It’s school holidays and parents throughout The Netherlands are looking for ways to keep the kids entertained. Many families, including us, are also keen to ensure costs don’t get out of control. The theme parks are well aware of this and it seems there are discount vouchers all over the place to grab your attention and lure you into thinking it might be an affordable day out.
We are based on the outskirts of Den Haag (Ypenburg) and our children are (just turned) 4 and 6. I’ve just spent some time researching our options and thought it may be useful to others to summarise some of my findings and perspectives in our search for a fun and affordable family day out in The Netherlands.
I’ve saved this voucher for a while, thinking that Wassenaar is nice and close. However for 20+ euros per person with a charge for parking as well, even with the voucher I’ve decided it’s still too expensive for our budget.
As soon as I discovered this is about a 2 hour drive in each direction, this voucher is going in the bin. Oh, and it actually expires tomorrow anyway! They do have a holiday park on site so perhaps it would suit a family that would like a fun weekend away or lived closer but it would not really classify as affordable.
Same story as above – a two hour drive each direction with two small children does not set the scene for a fun family day out! With a 50% discount voucher this might have been affordable, making it only around 10 euros pp, but too far.
This is literally just up the road from us, but a day out there including entry and some food would cost us around 100 euros. Think we’ll save this for when the children are a bit older and more likely to enjoy it, and we can also have fun without our 4 year old likely to throw a tantrum when she’s tired.
This is also not far from us and I’ve wanted to see this “mini” Holland for some time. Again, not a cheap day out at 15 euros for adults and 10.50 for children, however they do offer combo tickets with Omniversum or Sea Life Scheveningen which make it better value. To do that though, I would think it would be better to wait until my 4 year old is a bit older because to cover two locations in one day, even in the same city, is a bit of a mission.
This was a suggestion from a member of the Professional Parents NL Facebook group. It is not far away (in Leidschendam), but for much older children.
Also substantial costs from 15.50 euros per child from 8-12 years old so you’d want to make sure you got your money’s worth and not have a child that decided they were scared or done in 10 minutes!
Last but not least…the winner in our search for a fun and affordable family day out in The Netherlands was…..
This amazing theme park in Enkhuizen was a little over an hour’s drive from us. We didn’t have discount vouchers, but at only 9 euros per person, the total entry for all four of us was reasonable. We were also really pleasantly surprised at the prices for food and drink inside the park. They even mention this on their website as being something they do deliberately to make it a more affordable family day out. Parking is also free.
I’m going to dedicate a whole blog post to this park soon but I’d highly recommend checking it out. What we loved the most is that it’s really suitable for young children – gentle rides and lots of space for them to safely run. The only thing we didn’t like was that smoking was allowed within the park. Particularly with young children and with me suffering from asthma, we found it really quite disappointing to have to deal with a random lung full of smoke from time to time. However this seems to be an issue in most of The Netherlands, and overall this is a fantastic place to visit.
Would love to hear your suggestions for a fun and affordable family day out in The Netherlands in a comment below!
Renee
Dutch Australian 