Ribe VikingeCenter — Attraction in Esbjerg Municipality

We were going for an hour or 2 and stayed for over 4 hours. Nice set of buildings with honest explanation plaques in English, German and Danish (e.g. "we don't know for sure what this building was used for but we think ..."). The children activities looked a bit silly to me going in, but the kids loved it, so we were happy we payed the extra fee to do all 3. But the real feature is the volunteers living the way the vikings lived. We were lucky enough to be in a house with a few of them when the rain came down, so we stayed a while, and found they spoke our language. This gave us some time (it kept raining...) to ask questions and talk about why and how etc. As some other reviews said, the volunteers may not start explaining automatically every time someone comes in and just has a look, but I found that if you're interested in what they do, they will answer all your questions with pleasure. So, find some volunteer that has time and ask away! (Some ideas besides "what are you doing/making": do you live in this house? Can you stay warm in this wet conditions? What do you eat?) If you think language is a barrier, ask if they know any volunteers from your country/language (you may be surprised like I was!) I learned they actually live/camp there because they love doing it, and thus they are happy to...

Very disappointed. All the stick carving desks where taken so we where first in line. We waited patiently while the second in line and the guy coordinating the stick carving talked. Apparently they knew each other. Suddenly the oldest from the second in line was shown a desk.

I though. "Let's stay polite. Well take the next one." But when the carving guy was going to show the youngest from the second in line I spoke up.

To my surprise the carving guy asked where you waiting in line?

When he clearly said. It will be about a minute or two until a space opens up. I was standing in front of him the hole time with my two daughters.

His reaction. "Oh sorry I must have forgotten."

Meaning we where already waiting 5 minuts. I was fed up and left. (Sarcastically telling him thanks a lot.)

Clearly if you speak Danish and know the folks there you get all kinds of privileges.

The park in total was not that impressive. The training session wasnt that active as I hoped. Not much battle, more poking each other with a stick.

Money wise it costs much more...

There was a lot to see and the activities were nice (although they are extra on top of the regular ticket). It was nice to see so many people living as Vikings, which gave an authentic feel to what we were seeing.

We didn't feel welcome there though. It felt at times we were intruding as spectators for a LARP (live action role playing) event. My daughter was told off for playing with a play axe that was in a play area, and there wasn't much crowd interaction with the people doing different activities. The coin making activity was staffed by a boy who was too impatient and did it instead of letting my daughter. In general, there could have been some language barrier there as we are English speakers, but then we have been to other living museum type places where people seemed happy to interact and tell you more (there wasn't much information available to help you to learn more on your visit). It didn't seem the case...