Efteling — Attraction in Loon op Zand

I really wanted to award Efteling four stars, but various factors have held it back, despite some aspects undoubtedly being five stars in quality. One of the biggest gripes is what is the underlying story? What part do the characters play? It's fun to look at beautiful fantasy aesthetics but the absence of a story threading it together is apparent!

This unique fairytale theme park is quite successful, making $387.8 million in revenue on average annually, boasting almost six million visitors in footfall (2022 stat), and is supposedly very popular with the Dutch people. It has six rollercoasters and four water rides. In 2019 and 2022, it was the third most visited theme park in Europe, after Disneyland Park, Paris and Europa-Park, Germany. We visited the park from the UK, but unfortunately many areas of the park are presented in Dutch, meaning the language barrier compromised our enjoyment and accessibility. Seeing as the park is advertising itself internationally, they could do more to accommodate English speakers (Lingua Franca).

The entrance to the park is spectacular, and throughout I was seriously impressed by how well-kept, well-designed and sparkling clean the park is. A charming steam train circles the whole site but only stops at two stations; still good nonetheless. We visited in the off-peak season (weekdays in September) which meant little to no waiting times, but the drawback which we hadn't realised was several areas and rides were under maintenance. The water fountain display lake was under maintenance meaning no evening water light show. The flagship Baron dive coaster was also closed for maintenance or repair on both days. The water ride closed for maintenance too. Check the maintenance roster before you book! But this won't necessarily guarantee no closures. Disappointing.

For children and families the park probably brushes a soft five stars, it especially makes a great option for a child's first theme park experience. For adults, couples, young people and everything in-between, it's 3-4 stars. Many attractions are dated (although well-maintained) puppet shows and animatronics. The fairytale forest is incredibly charming, but the fairytale animatronics often struggle to illustrate genuinely engaging renditions of these famous fairytale stories. The language barrier problem rears its head here too, FYI. A small placard at each fairytale site with a heavily abridged summary seems almost pointless or rather insufficient as an insight into the given tale.

There are loads of food options available around the park at okay prices, which is all well and good for the options, however it feels like there are far too many eateries and because of this the park feels focused on upsells. A restaurant at every square meter just struck me as slightly odd.

The standout rides were the ‘dark’ rides, in particular the ride ‘Symbolica’ was incredible with wonderful details and colours. That ride contrasts the older dark rides quite dramatically. The ‘It's A Small World’ style (Carnival Festival) ride looked quite amateurish when compared to Symbolica. The park is a bit inconsistent in that regard. The ‘Vogel Rok’ coaster is underwhelming, it is a fast coaster in the dark. No visual stimulation at all. Once again, I found the closures of various rides disappointing with no recourse for compensation available.

Overall I'd visit as an added extra to a holiday in the region, I wouldn't travel here solely for the park unless you are coming as a family and want to enjoy a theme park cheaper than Disney, but nonetheless with its own unique offerings and strengths — that's also treasured by the locals and...

Best European theme park I've been to so far! Highly recommended, will definitely go again!

This was our first trip to De Efteling, and what a lovely magical one! Firstly the staff are ALL so very helpful and friendly, much better than UK theme parks. They go out of their way for the customer.

The park itself is huge, spaced out and well themed. There is too much to see in one day, I recommend 2-3 days to get the best experience and see everything. You should make time to walk around the magical forest area Sprookjesbos, telling the story of various Fairytales. We found the Donkey that shoots Coin tokens out of it's bum very amusing! The talking bins were also very funny. How lovely to also see happy wildlife at the park, various birds and red squirrels. The Aquarena fountain show at the end of the day is definitely worth seeing too.

The que times for rides were very fast, I think the most we waited for was only about 15min at most. We managed to get on 14 rides in one day! There was 5 rides we wanted to go on shut down for maintenance, but that is to be expected at this time of year, and we will go back to hopefully experience these next time. Our personal favourites were Baron 1898, Vogal Rok, and Villa Volta. Unfortunately the Baron ride photos were not working for 2 days and there was no staff at the booth to help, so we missed out on getting those, this is our only complaint.

The park is helpful for disabled guests, offering free wheelchair rental, and some of the rides you can get on a separate que (using their facilities card) for those who cannot stand for long. One particular member of staff for the Symbolica ride was very kind to me helping me to download the facilities access and get on the ride easier!

There is a variety of food around the park, at reasonable prices (some cheaper than the UK theme parks). We particularly recommend the Currywurst hotdogs at the hut near the Max & Moritz ride, and the Stroopwaffles near Long Neck. Pinokkios pizza was also nice, and the Venison steak at the Efteling hotel. The only suggestion we have is that the menu at the hotel restaurant was very small and limited, would be nice to see more choice.

We stayed at the Efteling hotel, which was lovely and had it's own entrance to the park only 5min walk away and early access to some rides at 9.30am. The reception staff there are very friendly and helpful! They helped us many times with questions. I lost my phone charger and they found and lent me one immediately. They also helped me post some postcards. The rooms are big, clean, comfortable and well themed, with a nice hot shower. We requested a high floor room with a view facing the park, and they honoured this request. Breakfast was continental and fresh. The only thing missing I noticed was some sugar or sweetners for tea.

We really enjoyed our stay at Efteling and hope we can come...

We visited overnight in the summer with 2 days park entry. We stayed at the loonsche land hotel which is one of eftlings hotels. Room was excellent. 2 bunk beds and 3 single beds. No kettle or tea/coffee facilities in the room but there was a hair dryer. Eftling was amazing overall. Plenty for children of all ages. Queues for the rides ranged from 5 minutes to 30 minutes across both days and the app shows you in real time what the wait times are. Prices for ice creams was very cheap. Prices for water was ridiculous. We went on 2 days that were 33 degrees and there are only about 6 bottle refilling stations across the whole park and one wasn't working. 4 lots of 500ml bottles of water were a fraction under £15. We were drinking 2 a day each inside the park as well as attempting to refill drinking bottles. In the end we refilled all the disposable bottles in the hotel room and carried around several bottles in a backpack. Every single ride here allows you to keep your bags with you on the ride. Even python which has 2 loop the loops and a corkscrew. They're perfectly safe on the rides. Being in one of the eftling hotels gives you the chance to go back to the hotel late afternoon and come back later. One gripe with the overnight stay in the eftling hotels is you're meant to be allowed into the park 30 mins earlier than the general public. This was accurate although it wasn't made clear that most of the rides would be shut until general opening hours so we queued for one ride for 35 mins, eating up all our 'early entry' time. Huge variety of shops around the park and restaurants. Restaurants do huge varieties of food options. We were 2 adults and 2 children and whether we bought sandwiches and drinks for lunch or whether we bought burgers and chips meals it always seemed to work out around 40 euros per meal. We used contactless payments both days. I think they do take cash as well. One tip is if you're interested in the photo pass, open the eftling app when you're standing by the photo viewing screens. Type the number of your photo into the app and it'll show you a low resolution copy and the app 'banks' the photo for a few days should you wish to buy the photo pass which is 35 euros. There is an endless amount to do at eftling. Scenery, slow rides, cinema style rides, fast roller coasters, water rides, walkthrough trails, theatre shows, occasional live performances, water and light shows from 7.15pm. If you're fast paced you'll get 90% of the park and rides done in 2 days. Id allow 3 if you want to do it all. 4 days and you'll probably be...