Jail tours, escape rooms, scary ghost tours and more for individuals, school & social groups in NZ’s oldest prison.
Napier Prison Tours
Napier Prison is open to the public for Self Guided Audio Tours and the Escape Room Experience. Napier Prison offers self-guided tours, available 7 days a week and do not require pre-booking. Self guided tours are audio tours which are available in more than 15 different languages. Take your MUG SHOT! and even get your FINGERPRINTS done as a souvenir to take home. Listen to stories of villains, victims and heroes while you wander through the cells. Get locked up in solitary confinement or a padded cell before stepping into the hanging yard and walking past the graveyard.
OPENING HOURS: Monday – Sunday 9am to 5pm.
Napier Gaol Escape Room
If you want the thrill of a real escape, there’s no setting quite like a Prison for adding excitement to your experience. Napier Prison specialises in escape room experiences, with four active escape rooms and a state-of-the-art virtual reality escape room experience. We’ve designed our escape rooms to make sure you can never get tired of the excitement of breaking out of Napier Prison.
We can tailor your escape room experience to you, with different escape rooms accommodating parties from 2 to 6 people. Or why not go head-to-head and choose our Earn Your Stripes Escape Room? We have 2 identical rooms set up so you can pit your wits against your friends or colleagues and see who escapes first.
Real Escape Room experiences last 1 hour – or until you escape.
Special Events
Since closing our doors to Prisoners, Napier Prison has welcomed television and film crews, paranormal societies, psychics, wedding parties, fashion shows and more.
Connect your special occasion with a special part of the history of New Zealand. Host your event at Napier Prison and everyone will want to be on the guest list.
We welcome a wide range of Special Events across the year but we only have very limited availability. Enquire today and we’ll let you know if we can help you plan your special occasion.
History
Come to the prison and learn about the different phases of the complex as a Native Hostelry, Quarantine centre, Lunatic Asylum, “Rock College” and more.
Hangings
Stand in the hanging yard and imagine you were one of the people who paid a shilling to watch the executions take place.
Ghosts
Listen to stories about ghostly sightings and paranormal activity, feel the chill as you are told the story of Roland Edwards’s ghostly appearance on the anniversary of his death or, alternatively, scare yourself silly on one of our fiendish Dead Hill Tours.
Criminals
This Prison housed criminals from all over New Zealand including a mass murderer, a drug baron and members of different gangs. Learn about some of the characters that called Napier Prison home.
Escapes
How would you have escaped from Jack “the bastard” Adams’ chain gang? Or how about from your cell? We tell you about our boldest attempts to leave the Prison!
End of an Era…
It had been deemed unfit as far back as the 1970’s, it was “comfortable but draconian”. The Prison was finally decommissioned in 1993.
…Or is it?
Re-opened in 2002 as a Tourist Attraction, the prison has been given a new lease on life. Now is your chance to see the truth behind the walls.
