Efteling Theme Park

Efteling is the largest theme park in the Netherlands and one of the oldest theme parks in the world. It opened in 1952 and the park is fantasy-themed; its attractions are based on elements from ancient myths and legends, fairy tales, fables and folklore. It is twice as large as the original Disneyland park in California and predates it by three years.

The Fairytale Forest (het Sprookjesbos) is the original part of the theme park and the part where I was keen to take the kids. Although parts of it are a bit dated it was still a magical experience and it was difficult choosing a photo to blip as we visited the abodes of many fairytale figures such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel to name but a few. However it was the Fairytale tree 'Sprookjesboom' which proved to be truly magical, even though he spoke entirely in Dutch, as the kids believed that it was a real tree talking with squirrels, spiders and mice joining in.

We went on many rides with the children and seemed to hit really lucky with all of them as we more or less walked straight onto a ride without queuing. It seems that most of the schools in The Netherlands went back to school today which meant we could enjoy strolling around the park at our leisure. The kids both loved the 'Carnaval Festival' which was a ride which took us on a journey past 15 different countries with Belgium and the UK featured to the delight of Olivia. After every ride Dexter shouted 'again, again'.

We had another surprise for the kids as we had booked into The Efteling Hotel for the night so we get to have another day at the park tomorrow as there is so much that we didn't get to do today as the park is quite huge!