SENSAS review

This is not an escape room but an immersive experience. Yes there are puzzles to complete, but this is not the importance here. When you enter the room, it is set to the tone a colour blind person would see. The intricacies they add makes the whole journey so worthwhile. The theme around each room is the five senses, with every task linking to a sense. I’m sure you will have an idea of what you will need to do for taste, smell etc.

I loved that every room made you enhance your senses and involved teamwork. More importantly, if you are able to complete a room you get a charm. For every charm you get, a donation is made to a disability charity. I have nothing but praise for the theming. I immersed in every experience and I now have a new appreciation for people that suffer with sensory issues.

I’d liken Sensas to a tamer version of the challenges on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. You need to collect charms, not stars, by undertaking various multi-sensory tasks. Although less fear-inducing than the TV show, there may still be a couple of surprises in store! The more charms you collect, the better; but unlike with an escape room, you will get to play every task no matter how well you do. Theming wise, some of the rooms are intentionally just dark spaces, but everything else, including lobby, toilet and corridors, is themed excellently. They are bright and colourful, each with their own unique design to stimulate your senses.

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The whole experience takes you on an immersive journey of your senses. As an escape room enthusiast, it annoyed me that so much relied on outside knowledge. That being said, I can forgive this as it’s sold as an experience, not an escape room. With the taste room, I found some of the ingredients so out there that it made it impossible to guess. The smell room, if you’ve seen our previous posts you will know how useless we are at this. The touch room, this is the one that frustrated me. Whilst we knew what to do, it wasn’t clear what was the top or the bottom in the puzzle. I feel this needs to be corrected to ease confusion. The sound room, again outside knowledge is needed.

All of this was forgiven though when we reached the sight room. I don’t really want to spoil it, although you may get a hint in the pictures, but I will say this is not a puzzle as such more the best fun you can have with your friends. If this was billed as an escape room I’d score a lot lower than I have for the need of outside knowledge. However as it is an immersive experience I have judged my rating based on how the puzzles immersed you into the necessary sense required.

This isn’t a pure escape room so there aren’t that many puzzles. Most tasks involve testing your senses – touch, taste, smell, vision and to a lesser degree hearing – with only a couple of logic games to test your brain. Usually your team is split into two, then swapped half way through so everyone gets a turn. The touch task was too ambiguous but that was the only real flaw. I’ll keep the actual tasks a secret as it’s more fun not knowing what you’re heading into.

You shout out your answers and your host – who is listening and watching from a control room – tells you over the speaker system if you’re correct or not. If you are, you’re given a number. These numbers combine into a code which allows you to open a safe and collect a sense charm to add to your team keyring. We struggled with some tasks (our sense of taste and smell leave a lot to be desired) so our host gave us a few extra guesses to help us.

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This was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in a room for a long time. Our host Dan was phenomenal and I loved how he added to the experience with his humour. I particularly liked how SENSAS themed all of the rooms, from the design of the reception, to the corridors, to the photo opportunity at the end. It truly was a remarkable immersive experience that I will recommend for a long time.

This is a room designed for a large group, however I feel for the earlier puzzles it may be better for a group no larger than 5 or 6. That way everyone will get a good length of time in the games. The penultimate challenge I’m sure would be fun no matter the size! I am sure anyone that plays this game will leave with a big smile, just as I did.

Those looking for a pure escape room may be disappointed, but if you’re looking for something a little bit different, Sensas is a lot of fun. A couple of my highlights were the ball pit based game which brought out the child in us, and the genius photo experience at the end which will be something you’ll want to share with your friends! Our excellent host Dan also took photos of us playing (using one of our phones), giving us even more memories.

We weren’t warned that you can’t wear shoes for the game so one of us ended up having to play bare foot. So make sure you’re wearing nice socks! As eating is involved, we were asked beforehand if we had any intolerances or dislikes so we could feel assured during the task. But those afraid of the dark and/or unknown may find this a little scary.

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At £34pp (the upper price for this room), I feel this is such good value for your money. Most of the escape rooms I’ve done in London average around £26pp and that’s for an hour maximum. This experience last for two hours, and you get to spend a good length of time trying to solve the puzzles in each zone. SENSAS enhances team play and I’m sure people of all ages and experiences will love it.

Considering Sensas is a bumper 2 hour fun-filled experience in a large well-themed premises, this is very good value for money. It caters for larger groups better than most escape rooms, making it a good activity for team building or as part of larger celebrations. However the more of you there are, the less each person will get to do. But very large groups would get split up into smaller teams.

We were only the 20th team to play Sensas London so everything was clean and fresh. The experience was very polished though as it has been brought over from France where there are over a dozen branches. For every charm you collect, Sensas converts it into a donation for their partner charity that supports people with disabilities. This is a fantastic idea which gives you a real reason to want to do your best! I highly recommend playing Sensas.

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