A family adventure in the Netherlands
Going Dutch with Duinrell, Efteling and a whole lot of tulips and windmills
This is the INTERRUPT part of Tech Interrupt. Sometimes, even the most ardent Techies (yes, that’s me) need a bit of a break.
And, for this break, we wanted to avoid selling a few minor organs, or remortgaging the house a couple of times, in order to go to Center Parcs. Yes, factoring in a ferry TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY still made our holiday cheaper, and it turned out to be a great experience.
Destination Duinrell
Duinrell Holiday Park offers ‘the perfect family holiday in the Netherlands’. At this point, I will raise my hands and admit that my wife did all the (excellent) research on this as an option. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I can continue to write the rest of this with the authority of someone who claimed it was their idea all along.
I’ll dive more deeply into Duinrell and the whole Netherlands thing later on. For now, how about getting there?
We took the overnight ferry (Harwich to Hook of Holland) courtesy of Stena Line (Check for discount codes online!). We took our car, with a tow-bar bike rack on the back. Arriving at the terminal and getting on the ferry was pretty seamless, even if there aren’t any road signs for the port until you are pretty much on top of it.
For the overnight crossing, it is mandatory to have a cabin so we elected to take two that were next each other (There is a small charge for picking your location but it was worthwhile) with each parent sharing with a child. What surprised me was the noise. As in, there wasn’t any. I was all set to be hearing throbbing diesel engines all night and not getting any sleep. It was calm. I slept incredibly well. Not a bad start.
The TV in the room gives you the option of watching a view outside the ship, the kennels or all those Tom & Jerry cartoons you used to watch when you were 10 years old.
In the morning, after the obligatory queue of cars due to passport control, we just had a 45 minute drive from the port over to Duinrell itself. We had to charge the car first (YES, WE HAVE AN EV) — charging infrastructure in the Netherlands is pretty decent, and notably a LOT cheaper than in the UK. Finding stations using Zapmap or ABRP worked very well. We paid using either debit cards or a Chargemap card.
Duinrell itself
I’m a big fan of Duinrell now. I loved it.
We stayed just outside of the Dutch school holidays, which meant it never felt too busy. There were notably families from across Europe (e.g. Belgium) as well as the UK. The odd coach load of children did descend upon occasion for a school day out but it certainly never got close to approaching Alton Towers level of carnage.
We stayed in one of the Premium Plus Duingalows, on paper designed for six people. While I can see that working, it would be VERY cosy. It worked great for a family of four, with each child getting their own room. By the time we booked, there wasn’t a lot of choice left in terms of location, so we went with what was available — which worked in our favour, as the Duingalow seemed pretty much brand new!
Everything within the park was an easy walk. Hire bikes or pedal karts are available, but more of an option to keep your kids occupied! Some basic food options (including a couple of takeaways) are there, along with a small supermarket. It’s cheaper to pop into the local town and visit the ‘Jumbo’ store though.
The park has a whole collection of the usual sorts of rides, including three different rollercoasters — plenty for both the five and seven year-old. It was possible to do one of the rides and have another go within a couple of minutes - perfect! By the end of the holiday, our eldest had plucked up the courage to go on the biggest ride (see photo) which he then wanted to do repeatedly. A roller coaster fanatic in the making.
The main focus of our on-site activities was the Tiki Pool. Our package came with four visits included (You book your hour slot with one of the codes you get on check-in). Firstly, the geek in me was impressed by the fancy digital lockers (I managed not to use cash at any point during this holiday). Secondly, the selection of water slides and pools is stellar. Truly something for every age and, similar to the rollercoasters, it was wonderful to watch the children switch from extreme nervousness, to going on the water slides in an endless loop. And I am including myself in the collective ‘children’ group here: The top tier slides were FUN!
There’s an impressively stocked arcade as well (1000 square metres and over 80 machines). A huge variety: Everything from the usual ‘coin pushers’ through to modern releases such as Minecraft. This allowed the children to collect hundreds of paper tickets to exchange for the tiniest toys ever conceived.
Cycling and… tulips!?
Cycling in the Netherlands is much like cycling in Surrey. Well, apart from it being a lot flatter. And the dedicated cycling infrastructure EVERYWHERE. And cyclists being at the top of the hierarchy of road users, with cycling being embedded within everyday life. And motorists not actively trying to kill you, or at least expressing extreme attitude, at every possible opportunity.
So, other than all those things, it’s pretty much the same.
At one point, a car driver nearly reversed into my wife’s bike. They were nearly lynched by the surrounding posse of pedestrians and other cyclists.
The infrastructure made it both straightforward and safe to cycle from Duinrell to the nearby charming town of Delft. This was about 20 km each way, with our e-cargo bike (Tern GSD S10) easily eating those miles up with both children on board.
