Howie
Donkey in a hat
But... haven't you just been there with the goons, Dave?
Yes, yes I have, but here's the thing: I love this park, so I went back again with the missus.
I've loved this park for a long time, it was the very first European park I ever went to, waaaay back in 2002. I've been back another 4 times since then and each time I find myself loving the place just that little bit more, be it down to new attractions, finding a new appreciation for current attractions or discovering older attractions that I never knew existed before. Efteling is full of those. Every visit turns up something new.
However, all of those previous visits have been cred-run based day trips. With goons. Which is great n'all, but this is one park I've always wanted to take Mrs Howie to. It's that kind of park, it deserves more than a cred-run approach. It's a park to relax in, to explore at a leisurely pace and soak in the vibe, with time to take in all the non-cred based things to see and do here - the dark rides, the shows, the walk-throughs. Mrs Howie is non-goon, see, and even though she enjoys a good visit to a good theme park, she has no interest in bombing around on road trips cred-running sh*tholes. However, I was certain that Efteling would be the perfect place for a romantic-ish getaway for just the two of us. I've been promising to take her here for years, so when I returned from my most recent visit, what, just over a month ago now, raving on and on about how amazing Danse Macabre was, she was like "So when the hell are you taking me then, instead of constantly going with your geeky nerdy internet friends?"
Can't lie, it's a fair a comment.
So we sat down, wrangled a couple of days off work and booked it there and then with less than 3 days notice. Did it proper, like, 2 full days on park, staying on site, with dinner, tickets to the theatre show, all the trimmings.
And boom! Just like that, less than 2 weeks after going to Efteling with my crew, I'm back there again with my wife, checking in to the Efteling Wonder Hotel:
It's a very nice hotel. Nothing overly fantastical, it's not loaded with theming props and things that go whizz-bang or anything like that, just an elegant, beautifully decorated gaff with nice spacious rooms and comfy beds. Mrs Howie approves.
Of course, the best thing about being a hotel guest is that park entry is automatically included for the entirety of your stay, you can go in half an hour before the public and you get your own little secret entrance at the back of the park, bypassing all the main entry faff. That wouldn't help us today as we didn't check in til about 11am, but it was still nice to be a 2 minute walk away from the park.
However, this does mean you don't get to gaze and marvel at the wonderful main entrance building. Here is a picture from a previous visit, just in case you don't know what it looks like:
The hotel entrance dumps you in to the park near Vogel Rok and Carnival Festival, the latter of which is one of those rides that I never knew existed until a couple of weeks ago. Never got chance to ride it that day, and seeing as it only had a 5 minute wait I figured that now is as good a time as any to try it out, so we jumped on.
Not a great deal to say really - it's a slow moving, kiddy's dark ride in the style of 'It's a Small World', complete with mild racism and an annoying theme tune. The missus rolled her eyes as if to say 'Wtf have you brought me onto this for, Howie?' but in the end we both conceded that it was quite well done. Lengthy, colourful, lots going on, all in tip-top condition and in the interest of 'park completion' I'm happy to have experienced it but yeah, not one I'll be riding again anytime soon.
Next door to Carnival Festival, Vogel was Roking a 5 minute wait so we jumped on that next. 'Roll your eyes at this, bitch' I thought as we climbed aboard.
It's a good ride, I like it lots. Smooth, comfortable and fun. Plus, of course, a killer onboard audio track. One thing I've often wondered though... where the hell do they hide the coaster? There's no sign of it as you approach. Yes yes I know it's an indoor coaster, what I mean is you can't see the building that it's housed in. Aside from the giant bird thing at the entrance, there's no trace of any sort of structure behind it. Feels like quite a tall ride when you're going up the lift-hill, still baffles me how they've hidden it so well.
Anyway, Mrs Howie liked it.
"That's a bit more like it." She said.
We rattled off a couple more dark rides next, Droomvlucht and Villa Volta. Droomvlucht is a long standing favourite of mine, I always make time for it on every visit. A slow moving, kiddy's dark ride this may be, but where Carnival Festival is loud, brash and circus-ish, Droomvlucht is just a thing of pure beauty, so peaceful, serene and, well... dream-like. Mrs Howie was enchanted: "That was beautiful" she said.
I wasn't going to bother with Villa Volta, but when I told her it was like Hex at Alton Towers she was like "Ooh yes, let's do that". Ok then.
It was good. Of course, Hex is still the bestest when it comes to Vekoma madhouses, but Villa Volta is still one of the better ones. "I liked the music" she said.
Things were going really well so far. We'd only been in the park an hour and had been on 4 rides already.
