Friday 25th Jan
Nic and I awoke at some silly time in the morning (about 3am), we got ready and drove to Stansted airport. Soon enough we had arrived at the airport where we went straight through security and went to grab some breakfast at 'spoons. Time passed by and we soon found ourselves sitting on very cold seats on our Ryanair flight to Eindhoven.
Upon arrival at Eindhoven (which is a tiny airport) we had to ask the lady at the info desk where the bus stop was as it wasn't clearly signposted etc (not helped by a big construction site for a new hotel on top of the airport getting in the way). The info lady was amazingly helpful and seemed a little confused that some random British peeps were on their way to Efteling.
We went over to the bus stop where we had to use some ticket machines to pay for the bus. It sits in the corner of the car park which has the following sign...
Some fellow Brits were a bit confused by the bus so we tried to help them out, turns out they were just clueless as to the location of their hotel and just went to get a cab instead. We got on the bus and we were soon on our way to Eindhoven train station. It was weird being back there because it reminded us of our trip in 2010 when it was Holland day (I have no idea what the holiday is actually called) where the entire place was swarmed with loud happy people all in bright orange. Good memories.
The ticket machines at the train station confused us a bit so we just went in search of the ticket desk where helpful man gave us our tickets quickly and informed us as to where we needed to go. Our train arrived shortly after we got to the platform, good timing was good. The train was actually quite nice and 20 minutes later we were in Tilburg.
From Tilburg we had to catch another bus which took us to Efteling. An Efteling staff member was also on the bus so everyone basically followed him. Till he went to cross a road, turned around and pretty much told a couple to walk further down the road to the car park entrance. So there were probably about 15 people now walking down this street covered in snow and ice towards Efteling. About 10 minutes later and we had reached the car park. We didn't have our tickets yet so we walked over to the holiday village where we were staying. The park was only just opening so everyone was walking in the opposite direction to us but we soon made it to the reception desk. The lady behind the counter was very happy and informative and gave us our pack of stuff for the weekend. We couldn't get into the room just yet so we left our bags in a free locker in the reception area.
We then walked back over to the park entrance and entered for the first time of the weekend. We weren't really sure what we wanted to do first but as it was the first thing we came across we opted to go through the Jonathan Creek attraction, otherwise known as Spookslot.
We had just missed a performance so we had to wait in the very dark corridor for ages. If you don't know what Spookslot is, it's an animatronic show set to the music, Danse Macabre of Saint-Saëns. It opened back in '78 but being Efteling they made a TV special with Kate Bush singing her music amongst the attraction. #onlyatEfteling
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRgiOclY-H4[/youtube]
Upon exiting the attraction we decided to watch Panda of Doom. Commonly known as PandaDroom, a 4D show with awful CGI, awful 3D and it basically tells you to stop harming the environment that animals live in. It also teaches you that Pandas have super strength. The queueline is actually really nice, it weaves itself through a small forest with lots of little sculptures and water features. It was so cold that most of those had frozen over, it was kinda magical.
The ice waterfall from the other side
Annoyingly the best bit about the 4D show, the tree of death, wasn't working. Another great bit about this attraction though is its exit into a play area themed to each part of the film with lots of random bits to play with and slides. It also has a shop and cafe/restaurant. It's like what Joey dreams of all attraction exits being like.
We wanted to continue the trend of indoor attractions because it was bloomin' freezing so we headed over to Fata Morgana. Here's a quick test: Real ice or theming?
It was a trick question. The answer is both. #onlyatEfteling
The exterior of Fata Morgana looked really odd covered in snow. Palm trees + snow= ?
As expected it was nice and warm inside. My camera lens didn't really approve of this drastic change in temperature.
We noticed that the terrorist has been removed. Whether this is forever or just because he's being fixed we're not sure. I forgot how many animatronics they have in this ride though, it's very impressive and the majority of it seemed to be working too.
We went to the park centre to decide what to do next. We kept seeing the Flying Island "Pagoda" go up and both realising we'd never been on it decided to head over to it. We'd only been on the one at Gardaland before so it was still a bit of a novelty to us. The ride gives you such an amazing view of the entire park, it looked even more amazing in the snow and ice.
The 2015 dark ride is going here apparently
I love the Rahjavlin building
The boats were running but you couldn't get on, was really weird
We decided to walk over to Vogel Rok next. I love that during the Winter they give him a big hat and scarf.
