My easy-breezy family holiday to Europe's wackiest theme park

Times

a day ago

I used to be fun. Before I had kids, planning for a theme park visit would have meant getting excited about rollercoasters and wondering if I would have time to ride the best ones twice. Now? It's all fretting about parking, luggage and the sheer tedium of how to get around a busy attraction in the school summer holidays with three small kids.
Or is it? I was the first journalist through the doors of the new hotel at beloved Dutch theme park Efteling, just ahead of the official opening on August 1, and the first clue that things might be a bit different here came a week or so before we arrived. Check-in at Efteling Grand Hotel was completed online, our car registration was taken and valet parking confirmed. Fast forward to our stay and there we were sailing through the automatic barriers, handing our car keys to a man in a waistcoat and watching our luggage being whisked away while the children pinged around the hotel's elegant lobby like cats released from cages (or, rather, preschoolers unclipped after a day spent in their car seats).
It's about a four-hour drive from the Calais end of the Channel tunnel to Efteling in the south of the Netherlands, an hour or so from Rotterdam, and it showed. In the lobby our five-year-old banged on the keys of the grand piano, her younger sister sprinted up the spiral staircase and their two-year-old brother clambered over an artfully arranged pile of vintage suitcases. Fortunately, there were indulgent smiles from the hotel staff as we corralled them all into the lift and up to our suite. Thanks to the Efteling app, I had our room key already to hand: no in-person check-in required.
Rooms at the hotel are vast. Ours had three separate bedrooms (two doubles, the other with bunks), while even the smallest I saw came with a built-in single kids bunk. All 140 of them have views of the park — across to the thatched peaks of the entrance building and the fountains of Vonderplas lake, or into the Fairytale Forest, where recreations of 31 fairytale scenes, including Rapunzel in her tower and Sleeping Beauty in her castle, are dotted throughout a pleasant woodland. The kids pressed their palms against the floor-to-ceiling windows and fizzed with excitement.
There's a nod to the grand 19th-century hotels of Europe throughout the hotel, with squishy carpets in bold monochrome print, wood-panelled walls painted rich magenta and plenty of brushed gold, but what really sets Efteling Grand Hotel apart is its location. This isn't one of those theme park hotels that requires shuttle buses and lengthy walks to reach the park gates; it is literally inside the park. Plus, guests not only have their own dedicated entrance to the Fairytale Forest, but also access to the park half an hour ahead of everybody else.
So we were into the park at 9.30am the next morning, standing alone outside Hansel and Gretel's house and coming face to squealing face with a dragon. There's a glorious almost-wild feeling to this part of the park, with logs to climb on and paths that wind between the trees. This zone dates back to 1952 and was the work of the Dutch artist Anton Pieck and the film-maker Peter Reijnders. It's a charming place, not least because it immediately engages all three children, who spot gnomes and a troll king, and talk to a parrot that talks right back, speaking sagely of not answering the door to the big bad wolf. The highlight? Probably the Pinocchio attraction, where the four-year-old shrieks with glee as she swings a vast fishing rod in the face of a giant monster fish and finds the wooden boy hiding inside its mouth.
Because the hotel is just inside the park gates we were able to break up exploring its attractions with short rests in our room or a quick swim in the indoor pool. This immediately became my favourite spot in the hotel, with a more spa-like feel than any family pool I've seen: the water was properly warm, there were bubble jets the kids could sit among with us and a soothing dusky-blue-and-white colour scheme throughout. Even better, the shallowest pool was only 5cm deep and came with a water jet and an array of (tastefully coloured) plastic cups for little ones to play with. It kept our youngest entertained for ages, while the complimentary armbands meant our two nonswimmers could safely pootle around the deeper pools more or less unaided. I actually relaxed for a few minutes there.
Unfortunately the hotel's restaurants didn't quite nail it. There are two, both overlooking Vonderplas lake: Brasserie 7 on the ground floor, which serves classic dishes such as French onion soup and steak tartare (mains from £21), and Mystique, a family fine dining affair on the first floor. I could perhaps chalk up Brasserie 7's glacially slow service to teething problems, but I can't imagine families wanting to book Mystique's 'adventurous flavour combinations' (£56 for three courses). It's not recommended for children younger than nine, but even so, we're talking ingredients such as wasabi root and kohlrabi and I'm not sure you would want to spend several hours sitting at a restaurant table, given the park stays open until 10pm. Better, I'd say, to come here for a drink, taken while perched on a stool overlooking the crowds during the nightly Aquanura fountain show that lights up Vonderplas lake.
On our final afternoon I took advantage of the hotel's superb location, sending my husband on the easy stroll back to the room with the kids while I grabbed the opportunity to indulge my love of rollercoasters. Thanks to Efteling's separate lines for solo riders, which slot you into otherwise empty seats, I was able to walk straight on to Joris en de Draak and was speeding along its wooden track, whooping, arms raised, before the kids would even have found the TV remote. Within the hour I had also ridden the speedy steel coaster Python, the indoor coaster Vogel Rok, which swoops like an eagle through utter darkness, and my instant favourite, Baron 1898.
All my pretrip fretting over practicalities hadn't allowed any time for reading about Efteling's rides, which left me totally unprepared for Baron 1898's whopping 37.5m freefall. And so, surprised and delighted, I let out an involuntary giggle/gasp as we hung motionless above the drop — and sparked a booming belly laugh from the man seated next to me. Perhaps I can still be quite fun after all. Helen Ochyra was a guest of Efteling Grand Hotel, which has B&B family rooms for four from £508, including valet parking and park entry (efteling.com). Drive from the UK, or take the train or fly to Eindhoven