You’re probably getting geared up for the office holiday party, and everyone is busy wrapping up projects before the end of the year. Of course, everyone is also partaking in the many holiday festivities with their family members during their offtime.

In San Antonio, there’s holiday fun happening every day in December. With so much going on during the San Antonio Christmas season it’s actually a great time to treat employees to a festive team building activity. After all, they are your work family!

Our elves have done the busy work for you and found three awesome ways to enjoy holiday team building in San Antonio.

Unleash Sweet Creativity Building Gingerbread Houses

The Gingerbread Workshop is all about bringing out the inner child in adults. It’s an instructional services company that has mastered the art of gingerbread house building, and they love sharing what they know with others. Your team members can build a house from scratch or use a kit to construct a delectable, one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

The Gingerbread Workshop is hosting a public event on December 7th at the NEISD Community Education Center that corporate teams can join, but they also cater to businesses year round with private events.

Have a Holiday-Inspired Volunteer Day

The San Antonio holidays are a time of joy and fun for most locals. But there are a lot of people who aren’t as fortunate and can use a helping hand to make the holidays a little brighter.

Fortunately, there are dozens of charitable organizations that work overtime during the holidays to make that happen. Doing a volunteer day is the perfect way to bring your team together and lift their own spirits during the Christmas season. Volunteering as a corporate team has been shown to boost productivity because it’s a personal and emotional experience that’s uplifting for weeks after the event.

If you’re interested in doing a team building volunteer event during the holidays:

• Wrap presents for the Elf Louise Christmas Project
• Help out at one of the H‑E‑B Feast of Sharing holiday dinners
• Join United Way to work the food line or answer letters to Santa
• Work at ChildSafe’s Santa Shop

You can bring the holiday team giving into the office by having your own toy drive in conjunction with a local charitable organization. Employees can bring in unopened toys when they come to work so giving is super easy. You can turn it into a team building activity by making it an office project that employees can volunteer for. At the end of the toy drive celebrate your success together with a catered lunch or happy hour as a group.

Play a San Antonio Escape Room for a Good Cause

You can give back and get a fun experience this holiday in San Antonio. It’s giving central at Extreme Escape during the holidays. Throughout the year we donate to a local charity of your choice when you book a team building event. During December we also team up with a local charity like the Salvation Army San Antonio to donate a portion of ticket fees for their holiday events.

We promise it’s a team building activity in San Antonio unlike any other! We’ve been voted the #1 corporate team building venue in the city because everyone takes something away from the experience whether it’s clearer communication, a different perspective on approaching challenges or knowing their coworkers a little better.

Give us a call for personal assistance reserving an escape room in San Antonio for your next team building event.

If you were told there was one thing you could do to help your team communicate better, trust each other more and improve collaboration you’d be interested in that one thing, right?

Well, there’s good news! That one thing is team building activities.

Before you start picturing lame games in the office that make your employees wish they were working, know that isn’t the team building activities we’re talking about. Oh, no. That type of team building doesn’t do much for morale and productivity.

But when you choose the right type of team building activity it can have a huge impact.

Team building has the ability to boost employee engagement. That’s a big deal because a survey from Gallup found that 70% of employees are disengaged and that costs businesses an estimated $500 billion a year.

A study from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory made a few profound discoveries about commonalities among the most successful companies. The researchers found that the most productive teams had strong communication and lots of face-to-face interaction. Therefore, interactive team building activities that build communication skills have the ability to dramatically improve performance.

Here are a few more things that make team building highly effective for businesses of all sizes in any industry.

What Makes Business Team Building Activities Actually Work

There are a few commonalities that effective team building activities share. Take a look below to see if your team building efforts will make a difference.

Get Out of the Office

The best business team building activities aren’t just another a regular day at the office. You want to take employees out of their element and get their attention focused on the activity. Events that are nothing like the normal work environment are also more memorable and that’s good for long-term benefits.

Don’t Make It About Learning a Lesson

Some of the best lessons in life are learned when you least expect it. If you try to make team building activities all about learning a certain business lesson some people are going to take it the wrong way. It can seem like they are being preached to or micromanaged.

