Not your average birthday!

Words: Eva (aged11)

Images: Eva's mum

Not your average 11th birthday party, but who wants to be average anyway?

My birthday is on the 17 December, right in the middle of all the Christmas celebrations and festivities. This year, I decided that I wanted to do something a little different and not Christmas related, so I chose Chesterfield Escape rooms as my party venue and Darwin & Bear for the after-party with five of my closest friends.

We arrived at the escape rooms and met our party leader Brad; he was funny and explained the game very well. I chose to do ‘rob the bank’ instead of the Christmas game or The Crazy Cat Lady game as I like solving mysteries.

Brad explained to us that some ‘Bank Owners’ had stolen our family's gold, and we needed to get it back. Cousin Angie knows who stole the family gold. It’s midnight, and Angie backs her van into the side of Harman’s Bank. We had one hour to jump out and get the gold back.

When we first went into the escape room, we were bundled into the back of a van. Within a few minutes of us being in the room, Brad (party leader) told us to calm down as we were all very excited and giddy. Brad did some funny accents, which made us all laugh. We couldn’t believe how good he was at them. Now, I can’t say too much about the game as it would spoil it for you all! We had to escape from a series of rooms, which I think got more and more difficult. We also had to pick a team captain, who was me (well, it was my birthday after all). I had to keep hold of this remote, and when it beeped, that meant that the ‘Security Guard’ was coming, and we had to hide. That part was exciting and fun. I have no idea how he didn’t hear or see us!

We won! We had 60 minutes to escape and did it in 58! In the end, we made it out and stole 60 pieces of gold before breaking free in the van with Angie. Once the game had finished, we got to take a picture with our official ‘we escaped certificates’, and we went back downstairs. It was the best activity I have done for a birthday!

We then went to Darwin & Bear, which is a video game restaurant. We played pool, ate pizza, drank Coca Cola and played on some old video games like Donkey Kong and Mario Kart, which I think my parents enjoyed more than us, haha! We loved Darwin and Bear and can’t wait to go back there. Apparently, kids eat free on Mondays!

I just want to thank The Chesterfield Escape Rooms and Darwin & Bear for making this the best birthday ever. It’s amazing what you can do in Chesterfield if you just know where to look.