Landal Het Vennenbos — Local services in Bladel

I'm not usually one for reviews but I prior to this holiday I found it difficult to find many British reviews of landal het vennenbos so we booked this as a bit of a gamble based on a good price. ||||We travelled with friends as a group of 4 adults 3 children ( 2 x 6yrs, 1 x 2yrs). We are keen center parcs customers but could not afford the near £2000 for a m-f this Feb half term. Instead, whilst researching the European center parcs I stumbled across this on the landal website. ||We paid base price of €279 but once tourist tax and towels added it came to around €400. Even with the £200 for the channel crossing it seemed a bargain. ||||There is no 'check in' as such. It is the same as center parcs in that you can take your car onside Mondays and Fridays and I between it is to be returned to the Car park. They have a very useful landal app which then also becomes your accommodation key, activating automatically at 4pm on arrival day.||||Landal Het Vennenbos is an ex center parcs. It can best be described as a smaller version of Center Parcs UK circa 20years ago. It is a pretty woodland site. The accommodation is largely reminiscent of the likes of Sherwood and Elveden with the exception that the outsides have not been clad and are the original grey breeze block in appearance. ||note no oven or toaster, we took our own and an air fryer. Clean throughout, comfy beds, modern fittings, good quality Travel cot and mattress for baby, ikea style high chair. Nice little extras like kids cutlery, extra drinks fridge in utility cupboard. ||||There's just one main plaza. This houses the pool, shops, buffet restaurant, pizza restaurant, brasserie, bar, bowling, arcade and a fantastic large indoor play area. ||There are daily activities and shows held there for the children based around their mascot 'bollo the bear'. ||||The pool was a fantastic surprise. Again, the center parcs undercurrent was there... a good sized main wave pool, outdoor pool, rapids, Jacuzzis, toddler pools x 2 and a main kids cove complex. However there were no big raft style rides for teenagers or adults. ||What we liked most was that there was ample seating. It felt relaxed, we stayed for extended periods of time and took snacks in to keep the kids going. Much like I used to as a child at the UK parks. ||The rapids were quite tame and my 6yo could go down the whole thing with us which she loved. ||Note however that there are some Dutch swimming rules where the child must be able to prove they can swim a certain distance else they can be asked to wear arm bands. They did ask our 6yo to do a swimming test of 2 widths of the main pool for them to be happy that she didn't need arm bands for the rapids or main slide. ||||Additional nice things: direct access into the neighbouring nature park, petting zoo, bike and go kart hire. All activities seemed cheaper than we are used to. The staff were all very friendly and helpful. All spoke excellent English.||Onsite shop was a bit pricey as usual but there is a Lidl and 'jumbo' supermarket 5mins drive away in Hapert. ||||Overall, it is a slightly less 'refined' version of a center parcs, suited best to young families with children under 12. We really enjoyed it as a family and would do the drive again to visit whilst the kids are still young as we feel overall it felt more relaxed and actually catered to us better with...

