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Efteling Swimming Pool at Bosrijk Holiday Village

Efteling theme park in the Netherlands is probably our favourite theme park as a family. We have now visited and stayed three times once when the boys were 3 and 7, the second when they were 10 and 6 and most recently when they were almost 12 and 8. Having stayed in all three Efteling Accommodations for an overnight stay, I feel we have a good handle on what the theme park offers. However, the fact that the theme park has its own swimming pool has totally passed me by! This was until our most recent visit when we stayed in the holiday village Efteling Bosrijk and more specifically the Bosrijk Hotel – Landhuys located in the fairytale forest. When we visited the Efteling Swimming Pool.

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Where is the Efteling Swimming Pool

Efteling swimming pool and paddling pool is called Badhays (bathhouse) and can be found next to the reception at the Bosrijk resort. The indoor water play area is located in a separate building called Poorthuys.

How do you access the Efteling Swimming Pool

You can only access the indoor swimming pool Badhuys if you are an overnight guest in the Efteling Village Bosrijk or the Efteling Grand Hotel. Although if you are staying in the Landhuys hotel it would be a 5-minute walk. You need to walk past the middle of the lake where Mr Sandman lives and the cute holiday homes lined up around the outside.

In order to enter your hotel room you can set up a digital key on the app where you can also find your entrance tickets. It is this digital key which allows you access to the swimming pool through a special entrance. There is a pad next to the door to which you hold your phone up to. This will then turn green and allow you in.

It also means that it is not possible to enter the swimming pool area when it is closed or if you are not staying in the right accommodations. The pool is open daily and if you are staying then you can have unlimited access to the pool on the days of your stay and departure days (subject to opening hours).

What to expect

The swimming complex is not huge and it is important to note that this is not like other theme park swimming pool complexes. Where the swimming pool is an extension of the theme park itself and more like a water park. Although reading the description on the Efteling website you could be fooled into thinking that’s what it is. Instead, I would suggest it should be viewed as an additional facility for those staying. Just as you would if you were looking for a hotel in London with a pool. Although it does have larger changing facilities and it is a heated swimming pool.

The pool area

The main area is a large swimming pool is in the centre and around one end flows the rapids. Although essentially it is just taking you around in a circle. Charlie found that they take up a lot of the main pool area leaving very little room for actual swimming.

The rapids are powerful and operate in the deep pool so I can see why they are strict about young children having floatation devices in this part of the pool. I did see some of the lifeguards insisting that a child demonstrate they could swim. So be prepared for this if your child not wearing armbands. The rapids flow around a raised hot water Jacuzzi which fits around 10 people.

On either side of the main pool there is a shallow toddler pool ideal for little ones in an open plan area. They have a couple of metal water shooters in the play areas and when we visited there were also plenty of toys and various play items. The wading pool is perfect for small children. Above the end of the main pool not over the rapids there is a series of metal pipes and buckets which would fill and empty unexpectedly. It looked like these were controlled by some leavers on the side.

Our experiences of the Efteling Swimming Pool

When we visited understandably the boys wanted to stay in the theme park itself for as long as possible. This meant that we only went to the Efteling swimming pool in the evenings. Normally for an hour before it closed at 10 pm. Even at this time, it seemed to be very busy. The rule is that children are not allowed into the pool without an adult if they are under 10. But no such rule exists for teenagers. Consequently, there were quite a few groups of children getting up to mischief.

There is some seating around the outside of the pool which allowed us to sit and watch them if we didn’t feel like going in. Lockers are available but you need 50 cents to use them. Which meant that there were also a lot of towels and bags scattered around.

We found the changing areas to be clean and didn’t have any trouble finding a changing room. Although we left before it shut. I also noticed there were some group changing rooms. A couple closest to the entrance that had a baby change in them. There were also shower facilities. Which was handy. Since where we were staying meant that we needed to walk through the woods to get back to the hotel.

I booked a more expensive stay in the Bosrijk Hotel – Landhays, so that the boys could have access to the pool since it was included in the total price without an additional fee. It gave them something to do in the evenings after dinner or pizza delivery and once Efteling had closed. However, I am not sure it would be a deciding factor in the future as the boys preferred our stay in Loonsche Land which does not have access to the pool.