Enjoyment Gets People On Board

If you focus on fun team building activities you’ll get the opposite effect that you get with events that are lesson-based. People will be on board from the get-go, which is exactly what you want. Employees will approach the activity with a more positive mindset and be open to trying different things that can have a positive effect on teamwork.

Shared Experience With a Common Goal

Instead of making the activity another work project, what’s most important is that it’s a shared experience with a common goal. This will get employees bonding in a natural way and encourage them to pull together.

Try Something New

Doing something new together gets people to see things in a different way, pushes them outside of their comfort zone and creates a strong connection among the participants. Employees can bring all of these things back to the office to boost productivity and creativity. If nothing else, doing something unique is a team building activity that won’t soon be forgotten.

A San Antonio escape room checks all the boxes above. You’ll find some of the best team building activities in San Antonio, TX at Extreme Escape. We’ve been rated the #1 corporate team building experience in the city!

Customers that have tried Extreme Escape for team building in San Antonio agree it’s an enjoyable experience that brings coworkers closer together. We have dozens of reviews on our Facebook page and TripAdvisor from corporate leaders and employees that think it was a great investment for the entire team.

Give us a call to reserve an escape room in San Antonio for your next team building activity!

Extreme Escape gives back: Christmas partnership with the Salvation Army in San Antonio, TX

Extreme Escape is all about giving back. We love giving our San Antonio escape room guests an experience they’ll never forget. We enjoy giving our employees a positive work environment where they can thrive. And we are always looking for ways to give back to our local community.

Extreme Escape gives back on a very personal level by inviting our local heroes to come play an escape room in San Antonio for free every Monday. It’s our way of showing appreciation for the risks military members, police, firefighters and EMTs take to protect everyone else.

But that’s not enough. San Antonio has given us so much, we want to do more. That’s why we’ve started teaming up with The Salvation Army San Antonio Area Command. Helping out this worthy organization during the holidays is easily one of our favorite ways of giving back to the community.

Many members of our team get involved personally, and during December we offer guests a special discount PLUS we donate $5 from every ticket sold to the Salvation Army’s Christmas programs. The programs make the holidays happier for thousands of San Antonio children and their families.

It’s just one way Extreme Escape is helping bring joy and fun to San Antonio!

ALL ABOUT THE SALVATION ARMY ANGEL TREE PROGRAM

The Angel Tree Program is one of the Salvation Army’s biggest events of the year. It was started in 1979 by a couple in Virginia. Charles and Shirley White had local kids write their Christmas wishes on a card that had pictures of angels. The cards were then put on a tree at the local mall so that shoppers could pick a child in need and donate the wish list items. In the first year alone more than 700 kids were given a merrier Christmas.

The Whites kept the giving tradition going after moving to Nashville several years later. It was there that the Angel Tree Program, as it was then known, got national attention. Today, The Salvation Army is the sponsor and arranges Angel Tree programs across the country every year.

Want to help out this worthy cause? Fill out a Salvation Army Angel Tree Program application to get started!

Are you a San Antonio organization that wants to team up with Extreme Escape on a philanthropic project? Then we want to hear from you! Give us a call at 210-402-3722 (Stone Oak Location) or 210-641-2828 (Colonnade location) or connect with us on Facebook. Let’s give back to the great city of San Antonio!

Plan a Memorable Kids Birthday Party in San Antonio in 6 Easy Steps

There’s nothing more fun than a kids birthday party. It’s a celebration for the most special little person in your life, so of course you want to make it an event to remember.

One of the best kid birthday party ideas in San Antonio is visiting an escape room. It’s an experience that you don’t get to have every day, which makes it memorable right from the start. The birthday boy or girl and a group of friends can have an adventure that goes well beyond the normal playdate.

Plus, planning an escape room birthday party is super easy!

Get a Guest Headcount

Having a San Antonio escape room party requires an accurate headcount. Only so many players can be in an escape room at once, so the size of the guest list will dictate how many rooms you need to reserve. At Extreme Escape our escape rooms accommodate up to 10 players and there are four rooms at each location. A guest list with up to 40 kids is no problem!