We were peckish, so we grabbed a hot dog. Only 5 euros it was. 5 euros! Bargain. Really good hot dog too. We were at Alton Towers a few weeks ago and they were charging 9 quid for a sh*t one. Go figure.
Then we did something else at Efteling which I'd never done before which was hop on the little steam train, y'know, just to see where it went. Y'see? This is the beauty of not having a timetable to stick to, of not having a bunch of creds to collect, of being able to just wander round freely and enjoy the park. Been a long time since I've experienced a park this way. Used to do it quite a lot, but the last few years have been focused more on multi-park road trips, getting the creds, park after park, day after day. Which is fab, but I must confess that this more relaxed approach felt like a much needed change of pace. And this is, of course, the perfect park to do it in.
Anyways, after pootling round some lovely green parkland on the choo choo for a bit, we pulled into Efteling's little 'coaster corner', home of Python, De Vliegende Hollander and Joris, so we hopped off and had a mooch round.
As you can see, the weather was glorious. According to Queuetimes, crowd levels that day were about 40%, which in practical terms meant headline attractions were generally rocking a 20 - 30 minute wait, with filler attractions and other stuff being more-or-less a walk on. And besides, with huge capacity and generally slick operations, this place knows how to handle a crowd. The complete absence of any kind of fast-track or speedy-pass system is also a big help, another big plus point for Efteling in my book. Everyone is treated equally here, they literally roll out the red carpet for every guest. Love this park!
Despite that, the 30 minute wait for Python still looked burdenous and had no shade, so we skipped that one for now. Mrs Howie didn't fancy getting wet, so De Vliegende Hollander was also out.
Joris en de Draak also had a 30 minute queue but, woop woop, it has a single rider line which was showing as a 5 minute wait so we hopped into that instead. Twice. Once for each side. Worked out really well, we were on in no time. Although we weren't sat next to each other, we were both on the same train for each ride, so it was fine.
Fab coasters, both of them. Great pacing, great duelling, lots of speed, lots of airtime and of course, one of the best roller coaster theme tunes of all time.
To be honest, I can't remember exactly what we did next. I think we may have just bought a couple of beers and sat around enjoying the atmosphere for a bit, bopping along to the Joris soundtrack and watching Hollander do the splashy splashy.
After beer, I think we just wandered for a while, absorbed the surroundings, hung out with some baby ducks, all that stuff.
Eventually we found ourselves at Symbolica. Couldn't be arsed with the 25 minute wait, so we single rider'd it and were more or less straight on. Not in the same vehicle, but we were in the same 'cycle', so we could wave at each other at various points in the ride, which was still fun.
I'll be honest, Symbolica is not my favourite dark ride here. Despite it's fancy trackless technology and undeniably lavish set pieces, you can't ignore the fact that it doesn't actually do much, it's yet another slow-moving, scenic dark ride aimed at younger audiences. At the end of the day, it's basically a tour of a magic castle. It's good but... I guess it just doesn't pump my nads the way some of Efteling's other dark rides do.
And the whale still isn't working.
At this point it was still only about 2pm. We had tickets for the CARO show in the Efteling theatre booked for 4pm, which lasts about 70mins, and the park was open til 7pm meaning there was still no pressure on us to 'get things done', so we spent about an hour mincing around the Fairytale Forest. Saw some of the classics - Sleeping Giant, Talking Tree, Long Neck Dude, Little Match Girl etc.. plus, of course, the Indian Water Lilies, always a must-do on every visit.
Wanna hear sumat funny? When I was here last with the goons, Little Match Girl made @DelPiero cry!
Proper sobbing he was, bless him!
I guess the big oaf is human after all.
On our way over to the theatre, we walked past Max and Moritz and I couldn't help notice it only had a 5 minute wait, which in Efteling terminology means a walk-on, so we had a quick rip on the green side.
"Is that it?" she said as we returned to the station, only for the train and the onboard music to speed up. You should have seen her little face light up as we zoomed off for a 2nd lap!
Fab little family coaster, this.
Funnily enough, I took almost the same photo a couple of years ago. Spot the difference?
In case you're wondering, I was purposely saving Danse Macabre til last, as a sort of finale to our first day. More on that later.
CARO then: we got to the theatre with about 20 mins to spare, but it has a bar so we had another cheeky beer before going in. Only €5 for a beer. Bargain!
Brilliant show, this. Really enjoyed it. Some great original music, song and dance, illusion, acrobatics, some cool fire and water effects here and there - a proper, theatrical production. Possibly not for everyone, might be a bit arty-farty for some but we both had a great time. Would I see it again? You know what? I probably would actually. I mean, if it's your first time here and you only have one day, of course you're not gonna take 70 mins out of your day to watch a poncey theatre show, you're gonna be focusing on the headline attractions in the park, and rightly so, but if you're a repeat visitor or have multiple days, sure, why not give it a go? Something a bit different innit, and it all adds up to the 'complete' Efteling experience.
