CONCERNS have been raised over a Titanic-themed ‘escape room’ which is due to open in Belfast.
The live escape recreational company Timescape will launch its Titanic escape room in December.
Using the increasingly popular escape room concept, players are given an hour to complete a mission — in this case to escape from the doomed liner.
Teamscape pitch The Titanic: The Final Hour experience as a game where "you and your shipmates try desperately to avoid the iceberg but are unable".
They say: "It's 11:39pm on April 14, 1912 and you're on the Captain's Bridge at the helm of the RMS Titanic. Suddenly, the words ring out, 'Iceberg, right ahead'.
"You and your shipmates try desperately to avoid the iceberg but are unable.
“Now you only have 60 minutes to seal the watertight doors, radio for help, put on your lifejackets; release the davits and get every woman and child into the lifeboats. You must hurry but must not panic as the water rises and time runs out."
President of the Belfast Titanic Society Susie Millar, lost her great grandfather Thomas Millar in the historic maritime tragedy.
She told the Belfast Telegraph: "It doesn't sound like a good way to commemorate the loss of the ship."
John Creamer, of the British Titanic Society, added: "My personal thoughts are this is a very distasteful idea, and highly disrespectful to the memory of those who died. The Titanic disaster was not a game."
The Titanic room will be one of three escape rooms based at Timescape’s planned development in Castle Street – where the Titanic offering will be a permanent fixture but the other two rooms will offer changing themes.
The owners say the Titanic feature will be “authentic” and “respectful”, claiming: “At Timescape we have taken great care and effort in carefully recreating an authentic, historical and educational environment that is respectful and allows visitors to experience and appreciate the Titanic and the tragic events of that fateful night.
“We have taken great care to be respectful to those who perished and those affected,” they added.
