De Efteling: a pre-Disney theme park

The international student organization, ESN, set up a day trip to the Dutch theme park De Efteling, which opened before Disneyland in California.  In a nature park, they built scenes from a variety of fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Rapunzel and the Little Red Riding Hood. As time went on they added more fairytales like the Little Matchgirl and the Little Nightingale.  I thought it very well done and definitely would have loved it as a child.  The park also created other "realms" to accommodate the older crowd and built a number of roller coasters and other rides: Reizenrijk (Travel Realm), Marerijk (Fairy Realm), Ruigrijk (Rough Realm and Anderrijk (Differ Realm).

 

On the bus I had sat next to a girl from Australia and we both decided to walk around the Fairytale Forest instead of going straight for the rides. We were both interested in the park's take on the famous stories from the Grimm Brothers, Mother Goose and Hans Christian Anderson.  They even had a fairytale from Queen Fabiola of Belgium about a witch with a beautiful voice and waterlilies that open on the full moon to reveal fairies dancing.

At a number of places around the park were the famous Paper Gobblers that "eat" the trash.  Basically they call for passersby to feed it paper as a way to encourage children to throw the trash away and not on the ground.  It was quite clever and you could see plenty of children finding trash to pick up and "feed" them.


One of the rides I went on was really pretty called Droomvlucht (Dream Flight) as you sat in these booths set on tracks that brought you through various rooms with fantasy scenes of gnomes and fairies and the like.  The ride is set up similar to Disney's Peter Pan ride but of course we an entirely different theme and not so much a storyline.  The last thing we did was go to the Revelijn show, which was about 5 children that become 5 knights for a fantasy realm that is under the power of evil duke that has a mechanical dragon with 5 heads.  It was kind of cheesy, but still good for kids. 

All in all, it was a nice relaxing day and I can definitely see why this park would a big destination for families with children! I only really saw about 1/2 to 2/3 of the park so probably should go back and experience some of the roller coasters they have there.  Basically, whatever age you are you should be able to find something you like.  And the nice thing about De Efteling is that it is not too commercialized, definitely different from Disney (though I am still in love with Disney World). On the other hand, De Efteling and Disney have a good relationship with each other, which is nice to hear.