At this point it was about quarter past five, still plenty of time to get a few more rides in, so after exiting the theatre we made our way anticlockwise round the lake and came to the little Arabian area and Fata Morgana. Another walk-on, boom!
Not the best boaty dark ride in the world, not as good as, say, Piraten en Batavia at Europa or Monster Mansion at SFOG, but a solid effort nonetheless. The animatronics may be a bit dated, but at least there's plenty of them and they all work, lots going on, no rust or peeling paint anywhere - Efteling really do know how to look after their attractions. It's a long ride too and, as is customary with this place, is accompanied by some fantastic music.
Have I mentioned the music at this park yet? Pretty much all of it is amazing. Proper, orchestral pieces they are, none of that synthesised IMAscore rubbish here. I truly believe the music here is one of the main reasons that this park is so special.
Right, it was Danse Macabre time. Well... almost. It had a wait time of about 50 mins but the ride also operates a free virtual queue system which at this point was showing at 30 mins. Soooo hang on.. the virtual queue is actually quicker than the main queue? Well that's a no-brainer innit. Why would anyone join a 50 minute queue when you can just hop on to Efteling app and book a slot for 30 minutes time? But whatever, I'll take it.
Rather conveniently, that 30 minute window gave us just enough time to go and watch the Aquanura fountain show on the main lagoon.
It's a really good display but... I dunno, when you've seen it at night, with all the lighting effects, lasers and pyrotechnics etc.. a daytime show in bright sunshine just didn't quite hit the same way. But hey, it was still better than standing in a 50 minute queue.
Right, Danse Macabre, for real this time. I've already written a separate post about how much I loved this ride and now, after a second visit, I'm doubling down: it is, by far, the best ride at Efteling. I can see this being their headline attraction for many years to come. Apparently it cost €35million!
Like... holy crap, you could buy a massive B&M hyper for that!
But you know what? I'm so glad they didn't. There are dozens of B&M hypers out there, but there ain't nothing else like this anywhere in the world. This is literally the perfect attraction for this park and every penny of that enormous budget is on display, the presentation here is awesome.
Mrs Howie was nervous going in. I'd told her literally nothing about it beforehand. "It's a dance" I would say "and it's quite macabre".
Although there's no pre-show as such, the batching process involves 3 main holding areas - the cemetery courtyard, the wooden bridge and the creepy dark corridor. If I had a nit-pick, it would be that the time spent in the creepy dark corridor gets a bit tedious, could do with a little something in there to liven things up a touch, but otherwise it's all very well done and builds the suspense nicely. I particularly liked the spooky sound effects emanating from deep within the trees around the wooden bridge.
By the time we were seated, Mrs Howie was genuinely quite terrified and when the doors were locked, the lights went out and the creepy little teaser sequence began, y'know, with the scary noises and the thumping footsteps etc... she was just about ready to freak out. Excellent!
However, once the 'performance' began I watched her expression morph from fear into one of sheer delight. This ride is such a joy to experience. It's just wonderful!
"That was amaaaazing" she said.
Job done.
And that was it. That was the end of our first day. It had now just turned 7pm and Efteling was closing, so we took a nice leisurely stroll back through a deserted park to the Hotel. Lovely!
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant that night, dead posh it was. It was a small-plate, tasting type deal where you get small portions of lots of things.
I'm not even sure what some of it was to be honest, but it was all banging. Bit pricey though, think it came to about €140 all in but what the hell, nice to push the boat out once in a while innit?
Spent the rest of the evening lounging around in the bar getting slowly pissed on Limoncello spritzers.
It had been a long day, we'd been up since 4am that morning, sooooo nice to just chill out on site and not have to worry about travelling anywhere that night or the following morning. Should definitely do this more often.
Day 2 began with a hotel breakfast, which was decent. Mostly continental style but there was just about enough cooked stuff on offer to forge together something resembling a full English.
Today was a Monday, with crowd levels expected to be around 25%, even quiter than yesterday, plus we had our 30 minute early entry time to take advantage of. And so, at 9.30am on the dot, us and about 4 other people entered through the guest entrance into a completely empty park!
Mrs Howie was now fully into the swing of things and, after a day of mostly dark rides and shows was, in her words, 'ready for some zoomies', so we used our ERT to head straight for Coaster Corner to mop up the creds.
Walked straight on to the front row of Python. Nice! Simple ride, but classic old school fun. Remarkably smooth and oh so pretty.
Got back to the station, nobody waiting for front row, so we got sent round again. Result!
