Prepare to embark on a journey, as you step into a mysterious series of rooms to navigate your way through a vast amount of mysteries.
You can find a number of escape rooms around the Austin area, but according to Google Reviews and tripadvisor.com, PanIQ Escape Room Austin is known as one of the best. It is also the only escape room located in the South Austin area.
Located between South Lamar Boulevard and Collier Street, you can find the escape room located in the South Lamar Business Center next to a few restaurants.
Pan IQ has a ton of locations all over the United States, Asia, and Europe. This escape room offers several themed rooms ranging from Pirates of Tortuga, Cartel Crackdown, Wizard Trials, Insane Asylum, and The Haunted Manor.
Getting into the South Lamar Business Center where the panic room is located was a little difficult, since everyone was trying to turn in and out at the same time.
Depending on what time you arrive, you may be able to find parking near the building, but I wasn’t, so we had to drive around and wait for a spot. This strip mall does offer a lot of parking spots so you shouldn’t have trouble finding a spot, and parking is also free, which is another plus.
According to paniqescaperoom.com, it says that they only allow up to a group of seven, however I had a group of eight. We called ahead and they allowed it since sometimes if it’s under a special occasion they will allow up to one more person in your group.
I would recommend finding enough people to fill up one room so you aren’t paired with people you don’t know. PanIQ was made specifically for team building, and it is way easier to work with people you know instead of people you don’t. You can either purchase tickets on their site or through sites like Groupon for a better deal.
My group showed up a few minutes before our scheduled time but it seemed to be fine since we didn’t end up starting the room for another ten minutes. Just to be safe, I would say to show up at least 10 to 15 minutes before your scheduled times so you can get everyone situated. The place offers a lot of places to sit, so if you’re waiting around for a while you won’t have to stand the whole time.
My group chose the Pirates of Tortuga room, which was about trying to find out the plans of the pirates and escape before the pirates returned or else you would be sent off on a ship to somewhere unpleasant and work for a lifetime. This escape room consisted of two rooms with the goal of finding the key to escape.
Something I enjoyed about the company was that they have a kiosk in each room which gives you any amount of hints you want. With a simple click of a button, our guide would type out a hint to help us figure out the clue. This really helped us out when we were stuck on a difficult clue.
The difficulty of this room wasn’t as bad as some other escape rooms that I have heard of. On a scale of one to ten, one being the easiest and ten being the hardest, I would say this room was about a six. It includes enough elements to where you are questioning yourself but also some of the clues were pretty self explanatory.
Each room at PanIQ consists of a time limit between 45 minutes to an hour. For our room, we had an hour and we finished with 16 minutes and 38 seconds left to spare. Depending on how many people you have in your group and each member’s performance, you will probably have enough time to escape with time to spare.
Pirate of Tortuga had a unique feel to it. All of the scenery around the room was very detailed and added a great touch to the entire experience.
I don’t want to spoil any clues, but you start out in a jail cell where you have to find your way out of it. From there you enter the room the cell is in and you are trying to find the combination to unlock the second door. The next room consists of all types of clues and leads to the last door where you escape.
I recommend that you avoid solving random clues so you don’t end up undoing a clue out of order. My group did this and we spent a while trying to find out what each clue meant.
If you’re ever stuck remember there is always the hint kiosk to help out. The kiosk also helped us do the clues in somewhat of an order.
If you’re looking for a good time or doing your first escape room, I would definitely recommend going to PanIQ Escape Room Austin. It has a great atmosphere and all of the employees were very laid back and explained everything thoroughly.
After my first time doing an escape room, I enjoyed it and I would definitely go back to try out more of their rooms.