The ride had no queue which was nice. They were also running it with just one train which is when it dawned on me how short the ride actually is. The sound system on the train though was blaring out which made the ride experience a million times better as the music is amazing. I really love Vogel Rok, it's just really good fun, it picks up a great amount of speed and the music works so well with the ride experience.
Sitting next door is Carnaval Festival, a It's a small world knock-off Efteling-style. It's got a song that is just as catchy as Small World too. Once again it impresses me how many working animatronics it has.
French prostitute made us chuckle
That's Jokie flying the plane, he features throughout the entire ride along with his little purple bird friend
"How you doing?" said the goat thing trying to chat up the French prostitute.
It all went a bit Les Mis in Italy
Apparently us Brits are all pirates
Sitting opposite Carnaval Festival is Monsieur Cannibale, a tea-cups like attraction themed to a cannibal. Adding to the experience is probably the most catchy piece of music associated with cannibals...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YwSTThGDMo[/youtube]
Yes, this was a thing. Yes, this will now be in your head for the next week.
Even the 'cars' are cooking pots
We decided to walk over to one of the foresty parts of the park. There was a giant tent, we had a look inside. What we found was a massive ice rink with no barrier and trees. Lots of trees with fake snow. It also had a food and drink area which was themed.
Volk van Laaf was where we found ourselves end up. It's the monorail attraction that goes around the village of Laaf. This strange style buildings all contain little effects, things to play with and/or animatronics. It's pretty cool that they'd gone to so much effort for something like this.
We wanted to explore this little land more but we were hungry so we went in search of food instead. As we're both bad at making decisions this took way more time than was necessary. I think we spent a good amount of time faffing in the restaurant themed to a white horse before deciding to just head to the Octopus place at the exit of Panda of Doom.
On our way over to it we came across these really nice Anton Pieck pictures which we later found out lit up really nicely at night.
Even Pardoes has wrapped up warm with a scarf
The birds dealing with the ice
After a nice warm panini we made the bold decision to enter the FOREST OF FOREVER. It's not really called that, it's really called Sprookjesbos. A forest filled with fairy tale stories told in various ways. A lot of them we had to read the little books dotted about to find out what they were trying to portray as we'd never heard of them. It's by far the biggest attraction of this type I've ever seen with a total of 29 stories told, all connected by just one very long path that winds its way around the forest. It's something they add to every now and again and although you can tell what is new because of the effects they're all designed to really fit in with the overall look of the entire forest. Very impressive. Time for some photos me thinks.
Along the path in between the story areas are speakers themed to mushrooms
Something about gnomes
See, a gnome
The troll king is one of the newer ones, he's a very impressive animatronic that says stuff in Dutch
Right, we totally read up on this one. This is longneck who is one of the 6 servants who helps a prince defeat the 6 challanges set up by the Sorceress who's daughter is the prettiest ever More info
Rapunzel with her rather pink earmuffs
Terrifying
"SNOW!" exclaimed the gingerbread man as he excitedly threw it at his face*
*Ignore the one drinking blood
"I want to make it snow MOAR!" exclaimed the crazy old lady as she killed a perfectly good pillow
I spy with my eye two coloured birds. Yes, they are real. Yes, Efteling paint birds.
Everything turned magical when Cinderella's slipper was returned
Home of the crazy awesome song and dancing barbies
The new for 2012 part. Emperor's new clothes. Extremely impressive design and animatronics yet still fits in with everything else
The king is totally starkers
We reckon it took us between an hour or two to get through the FOREST OF FOREVER. At one point we came across a newly wed couple getting their wedding photos taken amongst the theming, I bet their photos look magical with all the snow.
We popped into one of the shops and Nic found a hat that she just absolutely had to have. Here she is with said goon hat of awesomeness...
Inside the shop <3
Next we went over to the RAHvajiln area to find they had started the campfires. There was a random peacock as well which was random.
It was really nice to be standing outside in a really nice part of the park next to a fire. We decided to head indoors anyway. It was time for some Droomvlucht (otherwise known as Dream Cred). It's such an impressive dark ride. You sit in these cars which hang from the ceiling (like Peter Pan's Flight) with a motor to power you along the fake Vekoma track. You're taken through various magical areas occupied by goblins, fairies and animals. I've never seen so many flowers before, especially fake ones for theming purposes. The finale is really amazing. You spiral down (such a CRED) past a really tall forest which even has fake rain. It's just really impressive and the smells they pump out are really pleasant and just, yeah, magical.