Then minced over to Joris en de Draak. Again, walked straight onto the front row on each side. Brilliant!
Then decided to try a back row ride. Good lord, what a difference! Much more aggressive at the back. Not rough, but the airtime and the laterals are much more violent, almost uncomfortably so. Definitely a front row coaster for me. Still wild and full of airtime but feels more natural, more fluid and, frankly, less painful.
So that was 5 coaster laps in half an hour. What a start!
It was now 10am and De Vliegende Hollander was just opening so we waltzed over to that next. Is it a dark ride? Is it a coaster? Is it a water ride? Who cares, it's a fantastic all round experience and it's a must ride on every visit if you ask me. Beautifully themed, very atmospheric and a ton of fun. Great theme music too... again.
By the way, when me and the goons rode this last month, the mist in the tunnel wasn't working. Well, talk about shattering the illusion! It was still pretty dark, but you could clearly see that the tunnel was, in fact, a concrete box.
Anyway, glad to report that the mist is working again and the tunnel is back to be being as creepy as it always was.
Baron next. Still hardly any crowds in the park yet, so this too was more or less a walk-on.
Not a coaster type that floats Mrs Howie's boat normally, but I convinced her that it was worth it for the theming, the queue experience and the little pre-show type bits. In the end, she agreed. When it comes to dive coasters, I must admit I prefer the giant American ones but for me this is easily the best of the 'junior' European examples. I mean, just look at it. It's beautiful!
All coastered out for the time being, it was time for a show - Ravelijn. We missed it yesterday cos the timings clashed with the CARO show, so this was a top priority for today. Bloody love it, I do. And with just the mere appearance of horses, Mrs Howie was 100% in too!
Seriously, even if shows aren't your thing, and even if you only have 1 day here and need the creds, you should definitely try and find the time to watch this. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a giant, 5 headed, fire breathing, mechanical dragon ffs? Stunts, effects, illusions, animals and once again, some amazing music all make for a pretty spectacular show. Don't miss it.
I won't go into every last detail of the day, largely because I can't remember, but with all the important stuff now done, the rest of the time was spent mainly getting as many rides on Danse Macabre as we could, interspersed with occasional forays into other rides we liked from yesterday. We did Symbolica again, Droomvlucht, Vogel Rok, got the other side of Max & Moritz etc...
Also spent some time wandering round the Diorama, the Efteling museum, the Fairytale Forest again and had a go on the indoor carousel.
In honour of my good friend @witchfinder , I of course rode the pig.
Believe it or not, we even discovered yet another attraction that I never knew existed before - Fabula, their 4D cinema. Found it by accident, wandered into this weird cafe type building in search of food, only to find it full of jungle theming with various animatronic animals and, randomly, a big bin full of 3D glasses. 'What are these for?' we thought. It wasn't until we wandered 50 yards up the pathway that we found the entrance to the 4D cinema - a discreet gap in a hedgerow with a very small sign. Turns out the weird jungle cafe thing is actually the exit to the 4D cinema.
I mean, did you know Efteling has a 4D cinema?
Ok so it's not very good, goes on a bit too long, but the mere fact that I've been to this park 4 times previously and didn't even know it was here blows my mind!
On top of all that, I think we managed to score another 5 rides in on Danse Macabre. Aw man, I can't tell you how much I love this thing. Even after the 5th ride I was still noticing new details, new little touches here and there. And the sound quality - good lord, it's outstanding! It's as if a live orchestra is in there with you. So rich, so clear and such a wonderful piece of music too, truly spine tingling stuff. Yep, no doubt about it, I think this is easily the best dark ride in Europe. I'd take it over most coasters to be honest.
It may not have had me openly weeping like a child the way Rise of the Resistance did but it definitely gave me a big bout of the feelz on each and every ride. It's just so original, so unique and so quintessentially Efteling.
I know I'm a bit biased, I know I'm an Efteling fanboy, but even looking at it entirely objectively, I can't imagine how anyone could come off this and not think it's one of the best dark rides in the world. I think Disney or Universal would be proud to have this in one of their parks.
And that, I think, seems like a good place to wrap up this report, I think I've covered everything.
What a trip! Absolutely perfect, it was. Perfect park, perfect weather, perfect crowd levels, perfect pacing, just... perfect.
Mrs Howie is now a total Efteling fan girl. She wants to go back, and is already plotting a return trip in the Autumn or Winter to maybe stay in the new Grand Hotel! Fine by me, fill yer boots, love!
Wouldn't go as far as saying I've converted her to full goon, but now I've introduced her to a European park that isn't Merlin, one that is, y'know, well operated, fairly priced and is geared towards guest experience rather than shareholder profit, then who knows?
