Mudpie Fridays >> Efteling >> Efteling Theme Park Itinerary – 3 Day How Many Rides Did We Manage?

Efteling Theme Park Itinerary – 3 Day How Many Rides Did We Manage?

Efteling Itinerary – One of the things I love about Efteling. And the reason we return over and over again is that you can get on a lot of rides. This could be because historically we have visited off-season, our first visit was in February, and then we also stayed overnight in October. Both are during the half-term holidays, although the Netherlands doesn’t have the same school holidays. So I did wonder if it had been more circumstance. However, on our most recent visit, we visited over the first May bank holiday. Which coincided with the Liberation Day holiday. Efteling is the largest theme park in the Netherlands, it is also one of the oldest theme parks in Europe.

On the Efteling website, you can see how busy the days are predicted to be on their calendar. During our two-night stay in May, all three days were predicted to be busy. So even during the Holland school holidays and a busy time in the theme park, I was surprised by just how many different Efteling rides and attractions we managed to get on.

Table of Contents

Efteling Theme Park Itinerary – 3 Day How Many Rides Did We Manage?

Magic hours in the park

Each time we have visited we have stayed overnight. First in the Efteling Hotel, second in Loonsche Land and then on our most recent trip in Bosrijk Holiday Village.

Because we are staying overnight our entrance tickets gave us access to some of the rides early at 9.30 am. While those visiting for the day do not get to enter Efteling until 10 am. We always make the most of this half an hour as it is surprising what a difference those thirty minutes can make. However, it is important to note that not all the rides are open. You can see a list on their website or ask at the reception of your accommodation.

I should just mention here though that it’s a little painful. There is a special park entrance where your tickets are checked if you are staying in Loonsche Land and Bosrijk Holiday Village. From here you walk around to where staff hold all hotel guests in one place near to Fata Morgana. Once it reaches 9.30 am you are allowed into the park. This is fine if you want to go on one of the rides close to where you are held, Max and Moritz for example. However, if you want to go on the dark rollercoaster – Vogel which is what Harry wanted to do during our last visit then it’s an 8-minute walk. Unless you are staying in the Efteling Hotel as hotel guests enter from a different entrance which is much closer to this area of the park.

Please also note that other than Vogel Rok and The Baron (their biggest and most thrilling coaster) the others do not open early.

Fast Pass equivalent at Efteling

One thing I really like is that they do not have a fast pass or equivalent. This means everyone has to queue together. There is a separate queue for visitors who have accessibility needs. And each ride has a single-rider queue. But the majority of people will queue together. This seems to make it work a lot smoother.

The Efteling App will help you plan your day

I have also found on each visit that the ride times are quoted both on the Efteling app but also at the beginning of each ride and they tend to be accurate.

We used the app alot to help plan which rides we went on and when. You will need to download the app ahead of your visit anyway. Since it is your digital key and also holds your Efteling ticket for the theme park and any shows you have booked. If you are staying you get unlimited access to the park.

The app also has an interactive map of the park and shows the rides and attractions as well as places to eat. It also shows you the queue times and the best way to get across the park from one ride to another. Along with the opening hours of the rides. This is really useful since there are normally many different routes.

Our Efteling Itinerary

This blog post is designed to show you just how much we managed to fit into one full day and two half days in our two-day itinerary. We arrived around 2 pm on a Saturday and left at 1 pm on Monday.

Day One Efteling Itinerary – Arrival

On our first day we parked our car next to our accommodation and headed straight to the Efteling park. We did not need to check in as we had our park tickets already preloaded (this happens automatically) onto the app. From the car park, it was a short ten-minute walk from the holiday villages Efteling Bosrijk.

The boy’s favourite rides are the rollercoasters, which form the basis of our trip! They were 8 and 11 when we visited. If you want an in-depth guide to the rides at Efteling theme park I have written about this separately.

2pm onwards

For our first ride we headed to Max & Moritz a relatively new roller coaster that races against each other popular with younger children. The queue time was only 5 minutes.
Next was one of the boy’s favourites the Flying Dutchman which is a boat rollercoaster that brings you down into the lake. The queue time was 30 minutes although the single rider queues are normally a good bet on this particular ride.
Opposite is the Python, another rollercoaster and Harry’s favourite this has a 25-minute wait time.
Charlie then wanted to head to the Baron which had the longest wait time of all at 35 minutes. Being one of the main thrill rides. Due to the height restriction, Harry is too short for his brother’s favourite ride. So we spent some time in a new play area called Nest! Playforest. The other two went to the Baron although the wait time seemed longer than the 35-minute advertised time.
We then rushed across the theme park to the Het Wapen Van Raveleijn show at 4.45 pm, we stayed into the evening having dinner which was the main attraction and not leaving until 8.30 in the evening.

As we were staying over the boys had a chance to try out the swimming pool at Efteling.

Day 2 Efteling Itinerary – Morning

We made the decision to not sit down and eat our evening meal ordering pizza to our hotel room after the theme park shut. This meant we got more time to enjoy the theme park and paid off as you can see below. Since we fitted so many in those last couple of hours. The rides are open until 7 pm.

