Valentine’s Day is looming and you want to do something special, something a little different, something together, something thoughtful. I have the perfect special date for you!

But they are for team building? Or groups? Right? Well, yes they are great for all those but…escape rooms also make a great date night! That’s a bold statement so let me tell you why…

There are two types of date: the ‘we’re just getting to know each other’ type and the ‘we’re making time for each other’ type. Both have one important thing in common – you want to spend time together and have fun.

Escape rooms are new and exciting. Just like you two!

If you are still a type 1 pair – congratulations. This is such an exciting time! You’re making time in your life for someone new and they bring a smile to your face when you see them. You’re not arguing over toilet seat position or who has to nip out for milk on a Saturday morning.

Our virtual reality escape room is the perfect date for you! How? It’s simple. A virtual reality escape room is different and unusual for sure. Probably your date hasn’t been to one so you get extra points for organising something new and special and a little bit exclusive (Sneaky Dog Escapes is the only VR escape room in Southampton after all).

More than that…you’re a hero!

Take almost any action film ever and the man does something brave, gets his shirt torn, an enigmatic smear of blood on his face, a lot of grease and sweat and suddenly the girl is totally smitten. He is her hero and she loves him! Now, I don’t think I’m the sort of girl who swoons, and relationships are a lot more varied than that. Girls can make their own decisions! And be their own heroes! And not everyone dates the opposite sex. But, secretly, we all love a hero! Our virtual reality escape rooms are called adventures for a reason. And every adventure needs a hero – you! There’s a problem, only you and your team can solve it, and you get to save the day. YOU HERO!

And once you have saved the day, you can both ‘debrief’ over a beverage of your choice at how amazing you both were and you don’t have to quiz each other on your favourite childhood TV programme, food or colour (Rainbow, chocolate, green – if you’re asking). Because shared experiences build relationships.

Type 2: Let’s make our time together special – let’s do something extraordinary

So you already know each other inside out. You’re a type 2 sort of date. That lovely ‘I know you, you know me’ feeling is great but sometimes everyday life can become a bit…ordinary.

I don’t get to go on dates with my other half very often. Most of the time I’m living a pretty boring, repetitive lifestyle of work, cooking, cleaning with a fair bit of child-wrangling thrown in for good measure. So when I do get to go on a date I want to leave the mundane behind. I like to do something different, special and interesting. I want something that is nothing like my normal, everyday existence.

So a meal out is lovely. I don’t have to cook. Or tidy up. Or negotiate which vegetables my other table mates have to eat. Cinema is exciting but is still essentially watching TV – and I do that in my everyday. Exciting TV, but still TV.

Bowling is fun, and different although the ‘interesting’ is what’s growing in those shoes! The problem with bowling on a date is you are either bowling or watching. What you don’t do is ‘together’. You watch your date do well, badly or somewhere in the middle, then they watch you. That’s not the intimate, ‘twoness’ that you want from a date.

Escape rooms fit different, special, interesting and my new word, ‘twoness’ perfectly. When you do an escape room you are taken out of the ordinary. Our virtual reality rooms take you to a whole new environment – the future, an ancient Egyptian pyramid, underwater caves. That’s different, that’s special.

The challenges and puzzles are what make it interesting and fun. And that’s where the ‘twoness’ comes in – you can solve them together! In my everyday, our problems are logistics – who’s turn is it to cook, hang the washing up, take the bins out. In an escape room, you work together to solve the problems. And the problems are a lot more fun than bin duty.

Many escape rooms are designed for groups so can feel overwhelming or too tricky for two. At Sneaky Dog Escapes, our virtual reality escape adventures are designed for 2-4 players – so they are perfect for pairs, and perfect for dates!

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, try a virtual reality escape room adventure and make your date different, special, interesting, exciting and full of ‘twoness’.