I do think she'd like Europa Park...
Yes, yes I have, but here's the thing: I love this park, so I went back again with the missus.
I've loved this park for a long time, it was the very first European park I ever went to, waaaay back in 2002. I've been back another 4 times since then and each time I find myself loving the place just that little bit more, be it down to new attractions, finding a new appreciation for current attractions or discovering older attractions that I never knew existed before. Efteling is full of those. Every visit turns up something new.
However, all of those previous visits have been cred-run based day trips. With goons. Which is great n'all, but this is one park I've always wanted to take Mrs Howie to. It's that kind of park, it deserves more than a cred-run approach. It's a park to relax in, to explore at a leisurely pace and soak in the vibe, with time to take in all the non-cred based things to see and do here - the dark rides, the shows, the walk-throughs. Mrs Howie is non-goon, see, and even though she enjoys a good visit to a good theme park, she has no interest in bombing around on road trips cred-running sh*tholes. However, I was certain that Efteling would be the perfect place for a romantic-ish getaway for just the two of us. I've been promising to take her here for years, so when I returned from my most recent visit, what, just over a month ago now, raving on and on about how amazing Danse Macabre was, she was like "So when the hell are you taking me then, instead of constantly going with your geeky nerdy internet friends?"
Can't lie, it's a fair a comment.
So we sat down, wrangled a couple of days off work and booked it there and then with less than 3 days notice. Did it proper, like, 2 full days on park, staying on site, with dinner, tickets to the theatre show, all the trimmings.
And boom! Just like that, less than 2 weeks after going to Efteling with my crew, I'm back there again with my wife, checking in to the Efteling Wonder Hotel:
It's a very nice hotel. Nothing overly fantastical, it's not loaded with theming props and things that go whizz-bang or anything like that, just an elegant, beautifully decorated gaff with nice spacious rooms and comfy beds. Mrs Howie approves.
Of course, the best thing about being a hotel guest is that park entry is automatically included for the entirety of your stay, you can go in half an hour before the public and you get your own little secret entrance at the back of the park, bypassing all the main entry faff. That wouldn't help us today as we didn't check in til about 11am, but it was still nice to be a 2 minute walk away from the park.
However, this does mean you don't get to gaze and marvel at the wonderful main entrance building. Here is a picture from a previous visit, just in case you don't know what it looks like:
The hotel entrance dumps you in to the park near Vogel Rok and Carnival Festival, the latter of which is one of those rides that I never knew existed until a couple of weeks ago. Never got chance to ride it that day, and seeing as it only had a 5 minute wait I figured that now is as good a time as any to try it out, so we jumped on.
Not a great deal to say really - it's a slow moving, kiddy's dark ride in the style of 'It's a Small World', complete with mild racism and an annoying theme tune. The missus rolled her eyes as if to say 'Wtf have you brought me onto this for, Howie?' but in the end we both conceded that it was quite well done. Lengthy, colourful, lots going on, all in tip-top condition and in the interest of 'park completion' I'm happy to have experienced it but yeah, not one I'll be riding again anytime soon.
Next door to Carnival Festival, Vogel was Roking a 5 minute wait so we jumped on that next. 'Roll your eyes at this, bitch' I thought as we climbed aboard.
It's a good ride, I like it lots. Smooth, comfortable and fun. Plus, of course, a killer onboard audio track. One thing I've often wondered though... where the hell do they hide the coaster? There's no sign of it as you approach. Yes yes I know it's an indoor coaster, what I mean is you can't see the building that it's housed in. Aside from the giant bird thing at the entrance, there's no trace of any sort of structure behind it. Feels like quite a tall ride when you're going up the lift-hill, still baffles me how they've hidden it so well.
Anyway, Mrs Howie liked it.
"That's a bit more like it." She said.
We rattled off a couple more dark rides next, Droomvlucht and Villa Volta. Droomvlucht is a long standing favourite of mine, I always make time for it on every visit. A slow moving, kiddy's dark ride this may be, but where Carnival Festival is loud, brash and circus-ish, Droomvlucht is just a thing of pure beauty, so peaceful, serene and, well... dream-like. Mrs Howie was enchanted: "That was beautiful" she said.
I wasn't going to bother with Villa Volta, but when I told her it was like Hex at Alton Towers she was like "Ooh yes, let's do that". Ok then.
It was good. Of course, Hex is still the bestest when it comes to Vekoma madhouses, but Villa Volta is still one of the better ones. "I liked the music" she said.
Things were going really well so far. We'd only been in the park an hour and had been on 4 rides already.
We were peckish, so we grabbed a hot dog. Only 5 euros it was. 5 euros! Bargain. Really good hot dog too. We were at Alton Towers a few weeks ago and they were charging 9 quid for a sh*t one. Go figure.
