Back in August 2015, we took a family vacation to Holland. It was absolutely amazing!
Length: 9 days, including flying days.
Kids: 2 (8 yrs old and 3.5)
Type of travel: Very easy going. We never feel the need to see everything, and don't feel bad if we miss something that others consider important for the trip.
Transportation: We rented a Peugeot 3008 (manual gear) through Europcar.
Navigation: We tried a few GPS options, but Waze was the best for us.
Day 1 (Thursday) - Flight to Belgium
We flew through Brussels, Belgium, mostly for convenience. Our flight took off at 16:30 (with a delay of 40 minutes), and we landed there at about 20:30.
We picked up the car at the airport and drove to out first destination, Novotel Brussels Airport. A quick journey of 5 minutes that took us nearly 30 thanks to a very misleading GPS app on my phone. This is when we discovered Waze was better.
We arrived at the Hotel and parked the car (parking on the hotel grounds is additional cost). The hotel is a 3 star and for one night, supplied all our basic needs: A room, a bed, a shower, and a toilet.
Day 2 (Friday) - Technopolis and Onward to Holland
We had breakfast in the hotel dining room. It's not great value for money, but the kids eat there for free.
The price for the hotel was 94€ plus another 40€ for breakfast. The parking was supposed to be another 10€, but they never charged us.
We were on our way! 15 minutes drive, to a town called Michelen, we arrived at the Technopolis. It's a great science museum for kids with loads of things to do. The kids had a great time, and so did we. We spent a few hours there and then left to head north into Holland. Click here for the Technopolis website.
Price: 57€ for the 4 of us.
We got back into the car and headed north to Holland. At some stage during the drive, I noticed street signs written differently, so I assumed we must have crossed over into Holland.
Dutch drivers are very (for lack of a better word) nice and they respect other drivers. I was told there are a lot of traffic police, but we didn't see any of them. There are a lot of speed cameras along the way, so pay attention to the speed limit.
After about two and half hours of beautiful green fields, grass, horses, cows, and more green fields we reached the area of the resort, but we were pretty hungry, so we continued on for another 10 minutes and stopped at a McDonalds in the town of Apeldoorn (In Holland you pay extra for every ketchup and mayo).
After lunch, we headed back towards the resort, but stopped in the village of Garderen to get supplies for the week. The village itself is quite beautiful and worth a drive through just for a look.
We got our supplies, and headed for the Landal Rabbit Hill holiday resort. I've written a blog about the resort itself, so click here for a read. We got our bungalow, unpacked our bags, and spent the rest of the day getting to know the resort, and having a dip in their indoor swimming pool. We had dinner in the bungalow and fell asleep early after a good long day.
Day 3 (Saturday) - Julianatoren Amusement Park and Barneveld Balloon Festival
We had a good night's sleep and woke up to good weather. We had breakfast in the bungalow. The kids watched morning cartoons in dutch (no they don't speak dutch). We got our bags ready, jumped in the car and headed towards Apeldoorn.
Just before Apeldoorn, we arrived at the Julianatoren Amusement Park. While planning our vacation, everyone we know who had done a similar trip, had reccomended going to Efteling (a popular amusement park). After much consideration, we decided that Efteling was not for us (mostly because of the kids' ages), and that Julianatoren was. But have no fear, there's no shortage of queues here to stand in forever. The park has plenty of attractions and you can easily spend the entire day there. Click here for the official site. We stayed until about 15:00. By then the kids were pretty tired. Take note, the dutch are punctual people. We arrived at the park at opening time and the car park was already pretty full.
Price (we got our tickets at the resort office, they get reductions): 80€ plus another 7.5€ for parking.
We returned to our bungalow for a bit of a rest, and then in the late afternoon, we drove to the village of Barneveld to see the annual Balloon festival. Click here for the site. We arrived towards 18:00 and there we saw dozens (if not more) of hot air balloons being filled up and rising up to the air. We were most impressed and the kids loved it. We stayed until about 20:00 when most of the balloons had taken off. The kids were exhausted so we returned to the resort. The Balloon festival continued until about 23:00.
Price: 20€ plus another 5€ for parking.
Day 4 (Sunday) - Dolfinarium and Giethoorn
We woke up to another nice day. We drove about half an hour to the Dolfinarium in the town of Hardewijk. It's a fun place to spend half a day. Most attractions are seeing the dolphins and walruses. There are shows such as feeding them. And there's even a bigger dolphin show. Click here for the site.