I'm not usually one for reviews but I prior to this holiday I found it difficult to find many British reviews of landal het vennenbos so we booked this as a bit of a gamble based on a good price. ||||We travelled with friends as a group of 4 adults 3 children ( 2 x 6yrs, 1 x 2yrs). We are keen center parcs customers but could not afford the near £2000 for a m-f this Feb half term. Instead, whilst researching the European center parcs I stumbled across this on the landal website. ||We paid base price of €279 but once tourist tax and towels added it came to around €400. Even with the £200 for the channel crossing it seemed a bargain. ||||There is no 'check in' as such. It is the same as center parcs in that you can take your car onside Mondays and Fridays and I between it is to be returned to the Car park. They have a very useful landal app which then also becomes your accommodation key, activating automatically at 4pm on arrival day.||||Landal Het Vennenbos is an ex center parcs. It can best be described as a smaller version of Center Parcs UK circa 20years ago. It is a pretty woodland site. The accommodation is largely reminiscent of the likes of Sherwood and Elveden with the exception that the outsides have not been clad and are the original grey breeze block in appearance. ||note no oven or toaster, we took our own and an air fryer. Clean throughout, comfy beds, modern fittings, good quality Travel cot and mattress for baby, ikea style high chair. Nice little extras like kids cutlery, extra drinks fridge in utility cupboard. ||||There's just one main plaza. This houses the pool, shops, buffet restaurant, pizza restaurant, brasserie, bar, bowling, arcade and a fantastic large indoor play area. ||There are daily activities and shows held there for the children based around their mascot 'bollo the bear'. ||||The pool was a fantastic surprise. Again, the center parcs undercurrent was there... a good sized main wave pool, outdoor pool, rapids, Jacuzzis, toddler pools x 2 and a main kids cove complex. However there were no big raft style rides for teenagers or adults. ||What we liked most was that there was ample seating. It felt relaxed, we stayed for extended periods of time and took snacks in to keep the kids going. Much like I used to as a child at the UK parks. ||The rapids were quite tame and my 6yo could go down the whole thing with us which she loved. ||Note however that there are some Dutch swimming rules where the child must be able to prove they can swim a certain distance else they can be asked to wear arm bands. They did ask our 6yo to do a swimming test of 2 widths of the main pool for them to be happy that she didn't need arm bands for the rapids or main slide. ||||Additional nice things: direct access into the neighbouring nature park, petting zoo, bike and go kart hire. All activities seemed cheaper than we are used to. The staff were all very friendly and helpful. All spoke excellent English.||Onsite shop was a bit pricey as usual but there is a Lidl and 'jumbo' supermarket 5mins drive away in Hapert. ||||Overall, it is a slightly less 'refined' version of a center parcs, suited best to young families with children under 12. We really enjoyed it as a family and would do the drive again to visit whilst the kids are still young as we feel overall it felt more relaxed and actually catered to us better with...

We visited Landal Het Vennenbos as it was very reasonably priced for a family of 5 in the summer holidays (~1300 Euros for a week including accommodation preference next to the plaza). It is equidistant from both Efteling and Toverland theme parks (as a family we much prefer Toverland - cheaper,quieter and more to do for a younger family although Efteling is undoubtedly a beautiful theme park). The lower accommodation cost in comparison to nearby Center Parcs allowed us to explore both theme parks.||Positives:|-The Aqua Mundo was excellent for our children (aged 3,6 and 8). They could do all the activities, the pool was clean and well attended and we spent many happy hours there.|-The area nearby is very explorable, a vast (and accesssible) woodland neighbours the park and we found a lovely ice-cream/waffle house which was a 15 minute off road cycle ride away on the excellent cycle paths of the Netherlands.|-The park plaza is a pleasant experience although it is quite small.|-The indoor play area is excellent|- Our children loved the maze!|-Lots of wildlife present on site|-Approximately 45 minutes from Efteling and Toverland|-Our accommodation was well cleaned (we were worried about this going on previous reviews)|-The Landal app was easy to use||Negatives:|-The overall site is quite tired and the appearance of the lodges felt like, at times, we were stuck in a 1960s commune. It looked much better lit at night.|-We had a 6 bed two storey house which worked well for us as a family and was quite spacious (although dated) family members stayed in a 5 bed bungalow which felt much more cramped and dated.|-No toaster was provided (fortunately we knew this and brought our own)!?!|-Whilst the very dry summer cannot be helped the sight of many dried up ponds/lakes was very unsavoury. As was the sight of the geese with angel wings (not necessarily HV fault)|-The Park Shop was useful but expensive and it is quite small (3 Jumbos within 10 minutes drive are a much better value option)|- Limited bookable activities |-While our children enjoyed the outdoor playground it was very dated|-When we booked HV advertised a farm area. This was gone by the time we visited with no explanation or recompense, this was disappointing as our children had enjoyed a similar experience at a Center Parcs the year previously.||We didn’t use any restaurants as they were steeply priced and busy so we ate at the lodge and ate out of the site.||Overall,if it wasn’t for the excellent Aqua Mundo and the relatively low price I would probably rate HV as 3 but those two factors just prop it up. Next year HV seems more expensive than better local(ish) Center Parcs for the same week (an increase of over 300 Euros from this year) so we will explore...