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Monthly Archives: September 2011

It’s Going to be Hot!

30 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Updates from 2011

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efteling, eftelinguk, hot, sun, villa volta

It’s been rather hot here at Efteling UK HQ the past couple of days, and the situation is no different in Efteling!  All those folks who visited the park in the summer hoping for good weather, and being quite disappointed, should have picked this coming weekend to visit, as it is going to be hot!Sunday October 2nd will (apparently) be the warmest day, with clear skies and temperatures stretching to almost 80°.  So if you live near the park, now is the time to visit!

Have a magical weekend, remember to search ‘Efteling UK’ on Facebook, subscribe, and share us with your friends!

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A Comfortable Idea for PandaDroom

29 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Updates from 2011

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efteling, eftelinguk, log benches, pandadroom

If you have visited PandaDroom before, you may well have noticed that in the pre-show area there are no seats.  After walking around Efteling all day, the last thing that guests want to do is stand around (for what seems like forever) waiting to go into the theatre.  The pre-show is very nice and I love the music, that is not the problem, the problem is the length of time that you are required to stand there!  It is not very pleasant to sit on the floor either, especially if it is a wet day.

My (cheap and cheerful) suggestion would be to add some log benches to sit on, as this would be in keeping with the nature theming.  Maybe 5 benches in the whole room?  It would be better than nothing!

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Coming Soon…

27 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Building Efteling UK, Updates from 2011

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efteling, efteling uk, villa volta

Another Featured Attraction will be posted soon, so I thought I’d give you a clue as to what it is…

…ok so it’s not really a clue, but it’s coming soon, so if you like this attraction, (you’d be mad not to) keep checking back for a whole article on it!

 

Thanks to all the Facebook folks who have ‘liked’ us so far, keep it up!  Subscribe on the left side of this page to be notified of Efteling goodness as it is posted.

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Fabulous Function Rooms!

25 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in Accommodation, All Updates and News, Dream Flight, Updates from 2011

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camels, celebrations, dream flight, droomvlucht, efteling, eftelinguk, events, fata morgana, nissan, tui, vijf zintuigen

For anyone who needs to organise a large business meeting, a celebration, or anything else, Efteling is the place to come!  Efteling has many venues where these events can take place:

The Efteling Hotel,

Bosrijk,

Efteling Golfpark,

Theater de Efteling,

…and of course, the Efteling Park itself!

Each of these unique locations vary in size, and can hold from 20 people to a few thousand people!  Many companies have held events here, including MCC and HTC, Holland Casino, TUI and Nissan.  Probably the most interesting and exciting of the venues are the Fata Morgana Palace, and the Droomvlucht Palace.

Image courtesy of vijfzintuigen.nl

The Dream Flight Palace has two fairytale-feel function rooms, and are decorated with oversized pale pink flowers and green and cream walls, similar to the attraction’s unloading area.

Image courtesy of vijfzintuigen.nl

The Fata Morgana Palace consists of a large room with a starry sky (roof) and a large stage, all in-keeping with the theme of the attraction.  This function room seems to be one of the most popular ones for business events, and the Nissan Note was introduced here to 200 people.

One of the highlights (and possibly why this place seems more popular) is that you can have camels to carry you to your event!  That’s right, maybe if you were having a birthday they could carry the birthday boy/girl to the event, or maybe the head of a company.  I thought you might enjoy this photo of some rather happy looking camels:So, if you have an important event to organise, Efteling is the place to hold it!

Thank you to our friends at Vijf Zintuigen for the help with this post.

Please subscribe to this site and share it with your Facebook and Twitter friends!  Also visit us and ‘like’ us at our Facebook page.

Have a magical day!

Nissan image and camels image are © Efteling.

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Entertainment for the Weekend…

23 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Updates from 2011

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efteling, efteling uk, entertainment, five senses, house of five senses, summer, vijf zintuigen

The weekend is here, and here is a short video of some entertainment on a sunny summer day at Efteling.

Have a nice weekend, and make sure you check out our Facebook page, and tell your friends about Efteling UK!

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Sprookjesboom the Movie!

