What's in the Attic? Remembering Secret
The best escape room in Arlington has big news: we’ve retired our Secret in the Attic room. What we’re building in that space is awesome, and you’ll definitely be hearing about it, but for now let’s celebrate our favorite escape room once more before it’s gone. Secret in the Attic had an amazing tenure hosting many birthday parties, bachelorette parties, team building activities, and even three proposals over the past four years. We’re honored that it could be a part of your favorite escape room in the DC area.
We opened our doors on June 1st of 2018, and Secret in the Attic shortly followed with an opening date of July 4th. Our story with Secret actually begins earlier; in 2017, the soon-to-be general manager at Escape Room Arlington was tasked with dreaming up a family-friendly escape room that could both be suitable in content matter for a younger audience while remaining challenging for puzzle enthusiasts. Solving your grandmother’s mystery checks a lot of boxes - we have intrigue, a subject that is family-appropriate, and a lot of room for storytelling through puzzles. What would Grandma’s secret be? After toying with the idea of Grandma being a superhero (Catwoman? Who knows!), we landed on feminist icon Amilia Earhart. Her real-life disappearance is a mystery that intrigues adults and kids alike.
The second thing that was important to us was to actually have an attic space. We have played very few escape rooms that feature stairs, and we knew this would set us apart. To solve your grandmother’s mystery is one thing, but to actually climb up to a second story to go into an attic filled with secrets? How can you beat that?
Now we have a clear concept for the room space and what the puzzles may look like, so we’re off to the races. The room starts with very grandma-like puzzles downstairs. There’s a litter box, a lot of china, and, of course, a pie. You see some foreshadowing here: a binocular case on the coffee table, and you see some of Grandma’s kids' names, who were named after Amelia Earhart’s planes (Canary and Vega). (If you want to see pictures, scroll down! They’re at the bottom of the page.) The puzzles ramp up as you go upstairs. There’s a map navigational puzzle. A photo album teases Grandma’s love of airplanes. At one point, we had labeled boxes of flight jackets. A penultimate puzzle has the players deduce the day Grandma disappeared, and the final puzzle has the ultimate reveal. We originally wanted Grandma’s secret to descend to the players on a parachute, but that was a little too ambitious even for us. The room was originally billed as “What’s in the Attic”, but we opened it as Secret in the Attic when the original name proved to sound too threatening in testing.
Secret in the Attic was beloved, but one thing that made it even more special was the holiday season. Each November, we transformed the room into a Christmas escape room, which we called Christmas in the Attic. For the best holiday escape room in DC, we introduce the players as Santa’s elves on a secret mission - finding all of the presents and putting them under the tree to save Christmas before the kids wake up in one hour.
Christmas in the Attic ran for three holiday seasons in a row, improving with each iteration. Puzzles ranged from baking cookies to leave out for Santa to finding a clue by watching a clip of everyone’s favorite Will Ferrell Holiday Movie. Complete with a lit Christmas tree, the smell of Christmas cookies, and references to many favorite holiday movies, our Christmas escape room was a seasonal favorite.
In addition to being the best family friendly escape room in Arlington, Secret in the Attic was the go-to space for us to spend time as well. Grandma’s dinner table hosted many Dungeons & Dragons sessions, and Grandma’s functional refrigerator held many staff birthday cakes and frozen pizzas. During long days of construction or long stretches of lonely pandemic work, Grandma’s couch was a favorite spot for afternoon naps. We’re excited to share with you all what the future holds for this space, but we do have to say goodbye to one of the best escape rooms in Arlington.
