Efteling in the summer is a great place to escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life. A cosy and entertaining place to visit with family or friends. Read more to find out more about my latest trip to Efteling and some key tips to take in mind for your next visit!
How to plan your perfect visit
Efteling is open all summer, every day until 20:00. On fridays and saturdays the park is even open until 23:00 and you can enjoy the Negen Pleinen Festijn during juli and august. I have visited the Negen Pleinen Festijn in de past. It offers extra hours, shows and entertainment, but it does draw large crowds. So if you want a relaxing summer day at the Efteling and enjoy as many attractions as possible, I suggest to pick another weekday or a sunday.
Don’t let the weather influence you too much. If the weather is not ideal, the crowds will be less and Efteling offers plenty of indoor options. If it is hot outside, Efteling is located in a very green area with plenty of shade to hide.
A ticket costs 40 euros. Not cheap, but theme parks tickets are all going up. I believe as long as a park keeps on expanding and maintaining their park, it’s worth the price and with Efteling this is certainly the case. Buying tickets beforehand is an option on the website, but I have never waited long in line so it’s not necessary. It is only 2 euros cheaper. Also your tickets for the parking, you can choose to buy it at the entrance or when you exit the park.
How to handle wait times
As soon as you enter the park, you are immedialty immersed by the fairytale feeling. When you walk down the main boulevard, you’ll find the board with the wait times on your right. First thing I do is check the main attractions. It’s important to get them done, heck it’s what you came for!
- Baron 1898
- Droomvlucht
- Joris en de Draak
- Symbolica
- De Vliegende Hollander
- Pirana (on hot days)
Wait times for these attractions can go up to an hour or more on busy days. 40 min. max is my personal limit of an acceptable wait time, but that is still long and let’s always go for a lower wait time! So if you come in and see a low wait time at any of these attractions, go for it! Now jumping from one attraction to the other in quite a large park can be quite exhausting, unless you are a die-hard like me! So once you have chosen your first attraction, that’s your route. You can stop at other attractions along the way with low wait times.
This is really one of the most important tips for all theme parks: waiting times are something variable. They change constantly during the day. If you brainlessly jump into attractions with high wait times, your day will be over fast and you will not have enjoyed the park. Monitor the wait times during the day, especially for the main attractions and go when the time is acceptable. Do you pass an attraction with a long wait? Skip it and come back later. You can check the boards in the park or most theme parks have an app these days. Efteling has a free app, which I strongly recommend to use to determine your next ride. Are you waiting for an attraction? You’ve got time! Check the app and select your next ride.
What to do when it is extremely busy and wait times stay high and constant? Personally I don’t like to waste time standing in line. I don’t think anyone does, right? In the rare case that the strategie of monitoring the wait times doesn’t work, you need to make choices. I will select maybe 1 or 2 attractions with a high wait time that I don’t want to miss and that’s it. The rest of the day I fill with enjoying the park and other rides. Most theme parks have an amazing atmosphere, nice shows, great shops and restaurants. It would be a shame to spend all day in a line, so just find other things to do to enjoy your day. Come back another time to do more attractions when it is less busy!
Attractions you can’t miss on summer day
On my last visit we started with Baron 1898, an short intense but beautifully themed dive coaster for the thrillseekers among us! Next we hopped on the new and improved Python, the oldest coaster in the park, opened in 1981! It’s a piece of history, but the ride itself is nothing special. I do have to admit the new track is an improvement and the ride is a lot smoother, so well done! Unfortunately Joris en de Draak was closed, but strongly recommend doing this one when you can. It is an action-packed wooden rollercoaster you shouldn’t miss!
In the afternoon we visited Droomvlucht. For me Droomvlucht is THE classic of the Efteling. It is so peaceful, so beautiful, just sit back and enjoy going to another world for a couple of minutes. We always combine Droomvlucht with Villa Volta. Still one of the best madhouses I know. Great storyline so the two pre-shows that are worth listening to.
We really wanted to do the latest new addition of the Efteling, Symbolica. Placed at the end of the main boulevard, it’s never a good idea to do it at the beginning of the day. Symbolica is the new modern version of Droomvlucht. A beautiful darkride that is worth a ride, but not a long wait. Therefore me and my sister chose to take the single rider waiting line. We got lucky and ended up sitting next to eachother anyway, so we were quite pleased with ourselves that we tricked the system. Single rider is a good solution if you really want to do a popular attraction with a long wait time and you don’t mind ending up next to a stranger. Wait times of single rider are almost always a lot shorter.
In summer I can imagine that most people want to do Pirana, the rapid river. It is the only water ride in the park so on hot days, it draws a crowd so that’s why I skip it. We paid a visit to Vogel Rok and Carnaval Festival. Again two classics, a nice indoor coaster and Carnaval Festival is the It’s a Small World of the Efteling.
Finally the wait time of the Vliegende Hollander was reasonable. We never want to skip this one. The storyline, everyone knows the story of the Flying Dutchmann, and the theming are unbelievable. The wait line is already part of the experience, finding yourself in the harbor. You get in the boat and experience the ghost ship, ending with a big splash and a nice view. Always worth the wait!
Next up, another classic dark ride Fata Morgana, the tale of 1001 nights. At this point, we had done everything we wanted for a relaxing sunday. So we decided to finalize our day by enjoying Gondoletta, a nice quiet boat ride and the Pagode, an observation tower that gives you a great view of the entire park.
Where to have a nice lunch/dinner
Efteling is a great place to eat and snack! The food is good, you really can’t go wrong and the prices are reasonable. My favorites are: Polles Keuken, Octopus, T‘ Poffertje, Anton Pieck Plein, ‘t Gebraad… It all depends on what you want to eat: pancakes, pasta, fries… During the Negen Pleinen Festijn in summer there are even more options to choose from: make your own Magnum, burgers, springrolls… You will never go hungry, and there is something for everyone!
What shows and entertainment to enjoy
During the Negen Pleinen Festijn there are plenty of shows and entertainment all day long. You can check out the Efteling website to find the entire schedule. On our trip we decided to give Raveleijn, the park show, another shot. It had been a couple of years since we last saw it, so we wanted to see if there had been any changes. Unfortunately this was not the case. We love the music and there is a good story, but the show feel slow, there are no impressive tricks and the decor is too big for the small space. This means that where ever you sit, you will never see everything that is happening. It’s a shame, but I do see that little kids love it, so worth to take them for a visit.
It is always nice to conclude a day of the Efteling with Aquanura. The watershow at the exit/entrance of the park next to Fata Morgana. It blew me away the first time I saw it years ago and I absolutely love it! From the same builders as the Bellagio show in Las Vegas, you are in for a treat! It’s a spectacular show with many light, fire and music effects. But you do need the darkness to give it that full effect, during the daytime it loses a lot of its wauw-factor. So as it was stil llight when we left the park, we didn’t stay.
I hope you enjoyed my first blog post! As you can see I had a relaxing day, got a lot done, and we still went home an hour before closing time!
the travelcoaster 