Then we did something else at Efteling which I'd never done before which was hop on the little steam train, y'know, just to see where it went. Y'see? This is the beauty of not having a timetable to stick to, of not having a bunch of creds to collect, of being able to just wander round freely and enjoy the park. Been a long time since I've experienced a park this way. Used to do it quite a lot, but the last few years have been focused more on multi-park road trips, getting the creds, park after park, day after day. Which is fab, but I must confess that this more relaxed approach felt like a much needed change of pace. And this is, of course, the perfect park to do it in.
Anyways, after pootling round some lovely green parkland on the choo choo for a bit, we pulled into Efteling's little 'coaster corner', home of Python, De Vliegende Hollander and Joris, so we hopped off and had a mooch round.
As you can see, the weather was glorious. According to Queuetimes, crowd levels that day were about 40%, which in practical terms meant headline attractions were generally rocking a 20 - 30 minute wait, with filler attractions and other stuff being more-or-less a walk on. And besides, with huge capacity and generally slick operations, this place knows how to handle a crowd. The complete absence of any kind of fast-track or speedy-pass system is also a big help, another big plus point for Efteling in my book. Everyone is treated equally here, they literally roll out the red carpet for every guest. Love this park!
Despite that, the 30 minute wait for Python still looked burdenous and had no shade, so we skipped that one for now. Mrs Howie didn't fancy getting wet, so De Vliegende Hollander was also out.
Joris en de Draak also had a 30 minute queue but, woop woop, it has a single rider line which was showing as a 5 minute wait so we hopped into that instead. Twice. Once for each side. Worked out really well, we were on in no time. Although we weren't sat next to each other, we were both on the same train for each ride, so it was fine.
Fab coasters, both of them. Great pacing, great duelling, lots of speed, lots of airtime and of course, one of the best roller coaster theme tunes of all time.
To be honest, I can't remember exactly what we did next. I think we may have just bought a couple of beers and sat around enjoying the atmosphere for a bit, bopping along to the Joris soundtrack and watching Hollander do the splashy splashy.
After beer, I think we just wandered for a while, absorbed the surroundings, hung out with some baby ducks, all that stuff.
Eventually we found ourselves at Symbolica. Couldn't be arsed with the 25 minute wait, so we single rider'd it and were more or less straight on. Not in the same vehicle, but we were in the same 'cycle', so we could wave at each other at various points in the ride, which was still fun.
I'll be honest, Symbolica is not my favourite dark ride here. Despite it's fancy trackless technology and undeniably lavish set pieces, you can't ignore the fact that it doesn't actually do much, it's yet another slow-moving, scenic dark ride aimed at younger audiences. At the end of the day, it's basically a tour of a magic castle. It's good but... I guess it just doesn't pump my nads the way some of Efteling's other dark rides do.
And the whale still isn't working.
At this point it was still only about 2pm. We had tickets for the CARO show in the Efteling theatre booked for 4pm, which lasts about 70mins, and the park was open til 7pm meaning there was still no pressure on us to 'get things done', so we spent about an hour mincing around the Fairytale Forest. Saw some of the classics - Sleeping Giant, Talking Tree, Long Neck Dude, Little Match Girl etc.. plus, of course, the Indian Water Lilies, always a must-do on every visit.
Wanna hear sumat funny? When I was here last with the goons, Little Match Girl made @DelPiero cry!
Proper sobbing he was, bless him!
I guess the big oaf is human after all.
On our way over to the theatre, we walked past Max and Moritz and I couldn't help notice it only had a 5 minute wait, which in Efteling terminology means a walk-on, so we had a quick rip on the green side.
"Is that it?" she said as we returned to the station, only for the train and the onboard music to speed up. You should have seen her little face light up as we zoomed off for a 2nd lap!
Fab little family coaster, this.
Funnily enough, I took almost the same photo a couple of years ago. Spot the difference?
In case you're wondering, I was purposely saving Danse Macabre til last, as a sort of finale to our first day. More on that later.
CARO then: we got to the theatre with about 20 mins to spare, but it has a bar so we had another cheeky beer before going in. Only €5 for a beer. Bargain!
Brilliant show, this. Really enjoyed it. Some great original music, song and dance, illusion, acrobatics, some cool fire and water effects here and there - a proper, theatrical production. Possibly not for everyone, might be a bit arty-farty for some but we both had a great time. Would I see it again? You know what? I probably would actually. I mean, if it's your first time here and you only have one day, of course you're not gonna take 70 mins out of your day to watch a poncey theatre show, you're gonna be focusing on the headline attractions in the park, and rightly so, but if you're a repeat visitor or have multiple days, sure, why not give it a go? Something a bit different innit, and it all adds up to the 'complete' Efteling experience.
