Netherlands trip - holiday parks

[ditherandoo]

Booking a late summer holiday for me, DH and DC 15 and 13. There are so many places I would like to visit but may save them for another trip as DH would like to slow down a bit for this trip.

We have already booked flights out to Amsterdam Schiphol and 3 nights in Efteling. We then have a further 6 nights to sort. DH has been looking at some of the centre parks but I would like to have at least a couple of day trips. Currently thinking along the lines of Utrecht/ Haarlem/ Den Bosch. Has anyone stayed in one of the centre parks and used public transport for sightseeing and find it ok?

Have you considered Beekse Bergen?

Duinrell. Perfect for the ages. Bit of a mix between a theme park and a natural location (but plenty to do, big pool) Wassenaar the little town nearby is nice enough too. The beach is a cycle ride away. It is near Leiden (which in turn is just 20 minutes on the train into Schipol direct). You can get a bus from Wassenar to Leiden or 15 mins in uber, You can go direct with Duinrell website, but haven and eurocamp do stuff there. If you have just been to Efteling you might not want to do another, but we loved it when ours were young.

Utrecht is fab ... I am biased as a huge Miffy fan! Not far from there is a national park for cycling and an incredible art museum if you wanted something more cultural. But deffo to Utrecht.

Hof van saksen is absolutely amazing. Been twice. Love it. It's in the North.

When I went to efteling I stayed a week in an air bnb in delft. Its a lovely chilled tiny city and perfect for your family age wise. We hired bikes and cycled along the kinderdijk windmills then had a lovely meal in dordrecht. The m c escher gallery at the hague was very popular with my kids (11 and 14 at the time) . Schevening seaside resort not far from there. Can also visit duinrell but I didn't want to as efteling is amazing and duinrell is a bit meh. You could go to rotterdam and eat food at Markthalle and watch the freight ships (did a bit of this in dordrecht and its mesmerising). Delft is a very relaxed city with lovely shops restaurants and a boat trip along the canal. I would go back to see the Maurithuis art gallery at the hague and see the Vermeers. I'd like to go to the castle at Utrecht and the Dick Bruna museum.

Netherlands is fab.

Yes it’s on my list as I think DH would like it. Have you been? Do you think it’s a good place to stay for a few days and do trips out from?

Thank you. It is on our list after doing a search on here but was often mentioned for younger kids than mine so wasn’t sure if it was more suited to young families. We actually all just learned to ride bikes last summer but don’t feel safe on the roads near home. Would be nice to get back on them where it might be easier.

Thanks for that, I had ruled Miffy out for DD as a post on here said it was aimed at little kids. Will re-think that now.

Thank you. Will have to look up Hof van Saksen as haven’t seen this on my searches. We will definitely need to do some follow up trips. I did see Kinderdijk and Dordrecht mentioned on some other threads and thought I might need to push to the next trip but might re think.

The miffy museum in Utrecht is for little kids (that's not to say I didn't go and spend ages in there and love it, aged 50). There's other Miffy stuff in town like the Miffy character trail and its a nice town. I think its much nicer than Amsterdam for getting a flavour of Dutch life.

With dc teens, it’s a No to Beekse Bergen for me - our 10 year old was aging out of the activities really.

We loved Rotterdam - brilliant food market hall, can take a boat tour of the industrial harbour and skyline, take a historic tram and go and see the bit that wasn’t bombed in WW2, see the cube houses, good maritime museum.

We stayed at Centre park Port Zelande, very chilled out and we enjoyed the vast beach and cycling and pool but I suspect there at better options - Kempervennen gets a lot of good comments

Yes Ive been.

Combined it with Duinrell and Eftelling.

Highly recommend them all. If you like animals its a lovely few days and plenty to do with kids.

(we drove and took our bikes so I have no public transport experiance) but Its a fabulous place and has nice pools / lake and water actvities as well as all the animal stuff. We stayed 3 night and had 3 days but could have stayed longer. We didnt do trips out of here because of the amount of stuff there was to do on site.

Duinrell was also excellent. We stayed mostly onsite but cycles to the beach and went into the town for some meals and the amazing ice cream parlour.

We've done amsterdam as a day trip on a cruise, and throughly enjoyed anne franks house

I would recommend this: https://www.landal.com/parks/klein-oisterwijk?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=googlemybusiness#filter:eyJzIjoiMyJ9
It is not far from the Efteling. For a family with children age 13 and 15 this is a perfect place. Next to the park there is an adventure golf place with music teens love. "Piet Plezier" lets you cycle on a family bike over cycling paths through the woods of Oisterwijk. There are also 2 escaperooms, at least one of them is also available in English. Wonderful lounge bar at the landal park beach. Also, Oisterwijk has a trainstation, just one stop away from 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) or Tilburg. But Oisterwijk is a very nice village for tourists. It has nice shops and nice places to have lunch, dinner, or just a drink.