21 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Sprookjesbos, Updates from 2011

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efteling, efteling uk, fairy tale, fairy tale forest, film, movie, sprookesbos, sprookjesboom, talking tree

For us folks in English-speaking parts of the world, Sprookjesboom refers to the Fairy Tale Tree in the Fairy Tale Forest at Efteling who tells stories.  He was added to the forest in 2010 and is very popular!

In February 2012, Sprookjesboom the film will be released in Dutch and Belgian cinemas to the delight of many Sprookjesboom fans.  The Sprookjesboom TV series has been running since October 2006 and is still going strong, being broadcasted in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.  It has also been mentioned that English episodes are in production!

Image from Motek Entertainment

Although I am…older…than most of the fans of the show, I do own one of the DVDs and I have to say that the animation is wonderful.  What is also very interesting is the way that each of the characters from the Fairy Tale Forest have been turned into caricatures of themselves, and it works well!

I hope to see the movie when it becomes available, and particularly look forward to English episodes of Sprookjesboom!

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Efteling UK is on Facebook!

14 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Building Efteling UK, Updates from 2011

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efteling uk, facebook

That’s right folks, we now have a Facebook page for Efteling UK.

Please show your support by heading to Facebook through the link above, or simply searching ‘Efteling UK’ in the Facebook search bar.

Remember, we are constantly growing, and the Facebook page will also be updated when a new post is created!

Tweet, StumbleUpon or Facebook us through the links below!

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Dream Flight

13 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in Dream Flight, Featured Attractions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

dream flight, dreaming, dromen, droomvlucht, efteling, eftelinguk, elf, elfje, elves, fairy, flowers, oberon, sprookje, troll

So what is the most popular attraction at Efteling?  Well, it’s no roller coaster, nor is it any of the park’s original attractions.  It is the Dream Flight, an adventurous journey through forests, swamps, and floating castles, which are inhabited by elves, fairies, trolls and many woodland creatures.

Each part of the ride is divided into different realms: the Castle Realm, the Wondrous/Miracle Forest, the Fairy Garden, Heavenly Strongholds, and the Squelch Forest.  The transportation system consists of two ride vehicles attached overhead, leaving your carriage dangling, therefore giving the effect of flight.  Disneyland/World visitors will notice that the vehicles bear a resemblance to the ‘Doom Buggies’ of the Haunted Mansion, and similarly, the vehicles in Dream Flight are also constantly moving, enabling guests to move more swiftly through the attraction. 

Guests are first taken through the Castle Realm, seeing, from a distance, charming fairy tale castles which appear to be moving ever so slightly…After passing through a corridor you find yourself in the Wondrous Forest, full of flowers, trees, plants, deer, elves and even a few fairies.  There are relaxing waterfalls flowing down the edge of a shallow cliff, and if you cast your eyes underneath the waterfall, you may even see an elf taking a shower!  Also keep a lookout for a unicorn and a disappearing/reappearing fairy.  Moving along another dark corridor, the Fairy Garden is revealed.  Thousands of flowers adorn the scene which is home to a number of beautiful fairies and a handful of animals, with a fairy house taking centre stage, and down below fairies bathe their feet in the small lake.  The smell in this scene is wonderful; fresh, sweet and floral.  On leaving this scene you will get a wave of goodbye from King Oberon, sitting on his throne (and usually missing a shoe). 

Moving on to the Heavenly Strongholds, you will feel as though you are in space, passing by floating castles and planets against a backdrop of numerous stars.  From here, you pay a visit to the Squelch Forest, where the Trolls live, but you aren’t on ground level, you are high in the treetops!  In the middle of these trees it is always raining, with a few drops steadily trickling down the centre of the forest and into a lake below.  Suddenly, your carriage starts to descend, slowly at first but quickly speeding up as you circle the trolls.  Leaving the Squelch Forest indicates that it is time to leave this wonderful place, and there are trolls and fairies on hand to wave you off as you pass through a veil of mist.  You have now woken up from your Dream Flight!

Here is a video of the Dream Flight from 1997.  Surprisingly, this video is better than a more recent HD video I took in 2011, as you can see more of the ride.

