely enjoyable experience.

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I would certainly recommend this experience, and although there were occasions were we had to sit back and take stock of what we were trying to achieve, and there was quite a lot of reading involved,  there was a real sense of achievement as we made our way through the rooms.

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