Europa & Efteling Visit 2025

[Whombex]

Okay, managed to pin down 2 parks on our EU trip this year - Europa and Efteling look to be the parks closest to our travel route.
I'd also considered Phantasialand and Walibi NL, but they will be too far away.

So, they will be single-day summer visits. If you have been to either Europa or Efteling since 2022, let me know any tips or must-do's.
I would ride almost anything once, but would probably prefer to not do high-G rides back to back. My other half cannot do anything more intense than Jungle Rush.

Also, what websites/video channels are good for EU Park visit guides?

 

Of course I'll post pics/report when I can.

[mba2012]

I visited both parks in July last year. It was definitely busy that time of year, but I imagine it gets much busier later in summer too. Both parks are huge though, which helps spread out the crowds; the biggest queues I encountered were for Voltron at Europa Park (which had only been open two months at this point) at around 90-120 minutes for the normal queue (I used the single rider queue every time). I was visiting by myself, so I made pretty extensive use of single rider queues, so some of my advice might not be totally accurate. 

Efteling roughly forms a circle, which makes it easy to move through the park as the day goes on. The big high-G rides there are all concentrated in the same place out the back though, so you might find yourself going back and forth, which can take a bit of time. If your partner is happy doing indoor roller coasters, then I'd highly recommend Vogelrock, as it wouldn't be any more intense than Jungle Rush, and honestly it was one of my favourites there. The grounds and gardens and random attractions all over the place are also really worth seeing, so definitely take your time as you walk through the park. 

The layout of Europa Park is far more chaotic, and I'd say it's probably impossible to see everything in a one day visit. I've gone twice now, and there's plenty of things I haven't tried, and probably some areas I haven't even walked through yet. It'll be pretty easy to balance out high-G rides with smaller/dark rides, as they're all pretty evenly distributed around the park. Down the front of the park you've got the Eurosat CanCan Coaster that's in the big dome. Both trips I've been surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and it's not too intense (probably similar to Jungle Rush, just a bit longer). Silver Star (the B&M hyper) is right there too, and that's a solidly enjoyable ride, but it often has some of the longest queues in my experience. Unless you're desperate to get on a B&M hyper, I'd prioritise several other rides first. If you've been on Steel Taipan, then you can probably prioritise other rides over Blue Fire (it's still a great ride though). Arthur is a really fun and pretty tame ride, that's definitely worth getting on because of how unique it is. And obviously I'd recommend Voltron as a must ride, there's pretty much nothing like it.

My recommendations for must-do rides at Europe Park would be (in no particular order): Voltron, Blue Fire, Eurosat, Euromir, Arthur, Silver Star, Wodan. I've just then visited other rides/attractions as I've walked between those ones.

I don't have any great recommendations for food at either park, because I've never gone out of my way to find food. For accomodation, I'd recommend trying to stay close to Europa Park. It's fairly straightforward to get there from elsewhere, but it can take a while on trains + buses (I was staying in Heidelberg and had a 2-3 hour trip each way last time I visited. Freiburg is only about 1-1.5 hours away, and is where I'd recommend if you don't want to stay in Rust itself). Efteling is also quite accessible, and it's much closer to big cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam.

Personally, I found the longer vlogs from Coaster Studios and Theme Park Worldwide to be really useful for getting a sense of what's in each park, and roughly how to get around.

Feel free to fire away with any additional questions you've got too!

[DJKostya]

I am doing Europa and Phantasialand next month while I'm in Germany (Also hitting up Legoland in Denmark). So if you're not going before than I can let you know how things go when I'm back.

Luckily I have time to be able to spend 2 days in each. Thanks to @mba2012 for the advice for Europa above