Efteling Amusement Park

In autumn 2019, I visi­ted the Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park in the Net­her­lands. I would like to share my expe­ri­ence, and give a few small tips for your visit.

What is the Efteling Park?

The Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park is loca­ted near Kaat­heu­vel in the Net­her­lands. It has about 5 mil­li­on visi­tors per year, which made Eft­e­ling the third lar­gest the­me park in Euro­pe in 2018 with 5.4 mil­li­on visi­tors, after Dis­ney­land Paris (9.84 mil­li­on) and the Euro­pa-Park in Ger­ma­ny (5.72 million).

The who­le amu­se­ment park is having a fairy­ta­le design and the cen­ter­pie­ce of the park is a fairy­ta­le forest. The­re you walk through a forest and meet fairy tale cha­rac­ters and their hou­ses. Cin­de­r­el­la, Slee­ping Beau­ty, Pinoc­chio, Litt­le Red Riding Hood and many more.

Attractions

Unfort­u­na­te­ly, I could not see all attrac­tions of the Eft­e­ling Park within one day. I was most­ly inte­res­ted in the rol­ler coas­ters, which gene­ra­ted a lot of adre­na­line. That’s why I’m only going to talk about the attrac­tions that I tried and saw myself.

Baron 1898

My per­so­nal high­light of the amu­se­ment park and the only rol­ler coas­ter I rode twice. After a wait of 1.5 hours, I joi­n­ed a small group of peo­p­le in a clo­sed room whe­re we were told a made-up sto­ry about the Baron. Sin­ce this was in Dutch, I did not under­stand it. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, becau­se of this, it took ano­ther 15 minu­tes befo­re I was final­ly allo­wed to ride.
The rol­ler coas­ter went up slow­ly and stop­ped brief­ly at the hig­hest point. I loo­ked down on an abyss full of fog and final­ly fell 37.5 meters ver­ti­cal­ly into the depth. This was fol­lo­wed by a few loops and after about 2 minu­tes the ride was over.

Tip: You can shor­ten the wai­ting time with the in-house Eft­e­ling app. The­re you can find, among other things, group games, sto­ries, movies and other pastimes.

Joris En de Draak roller coaster

This was my first woo­den rol­ler coas­ter, and it had it all. Here the adre­na­line came not from loops, but from the fear that this who­le woo­den con­s­truc­tion could col­lap­se at any moment. At every turn I thought it would col­lap­se now, and I would fly out of the track tog­e­ther with the car. But the ride went gre­at and impres­sed me a lot.
The cool thing about this rol­ler coas­ter was the two dif­fe­rent rows of cars that ran side by side on two tracks. So you could choo­se at the ent­rance if you take the car of team fire or the one of team water. Final­ly, you race against each other.

Python

With a ride time of 2:08 minu­tes and a fee­ling like the­re had been 100 loops, this rol­ler coas­ter was also one of my favo­ri­tes. One loop after the other led to the fact that I quick­ly no lon­ger knew in which posi­ti­on I was. The best thing about this rol­ler coas­ter is that you can reser­ve a free boar­ding pass in advan­ce eit­her by app or also on site at the machi­ne. This is sup­po­sed to make you spend only 15 minu­tes in line later. For me, howe­ver, it took about 20 minutes.

De vliegende Hollander / Vogel Rok / Halve Maen

The­se rol­ler coas­ters did­n’t give me the adre­na­line rush I was loo­king for. Howe­ver, they had their own spe­cial fea­tures, which is why it was still worth riding them. De vlie­gen­de Hol­lan­der was a water rol­ler coas­ter, Vogel Rok was a rol­ler coas­ter that you rode com­ple­te­ly in the dark and Hal­ve Maen was a huge swing that rocked back and forth.

Other attractions

The Pago­da is a lar­ge floa­ting Thai temp­le, from which you could over­look the enti­re Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park from a height of 45 meters.

The Pira­na is a white water ride whe­re me and my came­ra got pret­ty wet.

Titled “For Dare­de­vils” on the map, I don’t recom­mend the park’s haun­ted cast­le. The­re was a small demons­tra­ti­on with pup­pets that moved and sang a song. I did­n’t get the fee­ling that anyo­ne was scared here. Even the children.

At the end of the day, the Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park hosts the Aqua­nura water show. It is the lar­gest water show in Euro­pe and the third lar­gest water show in the world. About 15 minu­tes you are over­whel­med with water foun­ta­ins, light and fire spec­ta­cles at night.

Conclusion

You can tell that the Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park is geared more towards child­ren with its design and attrac­tions. The­r­e­fo­re, it is ide­al for fami­lies with child­ren. As an adult, howe­ver, you also get your money’s worth. I found the trip gre­at and would love to visit again any­ti­me.
If you are also inte­res­ted in the Eft­e­ling amu­se­ment park, I have com­pi­led some infor­ma­ti­on for you below.

Opening hours

The Eft­e­ling the­me park is open all year round and offers sea­so­nal high­lights. For exam­p­le, in spring the­re is a park show Rave­lei­jn, which tells a sto­ry of knights and mons­ters. In sum­mer the­re is the Mid­sum­mer and the Sum­mer Fes­ti­val. In autumn, you can see the colorful natu­re and enjoy the Aqua­na­ra water show and in win­ter you can go ice ska­ting and cross-coun­try skiing. 

Prices

The cost of tickets until 03.04.2020 is €38 per per­son from 4 years old. Bet­ween 03.04.2020 and 03.07.2020 it is €41 per per­son and after that until 03.01.2021 the pri­ce is €43 per per­son. Admis­si­on for child­ren up to 3 years is free.
The par­king ticket cos­ts €12,50.

Tip: If you order the ent­rance ticket online, you save €2 per person.

Overnight stay

Pri­ces for the in-house Eft­e­ling Hotel start at €266/night for two peo­p­le. Free break­fast and free access to the amu­se­ment park is included.

Tip: If you are mobi­le, I recom­mend boo­king an apart­ment on Booking.com, becau­se here the accom­mo­da­ti­ons for two peo­p­le start from €69/night.