Efteling Theme Park host a winter event each year where the park opens the majority of it's attractions with some festive & Christmas cheer around the park. The park offers thousands of twinkling lights, winter treats, bonfires and snowy pines through out the park. The event runs from November to the end of January with a range of opening hours depending on the date.
Winter Efteling hosts several additional activities than just the usual day at the park.The first part of this would be they have an indoor / outdoor ice skating rink. Hosted in an event tent, they have a specially designed ice rink which open just for Winter Efteling. This course has a large indoors space with it branching into a smaller outside section of the tent. Priced at 2 euros, this is a super cheap additional activity that can be enjoyed by the whole family!
Alongside the ice skating, they have a wide range of winter treats going on inside this festive tent. A snowy slope has been built for everybody to slide and enjoy also. This is free of charge and just requires a short wait to get your ring to slide down. This is a short but fun extra activity hosted by the park and great to see this was free for everybody to enjoy.
The tent also included additional entertainment with a fairytale show. This included singing, dancing and other children's entertainment that went on for quite a while! Food & beverages are also available within the castle with a large range of seating in a warm enclosed tent, with additional fires and heaters being around to keep you extra snug!
The Kinderspoor pedal train track is replaced over the winter period to make way for cross-country skiing! Another free of charge addition to the winter event, grab your skies and poles as you ski across the set path with some winter themeing. This seemed fairly popular during our visit but did not include a long wait to take part!
Around the park, a selection on bonfires have been set up to keep you warmed up during the cold days and evenings. These are constantly manned by a member of staff for safety. Through parts of the day, each bonfire had different live entertainment happen around these areas. From a children's choir, live bands and other singers, this allowed people to enjoy the festive period at the park with additional entertainment outside the usual offering. Perfect for people have to wait around whilst other members of the family go on a ride or to grab a snack with some live music to keep you entertained in the background.
Winter shows are also available with a Winter Illusion show on the Villa Volta building. However, you can find all the other regular shows on such as the popular Raveleijn action packed show! As always, we enjoyed this show and really is such an impressive production that the park include with the use of animals, magic and stunts! The Aquanura show was also an incredible way to end out the day at the park. Offering 2 show times towards the end of the day, you can watch this show just after the park closes. A fountain show timed with music based on fairy tales and ride music, it is truly magical!
Our personal favourite part of the trip was of course the rides. The queues were not bad at all during our two day visit. The longest queues were around 60 minutes for Symbolica however, these reduced to half the time later on in the day. This was also our first visit where BOB was open! After a lengthy downtime period, BOB is back open before it's permanent closure after summer 2019. This would be our first and last time we have had the opportunity to ride and wow, we are glad we got to ride!
Overall, we loved Winter Efteling and think the event does add a magic touch during these colder months at the park. We love all of the additions which are either free of charge or cheap. All of the additional entertainment around the park is on a scale we do not see by many European parks, with such a variety of performances shown. These events really do show that Efteling is a great park to visit whatever the season! Winter Efteling runs until the 31st January and more information can be found over on their website...