Price (we got our tickets at the resort office): 93€ plus another 8.5€ for parking (bring small change).
After lunch, we got back in the car and headed towards Giethoorn. After about a 90 minutes drive and a search for a parking spot, we arrived. The village is quite spectacular and the old houses are very well kept. If you can find a boat for hire to ride along the streams, it's very recommended. We arrived on a nice day on a weekend, which means it was packed with people. We couldn't hire a boat, so we hopped on boat-bus which took us around the streams with about another 20 people. Still the experience was a delight.
Price for the ride: 20€ (for all four of us) plus another 5€ for parking.
Day 5 (Monday) - Train Museum
The weather report showed rain for the day, so we decided to drive to the Train Museum in Utrecht. It was on our save it for a rainy day list. Click here for their site. Take note, in some places it's written that the museum is closed on Mondays. This is not always the case. It's best to check. We did and it was open. I couldn't tell you what the best age is for the museum, but our kids really enjoyed themselves. There are plenty of trains from different time periods to look at and even a roller-coaster simulator.
Price (free for under four years old): 48€ plus another 5.5€ for parking.
The rain came down pretty hard, so we headed back to the resort and spent the rest of the day there at the big play room and pool.
Day 6 (Tuesday) - Burger's Zoo
The forecast was for another rainy day. The plan was to visit the Burger's Zoo in Arnheim, and if the weather was good, we'd visit the Open Air Museum nearby.
We arrived after about a 40 minute drive and were quite impressed with the zoo. It's big and quite well organized. There's plenty to see and has a large selection of animals. The rain started, so we took out our rain coats. Click here for the site.
Price (we got our tickets at the resort office, free for under four): 55€ plus another 5€ for parking.
The rain was coming down pretty hard, so we had to skip the Open Air Museum. We returned to the resort and spent the rest of the day there. We ate at their fancier restaurant (which was nothing special), and had fun in the play room and played bowling.
Day 7 (Wednesday) - Maduradam and The Hague
Another day with forecast rain. But we didn't want to miss out on Maduradam, so we took the risk. After about a two hour drive to the Hague, we arrived. Maduradam is quite impressive and is basically one large outdoor miniature museum. We had fun and spent the morning there. We had lunch too (avoid the noodle's with shrimp). Click here for the site.
Price: 62€ plus another 7.5€ for parking.
After we'd finished, we wanted to do a little shopping. We'd heard there was a nice mall in The Hague which was only a few minutes drive from where we were. So we went. There was no parking available in the streets. If I read the signs right, there was a limit to 30 minutes of parking, so we parked in one of the over priced car parks.
The mall was on the beach promenade and we discovered that it was really nothing special. The rain had yet to come so we walked along the pretty beach front. There are a lot of tourist shops and a lot of restaurants. There weren't too many people though.
We sat down in one of the cafe and had some ice cream and cake. Finally the rain came down. We made our way back to the car and drove back to the bungalow.
Day 8 (Thursday) - Rain Rain Go Away
It rained the whole night and didn't stop the whole day. By this time we were pretty exhausted. So the rain was a good excuse to stay in the bungalow. By chance, the family of a friend of my son were also in Holland doing a trip like ours. So they came to our resort, and the kids all played in our bungalow for most of the day. In the evening we packed.
Day 9 (Friday) - Open Air Museum and Home
On our last day, the rain had finally left us alone. We woke up to a very nice day. We had our last breakfast, said goodbye to the bungalow, loaded up the car, and drove away from Landal Rabbit Hill.
For the morning we needed a place which was both on the way back towards Brussels and also nothing too long. The Open Air Museum in Arnheim was just the place. Click here for the site. It is exactly how it sounds. It's a museum which is separated into different sections, each one showing a different place and period of Dutch life. You can walk from section to section, or you can take the tram.
Price (we got our tickets at the resort office, free for under four): 44€ plus another 6€ for parking.
We had our last lunch, and at about 14:00 it was time to go. It took us nearly three hours to reach Brussels. We hit Antwerp on the way right at rush-hour and sat through a 45 minute jam. We arrived at the airport, returned the car, and got our tickets. After an hour delay, we took off and headed home.