At this point it was about quarter past five, still plenty of time to get a few more rides in, so after exiting the theatre we made our way anticlockwise round the lake and came to the little Arabian area and Fata Morgana. Another walk-on, boom!
Not the best boaty dark ride in the world, not as good as, say, Piraten en Batavia at Europa or Monster Mansion at SFOG, but a solid effort nonetheless. The animatronics may be a bit dated, but at least there's plenty of them and they all work, lots going on, no rust or peeling paint anywhere - Efteling really do know how to look after their attractions. It's a long ride too and, as is customary with this place, is accompanied by some fantastic music.
Have I mentioned the music at this park yet? Pretty much all of it is amazing. Proper, orchestral pieces they are, none of that synthesised IMAscore rubbish here. I truly believe the music here is one of the main reasons that this park is so special.
Right, it was Danse Macabre time. Well... almost. It had a wait time of about 50 mins but the ride also operates a free virtual queue system which at this point was showing at 30 mins. Soooo hang on.. the virtual queue is actually quicker than the main queue? Well that's a no-brainer innit. Why would anyone join a 50 minute queue when you can just hop on to Efteling app and book a slot for 30 minutes time? But whatever, I'll take it.
Rather conveniently, that 30 minute window gave us just enough time to go and watch the Aquanura fountain show on the main lagoon.
It's a really good display but... I dunno, when you've seen it at night, with all the lighting effects, lasers and pyrotechnics etc.. a daytime show in bright sunshine just didn't quite hit the same way. But hey, it was still better than standing in a 50 minute queue.
Right, Danse Macabre, for real this time. I've already written a separate post about how much I loved this ride and now, after a second visit, I'm doubling down: it is, by far, the best ride at Efteling. I can see this being their headline attraction for many years to come. Apparently it cost €35million!
Like... holy crap, you could buy a massive B&M hyper for that!But you know what? I'm so glad they didn't. There are dozens of B&M hypers out there, but there ain't nothing else like this anywhere in the world. This is literally the perfect attraction for this park and every penny of that enormous budget is on display, the presentation here is awesome.
Mrs Howie was nervous going in. I'd told her literally nothing about it beforehand. "It's a dance" I would say "and it's quite macabre".
Although there's no pre-show as such, the batching process involves 3 main holding areas - the cemetery courtyard, the wooden bridge and the creepy dark corridor. If I had a nit-pick, it would be that the time spent in the creepy dark corridor gets a bit tedious, could do with a little something in there to liven things up a touch, but otherwise it's all very well done and builds the suspense nicely. I particularly liked the spooky sound effects emanating from deep within the trees around the wooden bridge.
By the time we were seated, Mrs Howie was genuinely quite terrified and when the doors were locked, the lights went out and the creepy little teaser sequence began, y'know, with the scary noises and the thumping footsteps etc... she was just about ready to freak out. Excellent!
However, once the 'performance' began I watched her expression morph from fear into one of sheer delight. This ride is such a joy to experience. It's just wonderful!
"That was amaaaazing" she said.
Job done.
And that was it. That was the end of our first day. It had now just turned 7pm and Efteling was closing, so we took a nice leisurely stroll back through a deserted park to the Hotel. Lovely!
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant that night, dead posh it was. It was a small-plate, tasting type deal where you get small portions of lots of things.
I'm not even sure what some of it was to be honest, but it was all banging. Bit pricey though, think it came to about €140 all in but what the hell, nice to push the boat out once in a while innit?
Spent the rest of the evening lounging around in the bar getting slowly pissed on Limoncello spritzers.
It had been a long day, we'd been up since 4am that morning, sooooo nice to just chill out on site and not have to worry about travelling anywhere that night or the following morning. Should definitely do this more often.
Day 2 began with a hotel breakfast, which was decent. Mostly continental style but there was just about enough cooked stuff on offer to forge together something resembling a full English.
Today was a Monday, with crowd levels expected to be around 25%, even quiter than yesterday, plus we had our 30 minute early entry time to take advantage of. And so, at 9.30am on the dot, us and about 4 other people entered through the guest entrance into a completely empty park!
Mrs Howie was now fully into the swing of things and, after a day of mostly dark rides and shows was, in her words, 'ready for some zoomies', so we used our ERT to head straight for Coaster Corner to mop up the creds.
Walked straight on to the front row of Python. Nice! Simple ride, but classic old school fun. Remarkably smooth and oh so pretty.
Got back to the station, nobody waiting for front row, so we got sent round again. Result!