*Don’t forget to count the adult chaperone! An adult needs to accompany players under 15 years old.

Pick a Time and Date

Locking in a date is very important for an escape room birthday party in San Antonio. Unlike some other venues, an escape room location will still be open to other people who can make their own reservations in advance (see below). It’s a good idea to call ahead and ask the escape room crew what days and times are the most busy. If your schedule is flexible you may want to plan the birthday party when there’s less activity.

Choose an Escape Room

Now comes the really fun part – picking an escape room! Needless to say, this should be the birthday girl or boy’s first present. Let them pick the escape room adventure they like the best. All of our escape rooms are designed for ages 12 and up, but there are a few that are great options for kids as young as 8 years old.

For younger players, we suggest Mutiny or Trapped Below at the Colonnade location and Encounter or The Lost Tomb at the Stone Oak location.

Take Advantage of Group Rates and Specials

We have a little gift for the awesome parents that are giving their kids an epic escape room birthday party. There’s almost always some sort of special discount rate available at Extreme Escape on any given week like our Heroes Play Free Mondays. Check out our Facebook page and Instagram account before booking to look for discount codes.

Reserve Escape Rooms Well in Advance

Once you have your date and time set, go ahead and reserve your escape rooms before someone else does. Here’s how escape rooms work. A room will remain open for reservations until all 10 spots are reserved. If you don’t reserve all 10 spots you could end up playing with another group. And if you don’t reserve in advance there may not be enough spots for the escape room you want at a particular time. The sooner you reserve the better.

Line Up the Refreshments

At Extreme Escape we supply plenty of entertainment for a kids birthday party in San Antonio, TX. We are also one of the only escape room venues to provide a complimentary beverage for every player. But escape rooms aren’t equipped with kitchens. You’ll have to work with outside vendors to purchase a cake and other food for the party.

Our team is more than happy to work with you or a catering company so the food delivery and set up goes smoothly. Just give us a call in advance to make arrangements.

Let’s Party – Reserve a San Antonio Escape Room Online!

No one loves social media more than Extreme Escape. We use our San Antonio Facebook page and Instagram account to make connections with escapists around the world, including the thousands of people who have taken on one or more of our eight escape rooms. It’s how we keep everyone up-to-speed with what we’re doing.

We also use social media to announce special promotions that make our escape room adventures even more awesome. There are promos for every type of escapist!

San Antonio Facebook Promo Codes

The Extreme Escape Facebook page is a hub of activity. It’s a place for escapists to swap stories, leave reviews and share photos from their escape room adventure. Another reason we have thousands of likes is because you’ll find a variety of Facebook promo codes.

At any given time you can find a half dozen or so social media promo codes that can be used to save up to 30% on each ticket. You’ll find special escape room promos for:

• Military members
• First responders
• High school students
• College students
• First time escapists
• Birthdays
• Holidays
• Fundraisers
• Employees of local employers

Some of the specials include discounts that are extended to family members for maximum savings. We also regularly offer a Facebook promo, so let’s be friends!

San Antonio Instagram Promo Codes

Our Extreme Escape Instagram account isn’t just a portal for amazing escape room shots and group photos of teams that took on the challenge. You’ll find plenty of that, plus special Instagram promos that can be used for 25% off.

Flash specials that are offered for a very limited time are also added to Instagram. Escapists that are looking for a last minute deal should always check our Instagram account before booking a room.

Get Extreme Escape Social Media Promo Codes Today – Reserve an Escape Room in San Antonio Online!

To Enter the “Share Your Experience” contest:

Share a photo on Instagram and use hashtag #ExtremeEscape in the caption. We will draw 1 random user each month for a FREE Escape Room experience for up to 8 guests!

Each users’s post using #ExtremeEscape = 1 entry. 1 post/entry per day allowed per user. Winner will be drawn between the 1st and the 5th of each month and will be notified via Direct Message on Instagram as well as our Instagram Story.

User’s Instagram account must be set to “public” for posts to be entered into drawing. “Share Your Experience” contest will run through 4/30/2018. *Other restrictions may apply. GOOD LUCK!