More photos in the next stage of report.
We then went over to Villa Volta. It's apparently the first large-scale mad house but you couldn't tell. The effect works really well in this one too.
Animatronic old man tells us a story
Inside the beautifully decorated room
We then walked over to the Anton Pieck square where we found the Efteling Museum. The first room is almost like something out of a horror film, filled with old bits of theming and animatronics. Very fascinating though. The next room is filled with old merch and concept art. The last room is decorated for the 60th anniversary which is quite cool.
Old park uniform is very smart
old map
I want this on my wall
Old concept for a few new attractions including a coaster
It was nearly time for the first winter projection show on Villa Volta so we grabbed a hot chocolate and waited for it to start. Annoyingly it was still a bit too bright for it to work properly so we decided to just make sure we watched it again the next day when the park was open later.
We went back to the Anton Pieck square where we went on an old chairswing type ride. This turned out to be a bad idea because it was freezing cold and as we were spinning it was just harshly slapping us in the face.
We then went over for some more Vogel Rok. Still awesome.
We then went over to near the other lake for AquaNura. We were still a bit early so found a fire to warm ourselves. This one was outside the bobsled coaster and there was a winter market vibe going on with lots of lights. One of the trees had loads of clocks hanging from it which amused us.
It was then time to go see AquaNura. It was freezing cold but we were so excited to finally see it. Wow, it was totally worth the wait. They start by sort of giving the back story of the show in Dutch and English and then it begins and it's just fantastic. The colours they've chosen throughout are just really nice and work very well. The fountains are so in time with the music it's brilliant and then FIRE. Throughout the entire show Nic and I just had stupid smirks of joy. It's just perfect.
[imghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/314769_10152466629425360_2004855522_n.jpg[/img]
The park was now closed so we went outside to take photos of the amazing entrance at night before heading to the holiday village. While waiting for peeps to move out of the way to take photos we must have taken about 4 or 5 group photos because we were just standing there lol.
Thanks for reading. I need a break, I started writing this up hours ago. I shall continue soon.
Nic and I awoke at some silly time in the morning (about 3am), we got ready and drove to Stansted airport. Soon enough we had arrived at the airport where we went straight through security and went to grab some breakfast at 'spoons. Time passed by and we soon found ourselves sitting on very cold seats on our Ryanair flight to Eindhoven.
Upon arrival at Eindhoven (which is a tiny airport) we had to ask the lady at the info desk where the bus stop was as it wasn't clearly signposted etc (not helped by a big construction site for a new hotel on top of the airport getting in the way). The info lady was amazingly helpful and seemed a little confused that some random British peeps were on their way to Efteling.
We went over to the bus stop where we had to use some ticket machines to pay for the bus. It sits in the corner of the car park which has the following sign...
Some fellow Brits were a bit confused by the bus so we tried to help them out, turns out they were just clueless as to the location of their hotel and just went to get a cab instead. We got on the bus and we were soon on our way to Eindhoven train station. It was weird being back there because it reminded us of our trip in 2010 when it was Holland day (I have no idea what the holiday is actually called) where the entire place was swarmed with loud happy people all in bright orange. Good memories.
The ticket machines at the train station confused us a bit so we just went in search of the ticket desk where helpful man gave us our tickets quickly and informed us as to where we needed to go. Our train arrived shortly after we got to the platform, good timing was good. The train was actually quite nice and 20 minutes later we were in Tilburg.
From Tilburg we had to catch another bus which took us to Efteling. An Efteling staff member was also on the bus so everyone basically followed him. Till he went to cross a road, turned around and pretty much told a couple to walk further down the road to the car park entrance. So there were probably about 15 people now walking down this street covered in snow and ice towards Efteling. About 10 minutes later and we had reached the car park. We didn't have our tickets yet so we walked over to the holiday village where we were staying. The park was only just opening so everyone was walking in the opposite direction to us but we soon made it to the reception desk. The lady behind the counter was very happy and informative and gave us our pack of stuff for the weekend. We couldn't get into the room just yet so we left our bags in a free locker in the reception area.
We then walked back over to the park entrance and entered for the first time of the weekend. We weren't really sure what we wanted to do first but as it was the first thing we came across we opted to go through the Jonathan Creek attraction, otherwise known as Spookslot.
