For a while now, I have been wanting to travel over to Europe and visit some of the different theme parks that are on offer and never expected that I would end up doing it twice this year.
I decided to take a short break over to Efteling between some busy periods at my work due to Christmas Parties that are taking place at the moment and I must admit it was very much worth the visit!
As you may have already read, I stayed at the Efteling Hotel during my visit so this meant that I had early access to the Theme Park (I was able to enter at 10:30am rather than 11:00am) via a dedicated hotel entrance and I was able to enjoy some select rides including Baron 1898 before the park opened to the public!
I timed the trip over to Efteling very well as I never really had to wait to get onto any rides, the most I may have waited was around 5 minutes which was brilliant! Other than that it was a more or less walk-on for each ride!
In so many different ways I was blown away by the theming in the park as a whole, while there was a small number of rides they could have done better with, overall it was very impressive and not only that their dark rides were also brilliant, if only the UK could have such brilliant dark rides as can be found at Efteling!
It was also easy to walk around Efteling to the different areas to enjoy the rides on offer as well as the layout was designed very well.
Of course, while I was there some rides were closed for maintenance and upgrade work, so I didn’t manage to experience Joris en de Draak and Pirana along with the railway while I was there (although makes a good reason to go back that’s for sure!).
Other than that, the other ‘big’ rides were open during my visit and despite some rides being closed the queues were still minimal which was brilliant!
If I had to pick a ride that I enjoyed the most, that would be a very difficult question to answer to be honest however my top 3 rides from the visit would need to be (in no particular order):
- Baron 1898
- Vogel Rok
- De Vligende Hollander
It is also nice that they have such a great selection of different rides, with plenty of rollercoasters to enjoy, a water rollercoaster (which is funny to watch people on!), and dark rides.
If you ride Vogel Rok, you will know that with how dark it is inside the ride it made the ride even more fun especially since you can’t see what way the ride is going to go so makes it even more fun!
While the park only opened at 11:00 during my stay it did stay open until 18:00 which also means that you can enjoy the rides in the dark during winter!
There is also a show that takes place open to everyone as well, however by the time it would start I would already be tired out from my day of fun on the rides so I didn’t watch it.
Now, I must also mention how great the staff are at Efteling, throughout the whole resort all staff were very friendly and had excellent English as well so there is no language barriers (unlike what you will find at Port Aventura!).
Overall, I loved my visit to Efteling, many great rides to enjoy, the staff was so friendly and even the level of detail throughout the Theme Park was just brilliant and made the trip so enjoyable!
Founder of ThemeParkRM. Spending most of his time at Thorpe Park and loves The Runaway Mine Train at Alton Towers (choo choo!)