A day at the Efteling

In October, Jan-Kees' company had an outing at the Efteling, a disneyland style fairy tale amusement park in the south of the Netherlands. I've been twice before in my 10 years here, both times before Little Man. Even though this was something that should be a 'papa' event, I wsa asked to come along becuase the entrance covered two adults, and the thought of J-K on his own with Kevin in an acres big, crowded park made me more than a little nervous, so I tagged along for my own piece of mind, and to enjoy the day through the eyes of Little Man.

It was on a Sunday, which meant getting up at 6.00am, meeting up at 7.30 and driving the 1.5 hours south to get the park at around 9am. It was a very cold but clear morning, and after some warm coffee and a donut welcome session, we were allowed to hit the park at the 10am opening time, to be first in line for everything we wanted to do at that time of the day.

First we did the boat ride attraction '1001 nights', which was a bit freaky even for my taste and Kevin seemed to not like at all. His verdict: A little scary. Sso, off we went to a water ride where you get splashedby rapids and bump into other boats during rapids and mini waterfalls...kevin had a blast, (and the only one to stay dry) but it was still quite cool in the morning and both J-K and I ended up soaking wet.



From there we walked (Kevin ran, of course) to a different section of the park, then it was time to ride the carousel with papa so I could take pictures. From the carousel it was time to have a coffee, and by then Little Man (having been awake since 5.30) was getting quite grumpy, so for the first time that day he was strapped in the buggy (under loud and public protests, of course) , and feel asleep 5 mins later in mid whine about how he wanted to walk.


For the next hour, Kevin dozed in his buggy while we wandered through the rest of the park and formed the battle plan for the rest of the afternoon. There was the pagoda that takes you 100 feet in the air and does a slow turn so you have a view of the whole park, then we did the outdoor boat that lets your turn and wander through a man made lake/lagoon for 20 mins, and then it was time to hop on the choo choo train for a tour of the outer edge of the park, then back to the buggy and the long walk from where we were to the exits.

We stopped at the gift shop and turned a 5 cent piece (which looks similiar to a US penny) into a stretched and stamped souvenir, then he was allowed to pick one something as a reminder of the day and he chose a turtle from one of the rides he liked the least, but the animal he loved.

By then it was 3.30 in the afternoon and mommy at least was done for the day, but I still had the drive back to do. Kevin watched a DVD and talked to himself (and us) about the day, the cars we passed, the cows we saw......1.5 hours of running commentary from a wired 2.5 year old...it makes the time and kilometeres pass, that's for sure :-)