We took the bikes over to Keukenhof - dubbed ‘The most beautiful spring garden in the world’. If you love tulips and/or brightly coloured things, you are going to have a good time here. I’m personally pretty ambivalent on this but my phone did get full pretty quickly with flower pictures. I recommended EXCEPTIONALLY STRONGLY that you book an early morning session as the place gets VERY busy VERY quickly (I lost count of the number of coaches in the car park at the point we left).
Keukenhof does cycle hire (or bring your own bikes) allowing you to ride a selection of local routes which take in the tulip fields. Again, the cycling infrastructure is great and it was very relaxing. A perfect addition to Keukenhof itself, just in case you really hadn’t seen enough tulips already. You can even buy some of the tulips! TULIPS! BUY THE TULIPS! (There were a lot of tulips).
Windmills!
I never thought I’d use the phrase, “I’m no stranger to windmills” but here we are. I’m no stranger to windmills. I’ve now stood next to one running at full tilt under a decent amount of wind. Those things are SAVAGE. If one of the sails hit you, that would be game over for sure. The Final Destination series should definitely consider having some form of tragic windmill incident in one of its set pieces.
This was courtesy of the village of Kinderdijk (one hour’s drive from Duinrell). You can see the windmills from the outside. You can see the windmills from the INSIDE (great climbing adventures for all). You can get on a boat and see the windmills from the outside again but this time from a DISTANCE! We didn’t do the boat trip as it didn’t seem it would add much to the experience.
Plus you can tick off the place from the UNESCO Heritage List - although as there are 1,199 sites, completing all of them may take some time.
Efteling: World of Wonders
Efteling (90 minutes drive from Duinrell) is your more traditional theme park. And I mean this literally: It was so refreshing to be at a park which wasn’t awash with branded rides. No Disney. No Marvel. No dreaded Paw Patrol. And, get this: PEPPA PIG WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN. Huge selection of zones and rides to suit all ages and thrill-seeking desire.
It was certainly busy, needing long queues for some of the rides, but these never felt that bad (Legoland Windsor would be thinking, “We can get at least another six million people in here”). The park app is really good at advising you, plus Efteling operates ‘Baby switch’, where parents can immediately swap at a ride’s exit to bypass the queues. This was not heavily advertised and sometimes ride attendants had to ask colleagues what to do: You have to make the effort to ask when you get off any eligible ride.
We took in a show involving horses, sword fighting and magic which also had strong Power Ranger vibes. It was in Dutch so I had no idea what was going on, but I think the Power Rangers won, and the Bad Team sunk under the water never to be seen again. Oh, and there was a DRAGON! Defeated with water cannons. It was so confusing.
I also ate the creation you can see below, which I think meant I hit my calorie requirements for the next eighteen years.
Catching the Z at parkrun
We are keen parkrun participants. Combined, we’ve done well over 500 of these Saturday 5k events, and the children are well underway as well with their 2k versions courtesy of Junior parkrun.
If we’re away from home, and there’s the possibility of taking in a parkrun as a tourist… then it is going to happen! Especially if it is one of the few parkruns in the world beginning with a Z. Yes, there are all sorts of voluntary challenges you can do with parkrun, and one of them is to do a parkrun for every letter of the alphabet. Except X. As it would be impossible. For now.
It was straightforward to get to Zuiderpark back in The Hague and enjoy the rudimentary (100% tarmac) two lap course. Aware of the very strong international attraction of both The Hague and this particular parkrun, there were two briefings (English first, then Dutch). Very well run, extremely friendly, and Brooks were there to sell some new running shoes. Fair enough, as the correct number of pairs of running shoes to own is always more than you currently have.
I was even able to get out on my own to run with some actual hills back at Duinrell. Pretty much the only hills of any significance I can remember during our entire trip. It’s easy to run down to the local beach and back (dedicated running and cycle track) which is a nice 10k and a lowly 50m of elevation gain.
Getting back again
And then we went home.
The main difference is that we took a daytime ferry back. Although a cabin is not mandatory when you do this, we did book one as somewhere to relax a bit more. This was a good decision: The facilities on the ferries are rudimentary.
When we last took a ferry, over to France, there were several decks of Things To Do, including a cinema, large games area, and so on. Not so with this crossing. There was one deck, mostly taken up with seating and food areas and… well, that’s about it really. There was a children’s play area about the size of a disabled toilet and a single games console. Bring your own things to do!
Also allow the same time that the crossing takes to get through passport control back in the UK (This never gets any quicker).
The end
In summary: My mood matched the smiling frog mascot of where we were staying. I would happily live in the Netherlands from everything that we experienced.
If you’ve any of your own recommendations / tips for the area, then please let me know!
Resources
Facebook group: “Duinrell - Chats and Tips for Holidaymakers”
Facebook group: “Efteling Just For Brits”
Stena Line - Get the ferry!