We had just missed a performance so we had to wait in the very dark corridor for ages. If you don't know what Spookslot is, it's an animatronic show set to the music, Danse Macabre of Saint-Saëns. It opened back in '78 but being Efteling they made a TV special with Kate Bush singing her music amongst the attraction. #onlyatEfteling
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRgiOclY-H4[/youtube]
Upon exiting the attraction we decided to watch Panda of Doom. Commonly known as PandaDroom, a 4D show with awful CGI, awful 3D and it basically tells you to stop harming the environment that animals live in. It also teaches you that Pandas have super strength. The queueline is actually really nice, it weaves itself through a small forest with lots of little sculptures and water features. It was so cold that most of those had frozen over, it was kinda magical.
The ice waterfall from the other side
Annoyingly the best bit about the 4D show, the tree of death, wasn't working. Another great bit about this attraction though is its exit into a play area themed to each part of the film with lots of random bits to play with and slides. It also has a shop and cafe/restaurant. It's like what Joey dreams of all attraction exits being like.
We wanted to continue the trend of indoor attractions because it was bloomin' freezing so we headed over to Fata Morgana. Here's a quick test: Real ice or theming?
It was a trick question. The answer is both. #onlyatEfteling
The exterior of Fata Morgana looked really odd covered in snow. Palm trees + snow= ?
As expected it was nice and warm inside. My camera lens didn't really approve of this drastic change in temperature.
We noticed that the terrorist has been removed. Whether this is forever or just because he's being fixed we're not sure. I forgot how many animatronics they have in this ride though, it's very impressive and the majority of it seemed to be working too.
We went to the park centre to decide what to do next. We kept seeing the Flying Island "Pagoda" go up and both realising we'd never been on it decided to head over to it. We'd only been on the one at Gardaland before so it was still a bit of a novelty to us. The ride gives you such an amazing view of the entire park, it looked even more amazing in the snow and ice.
The 2015 dark ride is going here apparently
I love the Rahjavlin building
The boats were running but you couldn't get on, was really weird
We decided to walk over to Vogel Rok next. I love that during the Winter they give him a big hat and scarf.
The ride had no queue which was nice. They were also running it with just one train which is when it dawned on me how short the ride actually is. The sound system on the train though was blaring out which made the ride experience a million times better as the music is amazing. I really love Vogel Rok, it's just really good fun, it picks up a great amount of speed and the music works so well with the ride experience.
Sitting next door is Carnaval Festival, a It's a small world knock-off Efteling-style. It's got a song that is just as catchy as Small World too. Once again it impresses me how many working animatronics it has.
French prostitute made us chuckle
That's Jokie flying the plane, he features throughout the entire ride along with his little purple bird friend
"How you doing?" said the goat thing trying to chat up the French prostitute.
It all went a bit Les Mis in Italy
Apparently us Brits are all pirates
Sitting opposite Carnaval Festival is Monsieur Cannibale, a tea-cups like attraction themed to a cannibal. Adding to the experience is probably the most catchy piece of music associated with cannibals...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YwSTThGDMo[/youtube]
Yes, this was a thing. Yes, this will now be in your head for the next week.
Even the 'cars' are cooking pots
We decided to walk over to one of the foresty parts of the park. There was a giant tent, we had a look inside. What we found was a massive ice rink with no barrier and trees. Lots of trees with fake snow. It also had a food and drink area which was themed.
Volk van Laaf was where we found ourselves end up. It's the monorail attraction that goes around the village of Laaf. This strange style buildings all contain little effects, things to play with and/or animatronics. It's pretty cool that they'd gone to so much effort for something like this.
We wanted to explore this little land more but we were hungry so we went in search of food instead. As we're both bad at making decisions this took way more time than was necessary. I think we spent a good amount of time faffing in the restaurant themed to a white horse before deciding to just head to the Octopus place at the exit of Panda of Doom.
On our way over to it we came across these really nice Anton Pieck pictures which we later found out lit up really nicely at night.
Even Pardoes has wrapped up warm with a scarf
The birds dealing with the ice
After a nice warm panini we made the bold decision to enter the FOREST OF FOREVER. It's not really called that, it's really called Sprookjesbos. A forest filled with fairy tale stories told in various ways. A lot of them we had to read the little books dotted about to find out what they were trying to portray as we'd never heard of them. It's by far the biggest attraction of this type I've ever seen with a total of 29 stories told, all connected by just one very long path that winds its way around the forest. It's something they add to every now and again and although you can tell what is new because of the effects they're all designed to really fit in with the overall look of the entire forest. Very impressive. Time for some photos me thinks.