Some of the corridors you pass through are lined with small bright, sometimes coloured lights, to make the journey more magical.  In recent years, Efteling have added UV paint to the floor in one of these corridors in random splatters, a bit like flicking a toothbrush at the floor with paint on it.  Another addition, which was pointed out by Eftelist, was that some of the fairies now have pink or blue/turquoise hair instead of the blonde wigs which they started out with.  Maybe the fairies simply fancied a change after so many years; however they do look a bit silly in a world which is supposed to be all natural. 

You exit through the gift shop, of course, but before the shop is a café called Den Gulden Gaarde.  Here you will find Panini, sandwiches and lots of cake.  There is also seating outside.  The gift shop originally sold things relating more directly to the ride, however as the years have passed the merchandise here has weakened considerably.  If you are a girl under the age of 8 then you will find plenty to buy here, though at the time of writing, the only decent things for adults to buy are the Droomvlucht ‘making of’ DVD and the Droomvlucht house spray…The spray is fantastic as it really does smell like the ride; a perfect and unusual souvenir.

Dream Flight was the brain child of Ton van de Ven, whose name you will see throughout this site, as he was involved in many attractions at Efteling before his retirement.  Almost all of the attraction was created in-house at the Efteling workshops.  The attraction was originally planned to open in Efteling’s 40th year in 1992, however there were setbacks with the transportation system.  Basically, things were not working as they should have, and, in the words of Efteling:

‘En dan gaat het mis…het blijkt niet te werken’

Eventually the ride opened a year later in 1993.  In its first few years, visitors were greeted with a very ornate queuing area, complete with oversized versions of the ride’s signature flowers.  This room eventually proved too small for such a popular attraction, and in 1996, when guests started turning up in their hundreds, the line was moved elsewhere.  The original room is now used for special events.  The queuing area which is now used is rather huge!  Some of it is outside, and some is undercover.  At a time when the ride was reaching the height of its popularity, Efteling realised that the long wait for the ride would prove rather boring for some guests, especially since the queue is simply a large room with nothing to look at.

With this in mind, a stage was used to allow performances to take place of Droomvlucht inspired songs at the end of the room, keeping guests entertained in the tedious queue.  They even brought out a CD called Dromen, as a tie-in to the attraction.  In recent years the stage has been taken away, and I personally have not stood in a very big line for this ride since the 90s.

The music is by Ruud Bos, who also composed the music for Fata Morgana, Vogel Rok and Villa Volta.  It has come to be expected over the years that the music for Efteling’s attractions is of a very high standard, and the music in the Dream Flight is no different, it is beautiful!

If you are visiting Efteling, this is a must-do attraction.

Statistics:

  48 Fairies, 10 trolls, 38 animals, 1 million flowers, 1.5 million plants and 3.8 million leaves.

                  Track is 425 metres long.

                  Ride Length is 6 minutes.

                  20km/h.

                  1800 people per hour capacity.

                  Cost €12.5 million approx.

                  Some of the trees are real, the rest are plastic.

On October 9th 2011, a musical loosely based on the attraction will open in the Efteling Theatre.  

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Friday Has Arrived!

09 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Updates from 2011

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efteling, musical toadstool, sprookje, sprookjesbos

So I thought I would share with you a video of a musical toadstool…from Efteling, of course!

Here it is.

These can be found throughout the Fairy Tale Forest, and are very useful if you need a rest whilst walking around!

 

Subscribe, share on Facebook and Twitter (and everywhere else!) and tell your friends about Efteling UK!

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We’re Still Here!

07 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by EftelingUK in All Updates and News, Updates from 2011

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carnaval festival, dream flight, droomvlucht, efteling, eftelinguk, fairy

Waiting…it is not always inevitable, just take a look at this photo of the Carnaval Festival queue below.

However, you will have to wait a little longer for my Dream Flight ‘Featured Attraction’ post, while i soak up all that information from the ride…(translate the ‘making of’ DVD into English).

Until then, please continue to check out the site and share the joy of Efteling with others!  Click any of the share buttons below to do so, and please subscribe!

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