Then minced over to Joris en de Draak. Again, walked straight onto the front row on each side. Brilliant!
Then decided to try a back row ride. Good lord, what a difference! Much more aggressive at the back. Not rough, but the airtime and the laterals are much more violent, almost uncomfortably so. Definitely a front row coaster for me. Still wild and full of airtime but feels more natural, more fluid and, frankly, less painful.
So that was 5 coaster laps in half an hour. What a start!
It was now 10am and De Vliegende Hollander was just opening so we waltzed over to that next. Is it a dark ride? Is it a coaster? Is it a water ride? Who cares, it's a fantastic all round experience and it's a must ride on every visit if you ask me. Beautifully themed, very atmospheric and a ton of fun. Great theme music too... again.
By the way, when me and the goons rode this last month, the mist in the tunnel wasn't working. Well, talk about shattering the illusion! It was still pretty dark, but you could clearly see that the tunnel was, in fact, a concrete box.
Anyway, glad to report that the mist is working again and the tunnel is back to be being as creepy as it always was.
Baron next. Still hardly any crowds in the park yet, so this too was more or less a walk-on.
Not a coaster type that floats Mrs Howie's boat normally, but I convinced her that it was worth it for the theming, the queue experience and the little pre-show type bits. In the end, she agreed. When it comes to dive coasters, I must admit I prefer the giant American ones but for me this is easily the best of the 'junior' European examples. I mean, just look at it. It's beautiful!
All coastered out for the time being, it was time for a show - Ravelijn. We missed it yesterday cos the timings clashed with the CARO show, so this was a top priority for today. Bloody love it, I do. And with just the mere appearance of horses, Mrs Howie was 100% in too!
Seriously, even if shows aren't your thing, and even if you only have 1 day here and need the creds, you should definitely try and find the time to watch this. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a giant, 5 headed, fire breathing, mechanical dragon ffs? Stunts, effects, illusions, animals and once again, some amazing music all make for a pretty spectacular show. Don't miss it.
I won't go into every last detail of the day, largely because I can't remember, but with all the important stuff now done, the rest of the time was spent mainly getting as many rides on Danse Macabre as we could, interspersed with occasional forays into other rides we liked from yesterday. We did Symbolica again, Droomvlucht, Vogel Rok, got the other side of Max & Moritz etc...
Also spent some time wandering round the Diorama, the Efteling museum, the Fairytale Forest again and had a go on the indoor carousel.
In honour of my good friend @witchfinder , I of course rode the pig.
Believe it or not, we even discovered yet another attraction that I never knew existed before - Fabula, their 4D cinema. Found it by accident, wandered into this weird cafe type building in search of food, only to find it full of jungle theming with various animatronic animals and, randomly, a big bin full of 3D glasses. 'What are these for?' we thought. It wasn't until we wandered 50 yards up the pathway that we found the entrance to the 4D cinema - a discreet gap in a hedgerow with a very small sign. Turns out the weird jungle cafe thing is actually the exit to the 4D cinema.
I mean, did you know Efteling has a 4D cinema?
Ok so it's not very good, goes on a bit too long, but the mere fact that I've been to this park 4 times previously and didn't even know it was here blows my mind!
On top of all that, I think we managed to score another 5 rides in on Danse Macabre. Aw man, I can't tell you how much I love this thing. Even after the 5th ride I was still noticing new details, new little touches here and there. And the sound quality - good lord, it's outstanding! It's as if a live orchestra is in there with you. So rich, so clear and such a wonderful piece of music too, truly spine tingling stuff. Yep, no doubt about it, I think this is easily the best dark ride in Europe. I'd take it over most coasters to be honest.
It may not have had me openly weeping like a child the way Rise of the Resistance did but it definitely gave me a big bout of the feelz on each and every ride. It's just so original, so unique and so quintessentially Efteling.
I know I'm a bit biased, I know I'm an Efteling fanboy, but even looking at it entirely objectively, I can't imagine how anyone could come off this and not think it's one of the best dark rides in the world. I think Disney or Universal would be proud to have this in one of their parks.
And that, I think, seems like a good place to wrap up this report, I think I've covered everything.
What a trip! Absolutely perfect, it was. Perfect park, perfect weather, perfect crowd levels, perfect pacing, just... perfect.
Mrs Howie is now a total Efteling fan girl. She wants to go back, and is already plotting a return trip in the Autumn or Winter to maybe stay in the new Grand Hotel! Fine by me, fill yer boots, love!
Wouldn't go as far as saying I've converted her to full goon, but now I've introduced her to a European park that isn't Merlin, one that is, y'know, well operated, fairly priced and is geared towards guest experience rather than shareholder profit, then who knows?
I do think she'd like Europa Park...
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