Along the path in between the story areas are speakers themed to mushrooms
Something about gnomes
See, a gnome
The troll king is one of the newer ones, he's a very impressive animatronic that says stuff in Dutch
Right, we totally read up on this one. This is longneck who is one of the 6 servants who helps a prince defeat the 6 challanges set up by the Sorceress who's daughter is the prettiest ever More info
Rapunzel with her rather pink earmuffs
Terrifying
"SNOW!" exclaimed the gingerbread man as he excitedly threw it at his face*
*Ignore the one drinking blood
"I want to make it snow MOAR!" exclaimed the crazy old lady as she killed a perfectly good pillow
I spy with my eye two coloured birds. Yes, they are real. Yes, Efteling paint birds.
Everything turned magical when Cinderella's slipper was returned
Home of the crazy awesome song and dancing barbies
The new for 2012 part. Emperor's new clothes. Extremely impressive design and animatronics yet still fits in with everything else
The king is totally starkers
We reckon it took us between an hour or two to get through the FOREST OF FOREVER. At one point we came across a newly wed couple getting their wedding photos taken amongst the theming, I bet their photos look magical with all the snow.
We popped into one of the shops and Nic found a hat that she just absolutely had to have. Here she is with said goon hat of awesomeness...
Inside the shop <3
Next we went over to the RAHvajiln area to find they had started the campfires. There was a random peacock as well which was random.
It was really nice to be standing outside in a really nice part of the park next to a fire. We decided to head indoors anyway. It was time for some Droomvlucht (otherwise known as Dream Cred). It's such an impressive dark ride. You sit in these cars which hang from the ceiling (like Peter Pan's Flight) with a motor to power you along the fake Vekoma track. You're taken through various magical areas occupied by goblins, fairies and animals. I've never seen so many flowers before, especially fake ones for theming purposes. The finale is really amazing. You spiral down (such a CRED) past a really tall forest which even has fake rain. It's just really impressive and the smells they pump out are really pleasant and just, yeah, magical.
More photos in the next stage of report.
We then went over to Villa Volta. It's apparently the first large-scale mad house but you couldn't tell. The effect works really well in this one too.
Animatronic old man tells us a story
Inside the beautifully decorated room
We then walked over to the Anton Pieck square where we found the Efteling Museum. The first room is almost like something out of a horror film, filled with old bits of theming and animatronics. Very fascinating though. The next room is filled with old merch and concept art. The last room is decorated for the 60th anniversary which is quite cool.
Old park uniform is very smart
old map
I want this on my wall
Old concept for a few new attractions including a coaster
It was nearly time for the first winter projection show on Villa Volta so we grabbed a hot chocolate and waited for it to start. Annoyingly it was still a bit too bright for it to work properly so we decided to just make sure we watched it again the next day when the park was open later.
We went back to the Anton Pieck square where we went on an old chairswing type ride. This turned out to be a bad idea because it was freezing cold and as we were spinning it was just harshly slapping us in the face.
We then went over for some more Vogel Rok. Still awesome.
We then went over to near the other lake for AquaNura. We were still a bit early so found a fire to warm ourselves. This one was outside the bobsled coaster and there was a winter market vibe going on with lots of lights. One of the trees had loads of clocks hanging from it which amused us.
It was then time to go see AquaNura. It was freezing cold but we were so excited to finally see it. Wow, it was totally worth the wait. They start by sort of giving the back story of the show in Dutch and English and then it begins and it's just fantastic. The colours they've chosen throughout are just really nice and work very well. The fountains are so in time with the music it's brilliant and then FIRE. Throughout the entire show Nic and I just had stupid smirks of joy. It's just perfect.
[imghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/314769_10152466629425360_2004855522_n.jpg[/img]
The park was now closed so we went outside to take photos of the amazing entrance at night before heading to the holiday village. While waiting for peeps to move out of the way to take photos we must have taken about 4 or 5 group photos because we were just standing there lol.
Thanks for reading. I need a break, I started writing this up hours ago. I shall continue soon.
) will, I expect, appear back very soon. It isn't the first time some animatronics in Fata (my favorite ride in the world so far btw) dissapear, and then come back, better looking than ever.
