For a family birthday we spent (much of) two days within the Efteling Theme Park, and one night in the hotel. The hotel was very good, and it coped well with the necessary coronavirus restrictions. Our evening meal there was brilliant. We elected to have our breakfast at 10.00am in Polles Koeken restaurant to enable us to experience a few rides beforehand. Polles Koeken coped less well with the necessary restrictions (including little idea of the meaning of service), BUT the sting in the tail was the much looked forward to coffee; it was warm (possibly since 06.00am) but was bitter in the extreme - two of us found it undrinkable!!! However the kids still had two wonderful days.
Stayed for one night in a comfort room with my daughter. She thought the hotel was fantastic as everything is efteling themed. As an adult I preferred the local hotel we had stayed in the night before at a fraction of the price. I would say the room is a little dated. There are no tea and coffee making facilities, the bathroom is old fashioned, but worst for me was the bed was so hard and uncomfortable. It was like sleeping on an ironing board. I woke many times in the night actually in pain. The mattresses really need to be replaced or at least get a mattress topper on them. The breakfast was good and we enjoyed a drink in the bar. Possibly the children’s play area could be extended too. Probably I won’t stay here again.
We booked our winter weekend break as a drive not fly (one son hates flying) and weren’t disappointed. Hotel is good and breakfast great. 😁 Hotel guests supposedly get in 30 mins before others and some of the big rides start early but the staff on the gate forgot/overslept on our first day so we got in the same time as everyone and suffered no advantage 😕 We have early teens and did the park in 2.5 days but is wasn’t very busy. Caro is a must - like Cirque De Soleil - and discounted if staying in the hotel. With a car at the hotel we popped out the evening not in the park. Tasty Italy in Waalwijk was less than 10 minutes and things like KFC, Burgerking and McDs less - yes, my food-heathens insisted one night 😞 Would recommend a 3 night to include travel from UK if close to (<3h) tunnel.…
We stayed at the hotel 2 nights, the reception looked perfect, very magical, the room we had was the comfort room, it wasn’t particularly magical and the bathroom felt very dated. The room was quite noisy (the main reason for the low rating), we were next to the circus suit and could hear a lot of noise coming through the wall from that room, we could also hear lots of other noises around us, banging, children crying, hairdryer, however road noise was not an issue for us and we were next to the main road. Disappointed with the lack of tea and coffee in the room, especially in the country that gives it to you for free in supermarkets and various other places! The fairytale characters at the hotel were really great and we had no issue with them only telling the stories in Dutch, Cinderella spoke to our son during breakfast and she was lovely, he was completely star struck! The lifts are pretty bad, it says only 13 people per lift but when you have luggage with you, which more often than not someone using it did that meant there was only really room for 5 or 6 people. Breakfast was as expected for a Dutch hotel, mostly typical Dutch breakfast choices such as bread, cheese and meats, but also croissants, Efteling themed cupcakes, scrambled egg, pancakes, bacon and some cereals, I won’t list all the rest. I will say that although I don’t mind what I eat or drink I did notice a lack of choices for those who don’t drink milk or have to avoid gluten, I didn’t not see any signs indicating if something was vegan or not. The fact that you can go to the park so easily from the hotel was fantastic, we felt we could take our time and could even come back and rest before going out again, this was a big plus. I’ve seen people comment on how the hotel looks from the outside, we as a family thought it looked fun, my son said it was a rocket, you should also look at it at night as it looks like it’s floating, pretty cool! We would stay here again but really hope the sound issues can be fixed. I’m aware that sound proofing rooms is a big undertaking and can’t be done over night, maybe next time we will try and avoid being next to a themed room as this caused the most noise for us. Also update the bathrooms, the toilets in the lobby/reception are so nice and something similar to this would be great, but obviously in the colour scheme of the rooms.…
I booked the hotel online a full months in advance, full payment had to be made several weeks prior to our stay. Tickets arrived in the post 10 days before we arrived and it was very nice to receive an email with tips and ideas/things to do everyday during the week before our stay. This helped build up our excitement. After a long car journey from the UK we arrived around 1pm but didn’t receive a particular warm or friendly welcome (served by the man with the curly moustache and nose piercing) in fact he didn’t even smile at us. Our room wasn’t available until 3pm so we went to the park for a few hours. We stayed in the Hans Christian Anderson Suite, it was clean and beds comfortable but little things disappointed. We had 2 pretty ‘flame’ bedside lamps but one wasn’t working, the radiator in the bedroom was stone cold even though the others were hot, and we had cabinets with props from fairytales displayed in but some of the cabinet bulbs had blown and needed replacing. We reported the lamp and radiator to reception, the lamp was replaced 24 hours later but we were told nothing was wrong with the radiator! The free Wi-fi was very hit or miss, we’re a family of 4 and all have iPhones but only 2 of us could connect in the room at any one time. The very old fashioned hairdryer fixed in the bathroom cabinet desperately needs replacing, it wasn’t powerful enough to dry mine or my daughters hair. The hotel has 8 floors but only has 2 small lifts. We were on floor 6 and many times had to use the metal fire escape staircase as the wait for a lift was absolutely ridiculous. Hotel faces a VERY busy road on a junction with traffic lights, traffic noise woke me between 6-6.30 every morning. Breakfast was a continental buffet and nice but VERY busy, the only hot food was eggs and bacon. Hotel bar very reasonably priced with very friendly staff. We saw the CARO show, which was ok. They have tried to copy Cirque du Soleil but having seen many Cirque shows around the world it’s very poor in comparison. Prior to the show starting they pick children from the audience who then dance around throughout the show and at one point run across the entire stage screaming their heads off. The best bit were the 4 dancing acrobats. Hotel has a large free car park and a separate park entrance just a few minutes walk away …
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