What are the Best Escape Rooms in Amsterdam?

We get this question almost every day.

Our honest and not so humble answer is these three:

1. The Alchemist
2. Amsterdam Catacombs
3. The Vault

Those are the three world-famous and award-winning escape rooms in Amsterdam. Why in that order? Find out below!

The Alchemist by Sherlocked.

The Alchemist “pushes the boundaries” of what an escape room can be in terms of storytelling, craftwork and engineering. A ritual in the alchemist’s lab has gone horribly wrong, and now you and your team are the last hope to prevent a catastrophe! With only 90 minutes, you must perform a powerful magical ritual and turn disaster into triumph.

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When we set out to design it, our goal was to “make people’s hearts go faster and their jaws drop”. Whether we’ve succeeded in that, will be up to you to decide! The reviews are looking good:

“...this is the embodiment of the escape room I want to experience. My eyes welled up because it was a place that I didn’t want to leave.”
‍Room Escape Artist

“A Masterpiece… This is one of those games where you will play and then want to play again just to go back and see what you missed.”
Review The Room

Amsterdam Catacombs by Logic Locks.

This is perhaps our favorite scary escape room. If you want a scary adventure, we highly recommend this escape room.

The team at Logic Locks created something unique, blending an exciting theatrical layer with a gripping story and a realistic location: the catacombs beneath a real church in the heart of Amsterdam!

Come to think of it, what we have in common with this experience is the realistic immersive location. Sherlocked’s adventures are all set in the former Stock Exchange (the Beurs van Berlage) which, just like their spectacular church location, adds a whole layer of realism to our adventures, especially in the case of… The Vault.

The Vault by Sherlocked

The Vault is our way of giving players the thrill of breaking into a high-security safe, just like in those epic heist movies we all love—think Ocean’s Eleven, Inside Man, or The Thomas Crown Affair. It’s slick, clever, and packed with the larger-than-life excitement that makes these adventures unforgettable.

“We went to ‘The Vault’ escape room at Sherlocked with the bar set very high, and they somehow exceeded those expectations.” — Saumya on TripAdvisor

If you’re curious about the story, have a look at the team that was assembled before you, and train for your mission with our 10-minute mobile game for iOS & Android.

Award winning rooms

Each of these escape rooms ranked in the top 10 of best escape rooms in the world.

The Alchemist - 2nd place 

Amsterdam Catacombs: 4th place

The Vault: 7th place

Mind you: there are over 60.000 (!) escape rooms worldwide. To have not one, but THREE top 10 escape rooms in our little city is something we’re incredibly proud of. We know how much time, blood, sweat and tears it cost to create these experiences, so we’re not going to be humble about it. In our view, these are the three ‘best’ escape rooms in Amsterdam. 

Thankfully though, once you’ve played those three, thankfully there are still a lot a fun escape rooms in Amsterdam that are very much worth playing.

Hidden deeply in Amsterdam west, lies Aurum at Backspace. Its story revolves around the Order of the Golden Dawn, which actually gives it an accidental connection to our heist adventure The Vault (let us know if you spot it!). The team that made it clearly put a lot of love, time and care into this adventure and there’s a lot of creative elements here that we deeply appreciate.

Back to the center of town, we enjoyed Steampunk Adventure and Judgment Day at MyEscapeClub a lot. I would say that Steampunk Adventure is fun and beautiful fun, and Judgment Day is fun and action-packed.

Something that’s not an escape room, but offers a fantastic alternative on sunny days: these two historical outdoor adventures that we’re proud partners of. A Secret Sender is a fun and clever adventure about famous thinker, René Descartes, who wrote his most seminal works in Amsterdam. Operation 45 centers on the real historical story of the recovery of missing diamonds after World War II.

Honorable mention to Arcade Invasion, for its sheer fun factor. This is a game that we often recommend for families with kids of 8 years and older. 

Outside of Amsterdam

There are more worthwhile escape rooms in Amsterdam, but we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the elephant in the room: many of the BEST escape rooms in the WORLD are a short trip away from Amsterdam:

Located in Bunschoten, The Dome is a worldclass mindf*ck that, even after 5 years, still stupifies it’s players.

It’s an escape room, but it’s also just one hell of a trip (no drugs required). It’s no wonder that it’s been awarded the number 1 spot in the global ranking twice in a row and now still stands strongly in the top 10, which is really special for any escape room to hold that high reputation for so long...

Since last year, The Netherlands hosts another “number 1 in the world” escape room: Molly’s Game in Voorburg, which is another trip that’s worth the trip.

It’s a horror escape room, with some dark and nasty elements, so it’s probably not for everyone, but if you enjoy scary, this one is not to be missed.

A little further south, near famous theme park De Efteling in Waalwijk lies one of our favourite escape rooms: Illusion.

We love the story, love the puzzles, scenery, surprises and the music! In fact, we loved the music so much, that we asked the makers to compose the music for The Alchemist!

We can go on listing our favourite escape rooms forever (there’s LOADS more). But did you know that there’s an amazing community-driven website that does just that? EscapeTalk is a community of Dutch and Belgian escape room fans who together have left over 10.000 reviews for all the escape rooms in our two tiny countries.