We split up since Charlie wanted to go to the Baron, instead Harry and I headed to Vogel the dark ride and had two rides in ten minutes. Sitting at the front both times.
After being thrown around in the dark we headed to Carnival which is a ride right next door and similar to the small world ride at Disneyland Paris.
We then went on Vogel two more times
With our last ride in that area at 10.20 am on the Sirocco Rotating Merchant Boats. Meaning that we managed five rides within an hour. During this time the others went on the Baron twice.

And..

Our next stop was Symbolica as this is one of the most popular rides and quite often has waiting times of around 45 minutes. We were expecting it to be busy, but we thought we would be able to get a ride before the queue got long, although it was a 30-minute queue we were done and out by 11.10 am.
From here we went straight onto the pagoda which is just around the back of Symbolica and meant no queue. Quite often this ride doesn’t have a queue and is a good one to aim for when the park is busiest late morning.
Opposite is the Gondoletta which had very little queue which we reached at 11.20 am. It’s a long ride and a nice one to relax on we didn’t get off at midday. If you bring a picnic then you can sit and eat as you go round. Although the ducks may want to help you out.
On The other side of the lake are the pedal trains which had a 10-minute queue which we stopped at before continuing onto lunch.
We had lunch by the Station de Ost. The boys loathe a pirate ship but if you were so inclined this only had a 5-minute queue the whole time we were sitting there. We ordered food via the app to speed it up.

Day 2 Efteling Itinerary – Afternoon

Most of the afternoon was spent on the rollercoasters that the boys loved so much. Although we did manage to fit in a show halfway through.

After lunch Charle and Harry headed towards the Python which had a 25 min wait time.
From here we went next door to the wooden coaster called Joris en de Draak this had reopened during the weekend we were staying after two years of being fixed so the queues were much longer than expected. By the time we went on it, it had come down to a 25-minute queue by the time we had our first ride.
Next was The Flying Dutchman boat rollercoaster which also had a 25-minute queue time.
After this we made our way over to the theatre to watch CARO on a Sunday the show was at 4 pm. Although the show time is only 70 minutes it is best to factor in an hour and a half. Initially, we had thought about eating in the pizza restaurant right next door. Instead decided to order take out to our room for later. It’s all done via an app and is easy to arrange and pay for.

And..

After the show our next stop was Max and Moritz which we walked straight on
The boys headed towards Python again with a wait time of 5 mins, I would suggest it was probably closer to 10 minutes.
The next stop was Joris en de Draak, a wooden coaster that had a queue time of 20 minutes.
We thought that the Flying Dutchman would be our last ride of the day, as we walked straight onto this one too. But when we came out we calculated that we had just enough time to make it to….
Symbolica now had a much-reduced wait time of 15 minutes. Although we hit the entrance to the queue at 7 pm. They let us on and we made it through by about 7.30 pm. This gave us just enough time to catch the end of Aquaria. The water show that takes place next to the main entrance.

After eating Pizza in our room the boys headed out to the pool again and a quick play in the woods before bed.

Day 3 Efteling Itinerary – Morning leaving at 1 pm

This morning didn’t quite go as planned as many of the rides opened for early opening were not running. After having a delightful breakfast in the hotel as we did the previous morning. We split up as we had on the previous day to allow Charlie to ride the Baron with the shortest queues. He managed two rides as before, meeting us at Symbolica.

Harry and I headed to Vogel to do similar to what we had done previously. Only to find that it was not open so headed to the Sirocco Rotating Merchant Boats.
Before walking across the park to Droomvlucht Dream Flight. This is less than ideal as it probably doesn’t make the most of the time due to the location of both rides. However, it was one of the only early opening rides open and again normally has a long queue. We walked straight in.
We arrived at Symbolica just after ten when the park had opened to everyone else. Symbolica offers three different challenges and Harry wanted to do all three although the queue was already 45 minutes when we arrived. But we managed to tick off the third one.

And..

The next stop was across the park again to the Python, which had a 20-minute queue time
Before one last go on Joris en de Draak, which was running at a 35-minute waiting time. Thankfully despite choosing different colours, we got separated and they both won their races! Otherwise, I think we may have had to go on it again.
Accepting that our time was coming to an end the boys were allowed a treat each. Harry opted for candy floss although Charlie wanted some mini pancakes called Poffertjes. We headed to an area of the theme park which we had hardly spent any time on this visit to eat at the restaurant named after the sweet Dutch delicacy.
After refuelling our last ride was on the old Steam carousel that we walked straight onto before heading home. If you have longer there is also a monorail and several different carousels to explore within this area of the park. As well as the fairytale forest. Where you can wander amongst the different fairy tales and meet Little Red Riding Hood.

As you can see we managed to get on a lot of different rides (and our favourites) over and over again during our stay. Have you visited the enchanting Efteling theme park? Let me know about your experiences in the comments below.