Klimbos Garderen — Attraction in Barneveld

Wanted to visit this place for a long time already. Went here with my 8 year old son. We've been climbing a few of these things already and he keeps asking for more challenging ones. Where a lot of these treetop climbing attractions limit the higher and more challenging tracks by an age of 12 or older, here 8 out of the 10 tracks can be done from a length of I believe 1 meter 25 or taller which made them accessible for me and my son.

Staff is very friendly and welcoming. There are toilets and free drinking water available right on site. Also sheltered picnic benches for those that come to watch. Instructions are clear, equipment feels safe and in good shape.

They're using a closed system where once you start a track, you cannot disconnect anymore until the end of it. Very secure, but that also means if you're having a bit slower people in front of you, there's no way to pass them, which is a bit of a pity. At Avatarz Oldenzaal this is possible and allowed and saves a bit of frustration. What totally compensates for it here though is that they're not strict on climbing times. So the time you lose waiting you can make up by staying a little longer. I really really appreciate that. Otherwise there's no way you can do all 8 tracks within the official two hours you get with the constant waits you will experience.

Tracks are quite diverse and challenging but not too much. Where at Avatarz Oldenzaal we regularly see people getting stuck and needing help from staff, we only saw it happen once here. Few things that could use some maintenance here and there but not to an extent that it felt unsafe.

What does feel really weird here is that they charge extra for parking. 3 euros for the first two hours and 1,25 euros per hour after that. At first I thought it would probably be because they were utilizing the parking of the campsite across this place, but the parking lot is actually their very own parking lot. It does facilitate a bunch of EV chargers though among which even a fast charger, which is quite remarkable.

The nets trail for the smaller kids that cannot climb yet is just freely accessible. I believe they officially charge 9,50 euro for it. It wouldn't be worth that in my opinion. The prices for the climbing are worth it. Through Eurosparen from Optimel you can save some euros on your tickets.

Beware that if you book online, you pay online and there is no possiblity whatsoever under any circumstance (sickness, Covid, etc...) to cancel or change your booking. So I would recommend booking last minute or if you're going to pay the normal price to just pay when arriving to avoid unforeseen events making you lose your money. You can pay by card at the entrance of this...

The main attraction - tree climbing - is well executed. Lots of different courses you can take ranging from beginner to intermediate.

The location is beautiful and climbing is really fun! The mandatory instructions are given before you start your climb session and are helpful and thorough. The instructor does need to speak more loudly because hearing the instructions in the back was a challenge.

I've visited twice now and on both occasions they had a course-closure because of maintenance that was required. The second time it was the (only) absolute beginner's course which was a bit of an issue since we had several children in our group that really wanted to do this course for confidence building and/or were a bit afraid of heights.

The other issue I had with the organization was that we had booked a children's party arrangement (diploma/certificate for the kids, drinks & chips, etcetera) but nothing was arranged for us. The children never got their certificate - and only after asking the on-site staff 4 times the children were given some lemonade and chips afterwards. If you offer arrangements like children's parties you need to properly organize them....

So there is definitely room for improvement, but we had a great day...

I found KlimbosGarderen quite nice, a good activity for families with children between 9 and 18. Climbing over and through all manner of obstacles was really good. Although I found that 5meter-high and 7meter-high Parcours were rather tame, and the 10-/and 12-meter ones were too extreme for us. I wish there could have been more zooming along zip-lines in each Parcour area. Just one zooming activity on a zip line per each trail, was not enough for me. We visited another treetop climbing park in Belgium last year, and there were at least 2 or 3 zooming zip lines per each Parcour. I suppose this one is a good beginner's park or the one for very experienced climbers who go very very high above the ground. Also an important fact, the instructions from an instructor in English were not very clear. I wish there was a better English speaking instructor...it's good that we knew what we are supposed to do, otherwise I would not have understood what is supposed to be done. I suppose we had just bad luck and there wasn't someone there on that day who spoke fluently. I'd recommend to the staff to make a few English language instruction leaflets (and in other languages) and laminate them. It would help the language...