What do you get if you cross an escape room with cult classic Channel 4 show The Crystal Maze? Prison Island Maidstone.
That really is the best way to describe this multi-room pleasure palace on Maidstone High Street. Sign in was quick and painless and our hosts were extremely accommodating and friendly. We were handed an electronic ‘key’, given a brief intro on how to open doors and then let loose inside the ‘prison’.
What did we think of Prison Island Maidstone?
In a conventional escape room, the aim of the game is to solve a series of puzzles to unlock the door and escape from the room. At Prison Island, there are 23 ‘cells’, each containing a single puzzle. Working against the clock, your team must complete the challenge to earn points. The faster and more accurate you are, the more points you earn. When the time runs out, you simply move on to the next cell.
The puzzles are extremely diverse – some are very physical, others mental, most requiring a good combination of the two. A sign on the door ranks each cell according to physicality, tactics and technique. The addition of a ’stress’ rating indicates the likelihood of one of your team members losing their temper!
As each door opens you get the true Crystal Maze experience, standing bewildered trying to figure out what you are supposed to do before the time runs out. The good news is that if you run out of time in any particular cell, you can simply start again.
Expect to climb, crawl, throw, think and sweat over the course of your experience. There’s balls, lasers, movement sensors, quizzes and puzzles that demand extreme dexterity – operating against an unforgiving countdown clock. And several times you have to do it all whilst keeping your feet off the floor.
Because you are playing for points, you are encouraged to replay each cell, trying to increase your score. You can play each cell repeatedly and your best score is added to the overall tally.
It sounds complicated, but our 90 minute session flew by. In the end we earned 1024 points, a percentage score of 50.27%. That means we scored a hair’s breadth over half marks.Â
Points make prizes
Points are worth more than bragging rights. Score over 1000 and you earn 10% off your next Prison Island Maidstone visit. Score more than 2000 and you can bag a completely free visit.
There’s a load of potential prizes, but you’ll have to work very hard to win one!
Is there a Prison Island Maidstone discount code?
No, but if you score more than 1000 points, you will get a Prison Island Maidstone discount code for 10% off all future visits.
Top tip: Check out our complete list of escape room discount codes for other nearby venues.
Any criticisms?
The Prison Island Maidstone experience could have been elevated by having Richard O’Brien provide a sarcastic, passive aggressive commentary for our adventure. But other than that, this was a fantastic way to spend 90 minutes.
Top tip: Visit Prison Island earlier on a weekday to avoid crowding. We arrived at 11am and had the whole prison to ourselves for the first hour.
Conclusion
Is Prison Island Maidstone an escape room? We would argue probably not. But it is a lot of fun. Especially for anyone who knew and loved The Crystal Maze in the 1990s.
Some cells are daunting, the level of physicality required simply too much for our team to score highly, particularly as two of us recover from knee surgery. Other cells look simple and quickly become much harder. Some are designed to surprise and delight, with unexpected quirks and challenges that borrow from the best escape rooms.
However, by constantly varying the levels of physical and mental challenge, there will be at least one cell that ‘clicks’ for everyone. And that is good design.
Our 90 minute session was perfect. It allowed us to try out all 23 cells at least once. We also had enough time to retry some of our ‘better’ rooms, boosting our score in the process.
Would we go back? Probably not. But that’s simply because we have tried all the puzzles now, taking the ‘wow’ out of a second visit.
Would we visit one of the other Prison Island venues located across the world? Almost certainly. But not as a duo – you need at least three people to complete some of these challenges.
The specifics
Number of players: 3
Time taken: 90 minutes
Did we have fun? Yes
Price: £112.50 (£37.50 per player for the 90 minute session
Would we recommend? Yes
Rating: 4 out of 5
Other important info for Prison Island Maidstone:
Game location: Prison Island Maidstone, 60-61 High Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1SR
Website: PrisonIslandMaidstone.com
Phone: 01622 671874
Email: info@prisonislandmaidstone.com
Time limit: up to 120 minutes
Lockers available?: Yes
Mobility rating: 1 out of 5 (see note below)
Live actors: No
Parking is available in nearby Medway Street, one block away.
Note on accessibility at Prison Island Maidstone
There are steps, sloping floors, narrow spaces, climbing walls, ladders and all manner of obstacles to be found in the cells. As such, Prison Island is probably not suitable for anyone with serious mobility issues – or a fear of small spaces.
Please note that we use sponsored links on this blog. Although we may earn a referral fee or bonus points on some of these products and services mentioned, we never recommend anything we wouldn’t use ourselves. We did not receive any incentives in return for reviewing Prison Island Maidstone.
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