The What If? puzzles by Ravensburger come with a twist in that the picture on the front of the box isn’t all that it seems.  With ‘Escape to the Seaside’, No. 17 in the series, it may look like an idyllic holiday home but the puzzle inside isn’t quiet as perfect as it let’s you think.  It’s then up to you to work out what’s going on and piece the bits together accordingly.  What a great way to get the family around the table by competing to find the next piece in a jigsaw puzzle and it gets us glued every time, the addiction in finding a piece that fits, the one to work out where each section goes right up until you get to put the final piece in place.

The popular WHAT IF? puzzle series is created by West Midlands based artist Geoff Tristram and consists of high quality 1000 piece cardboard jigsaw puzzles.  A good size once complete they are 70 x 50cm.  Being a twist on a traditional puzzle they are recommended for ages 12+.

The scene is set:

Henry Knightsbridge has always dreamt of Finding a little hideaway by the sea. He thinks he has found the ideal place in pen draw in, Cornwall. He can’t believe the estate agents (fleasum and bowlte) accepted his offer – it was such a bargain! but what if Henry has been swept away by the beauty of the location? and what if the view from Seaview cottage wasn’t quite what Henry expected? the picture on the puzzle box shows Henry, Chloe, Tarquin and tabatha’s arrival at Seaview cottage, whilst the puzzle actually shows their introduction to life by the seaside.

I really enjoyed starting this off by finding all of the edge pieces, they went together quite easily even though I wasn’t sure what colours were on each side to start with.  It got a lot trickier trying to complete the inside as even if you are able to piece together certain parts, you don’t know where to lay them on the puzzle so after making lots of different sections I then had to drag them around the puzzle trying to find out what part of the scene they fitted into.  I really enjoyed doing this puzzle and it kept me busy over a couple of days in the evenings.

Here are some small glimpses of the finished puzzle and the full picture is underneath, so stop scrolling now if you don’t want to see the finished design.

With a bit of help from some family that visited, we were all really excited to see the puzzle come together and see what the finished picture looked like.  It was definitely fun to do, unlike any other puzzle I’ve tried and a challenge that I’d like to try again in the future!

Below is our finished puzzle:

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.