Our trip to Duinrell Campsite Wassenaar, Holland during May Half Term
Having never travelled to Holland before, we were delighted to be given the opportunity to visit.
Planning a holiday with children is never easy, especially if they are of varying ages, but we were positive a trip to
Duinrell would prove a perfect holiday destination for our children.
There are various things to take into account when planning a holiday with young children through to teenagers – ideally you want a nice clean holiday park, plenty of outdoor activities, plenty of space for them to run around, close by to a beach and shops, and most importantly WiFi – at
Duinrell, these were all ticked.
The benefit of
Duinrell as a holiday destination, is that it has an onsite Water park and Theme park and is only 5KM from the nearest beach – perfect for pleasing our youngest to our eldest children.
We chose to travel by car, using the Dover to Calais ferry as the journey is only around an hour.
The journey itself on the ferry was very easy – it was a tad busy on the ferry with people travelling – but we found a seat in the lounge area and treated ourselves to a coffee.
Having driven in France before, driving on the right hand side is not a problem, and what is even better – to get to Holland you can drive through northern France, then Belgium, and onto Holland only takes around 3 hours – the roads are very clear, the traffic little and weather generally kind, so the option to open a window or two was welcomed.
We like to travel early, so it gives us the chance to arrive at our holiday park mid-afternoon.
We were pleased to arrive at the park around 2pm, after an early start in the UK, and the sun was shining.
The first thing the children noticed was the tree lined roads, and then they were desperate to seek out the swimming pool.
We drove to the nearest parking space, and headed to our caravan – the caravan was lovely – very clean, with plenty of grass outside for the children to play, and enough room inside to relax.
The amazing Tiki Pool – has a total of 16 waterslides, and the Playa water park, for children up to 12 years, with four waterslides.
It is such great value – entry is only €5 per person for 2 hours, or €6 per person for 3 hours, or €7 per person for the whole day.
We opted to spend 2 hours in the water park, so we had some time to have food afterwards.
The water park is amazing – so many slides, pools, drop slides that you could easily spend all day there.
After a lovely relaxed nights sleep, my youngest and I decided to get up early and explore the park, and to our amazement we came across the theme park – there are rides for little ones, big ones and grown-ups.
We returned to let the rest of our family know of our discovery and later that day we headed to the theme park – the benefit of
Duinrell is that the theme park is onsite and can be easily accessed by walking through the holiday park.
In the wooded area there are Boules, Archery, a Running track, Volleyball, and Football pitches.
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My wife loves wildlife and nature and was amazed to see a Heron flying around the park and sitting on top of our caravan – we even saw Red Squirrels !
Late afternoon on day 3 we decided to walk into the local town and explore – and what we found would please every teenager – a local supermarket called 'JUMBO' – perfect for buying a weeks shopping – but what was even better was that they have free WiFi !
On several occasions our children offered to help us with our shopping – it didn't take too long to realise that the main reason they were happy to help was because they could use the supermarket's free WiFi – this being the main reason why they were happy to walk into town and help with the shopping !
The next day we opted for a trip to the local beach – and what a lovely beach it is – a large car park for people to park and a short walk past a few ice cream shops and down the the beach – you can see for miles – clear sand, blue seas, sunshine above – it was the perfect way to spend a day.
My youngest and I decided to buy some nice big spades and see if we could dig a hole for us to stand in and we managed it – it was so lovely to dig the sand together and as the hole was deeper than my son is high – he found it hilarious that he could stand in the hole and not see over the top !
The next day, we planned a trip into Amsterdam – a trip that my wife had been looking forward to for ages.
We decided to drive there and the town itself is like any metropolitan city centre – busy – but with the added extra of bikes having the right of way and trams going up and down the roads.
We found a side road to park in, and noted our location.
Our children were extra excited to take a trip on one of the trams and trying to work out where we were on the map and seeing which stop we needed to get off at !
We decided to get off a few blocks before our stop, so we could explore as the sun was shining and the city looked so lovely.
We had pre-booked tickets to Anne Franks house – something we were advised to do as you cannot just turn up and buy tickets – and we arrived early and were told that we just needed to arrive ten minutes before our allocated time – so we had some time to sit and watch the canals and take some photos.
Anne Franks house is so wonderfully laid out – giving you an insight into the family and what Anne went through – you walk around the house and can listen to commentary – both my wife and I and our children were moved by what we saw that it is something we will never forget.
After the visit, we walked towards the centre of the city towards the museums – taking in the buzz of the city.
My two sons were loving the fact that there is a big 'I AM STERDAM' which everyone was climbing on – so my two boys tried to climb on also – my daughter just paddled her feet in the nice cool pool and sat enjoying the sunshine.
There is so much more to see in the city, and if we had longer we could certainly spend a couple of days exploring.
The next two days of our holiday were spent in the theme park and water park.
There is a fantastic toboggan run located in the wooded area – our children loved being pulled up the hill and whizzing down the hill.
The facilities onsite really are second to none.
Duinrell itself has three restaurants, a Creperie, and a Takeaway – all perfect for sitting with your children enjoying the lovely food and watching kids running around, or riding bikes or peddling the go karts you can hire.
The staff were so helpful and friendly and answered any queries we had.
Holland is such a lovely country to travel through, and we were so surprised at how little time it took to drive there – I love driving on foreign roads – they are generally wider, have less cars on them and are less stressful than UK roads !
For anyone travelling with children – planning the right holiday destination is key – our children are various ages,
Duinrell have the perfect holiday destination – my wife and I enjoyed the relaxed feeling of the park, my children all found the water park and theme park perfect for them – this was ideal as it gave our eldest a chance to video footage using his GoPro and create a wonderful vlog for his You Tube channel.
All in all, we were really impressed with the park as a holiday destination – not only does it take less time to get to than it would take to travel the same distance in the UK – but you can pretty much guarantee the weather.
And as the saying goes – Happy Children = Happy Holidays (also Happy Wife = Happy Life) 🙂
Here is my Son's You Tube video he created showcasing the highlights of our holiday – I hope you enjoy 🙂
