On Boxing Day, we all decided to go to the Efteling (thanks to Fem’s mum!) . This is one of the major theme parks in Holland, sort of like a Dutch Disneyland in a way.
It was a very cold day as you would expect, but the weather was great. Most of the main rollercoasters were closed for winter, but I was ok with that for the other two smaller rollercoasters I could not fit into anyway due to ridiculously small leg room. I don’t get it. Holland has the tallest people in the world (on average) and yet the rollercoasters are all designed for 10 year old Asian girls. It just does not make any sense.
There was a lot of people there as you could image. (sun + holidays = lots of people) but the queue times were not too bad. They ranged from about 5 to 30 minutes. The trick was trying to stay warm while snaking your way through the exposed lines outside.
Outside of most rides, where other people were waiting for their friends who were in the queue they had these big bonfires to try and keep people warm. This helped nicely.
Quite a few of the rides consisted of just sitting in a cart as you were paraded past large setups with animatronics and lavish sets. This was pretty interesting but it still pales in comparison to the Superman Ride at Movieworld in Australia. However there was still a lot to see and do. Ranging from live wind up dolls, to an ice skating rink, plenty of statues and a cool winter theme throughout the park.
The Efteling certainly has a fairy tale theme to it all, with lots of references to wood folk, Arabian nights, fairies and troll like characters. It was a great way to spend a day.
The sun set at about 4:45pm and you can stay there until 8pm which meant everything was lit up really well. I was wishing for a tripod to capture the night scenes but I had to settle for putting my 50D on a brick wall to get the two shots below. We all had a good time and were able to walk off the two massive meals we had on Christmas day!
