How To Book A Cheap Theme Park Getaway: Efteling


Back again with another how to on booking affordable theme park getaways! As always, the same rules will apply when pricing this trip. This time I'm looking at Efteling, one of Europe's most successful parks and absolutely full to the brim with magic, fantasy, thrills and fairytales. As with all of these guides I'm writing, the park does in fact have its own accommodation with the Efteling Hotel and Holiday Village Efteling Bosrijk. Whilst they are fab in their own right, we're not interested in that, we're interested in cheap and cheerful! Let's go!



Similarly to Phantasialand, if you're a lover of a good drive across Europe, there's no reason why you couldn't do this driving. Enough people drive to Disneyland Paris and Efteling is roughly the same distance drive-time-wise. But as always, my recommendation is to fly. You have two options here: Amsterdam Schipol and Eindhoven. Let's take a closer look.

Amsterdam Schipol
Your cheapest flights here go from London Southend with EasyJet. Flight times are perfect for a theme park trip - arriving in Amsterdam at 9.20AM and leaving at 9.55PM. Cheapest price at time of writing is £47 return. 

You can get public transport from Amsterdam Schipol to Efteling by taking the train to Tilburg Station. From there it's an easy bus ride to the park. Alternatively (and always my personal recommendation) you can hire a car and drive an hour south. Car hire in Netherlands is stupid cheap, and a two-day hire from the airport mid-week is as cheap as £29 at the time of writing. By far the cheaper and easier option (if you can drive of course!)


Eindhoven 
Your other option is to fly to Eindhoven from Stansted. These arrive slightly later but still pretty good going timings-wise. You'll arrive in Eindhoven at 10.40AM and leave at 8.35PM. Cheapest price at time of writing is £34 return.

You COULD get public transport from Eindhoven, but I've had a quick scout and there doesn't seem to be a quick way to get there. All routes seem to set you back a couple of hours, and if that's the case you're better off flying into Amsterdam and taking the train. But if you are a driver, Eindhoven is definitely the best option for you. It's just a 30 minute drive to the park from the airport, however the car hire mid-week at the time of writing is £64 for the cheapest option, so not quite as cheap as Amsterdam. But you're saving time travelling I guess, so that's worth something!

There's not much in it, but based on two sharing the car and those cheap mid-week flight prices you're looking at £61.50 to fly into Amsterdam Schipol and £66 to fly into Eindhoven. 

Travel: £61.50



Like I said, the Efteling hotels are amazing and given the chance I would highly recommend staying there as a treat. But we're here to scrape the barrel of acceptable accommodation that won't break the bank, so let's have a look at what is around locally. 

As always I'll recommend using Booking.com and as always, here's my criteria for booking a hotel:they must have a rating of at least 8, they must have a private bathroom and they must have parking.

Using that function, the delightful looking Hotel-Herberg D'n Dries pops to the top of the list at a lovely £65 for the room. Based on two sharing that's just £32.50pp. Sweet.

Hotel: £32.50



Similarly to the likes of Phantasialand and Europa Park, you're unlikely to find any 2-4-1 vouchers for Efteling. They do, however, offer a SHIT LOAD of different ticket options, which depending on what you want included may end up saving you money. 

You can check out the full list here, but for the sake of this guide we'll go with the cheapest option which is roughly £32. Obviously you'd just have to double that if you want to visit both days as frustratingly Efteling do not seem to offer a two-day combo ticket (correct me if I'm wrong somebody!). 

Ticket: £32

So, the final tally:

Travel: £47
Hotel: £32.50
Ticket: £32
Total: £111.50

Just over £100 for the magic and wonder of Efteling? Hell yes. I hate writing these guides because I always end up convincing myself of how much of a bargain it is and booking it for me and Conor! But yh, have fun riding Baron and getting lost in the Fairytale Forest!


Talk later xoxo,


2 comments

  1. Love this post! If I see your blog, I think we have some same interests! Love, Fabiën. fabienvlemsblog.wordpress.com

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    1. Thanks for reading, looks like we do! Do you have Twitter? xx

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