Duinrell Tikibad Water Park in The Netherlands
In an effort to not be overcome by the winter doldrums we took the family to an indoor waterpark in early February. We figured some warm water fun would lift everyone’s spirits. Duinrell Tikibad Water Park in Wassenaar, not far from The Hague, is part of the larger Duinrell Vakantie Park. Duinrell has an amusement park that is open in warmer weather as well as vacation house rentals.
My apologies ahead of time for the lack of photos of the water park. My phone spent most of the time safely locked in the locker. I only grabbed a few photos when I had my bag out at lunch!
We headed to Duinrell just to check out the Tikibad water park. The park features 16 crazy waterslides – seriously these were some of the fastest slides we’ve ever ridden. They have play areas for every sized kid making it a fun family visit.
Duinrell is one of those places that charges for everything, so make sure you are prepared before your visit. Parking will cost you €8.50, and it is not close. Instead of parking in Duinrell’s lot we used the public lot across the park from Duinrell. (Do not park in the street parking outside of Duinrell. It is marked with a blue curb making it special parking. This is specifically for the pancake house and has a limit of 1.5 hours.)
The entrance fee is a bit steep as well. Worse, they’re dynamic so it depends which day you want to visit and for how long.
Signs at the entrance and sporadically around the facility state that kids under a certain height or without their swim certificate must wear arm floats. We packed our own, otherwise these will cost you €4 a pair. (You can purchase these at Hema for under €2.)
This rule was sporadically enforced. We were told many iterations of this rule while inside the park. Our Big Little had them off in the little kids area because we were told that would be ok, only to be asked later to put them back on.
We arrived at 10am, opening time, on the weekend. Several large groups also arrived at this time making the entrance seem crowded.
We purchased our tickets ahead of time, but still had to wait in a line with those customers buying their tickets. There was one woman converting the online tickets into tickets for you to scan. She was also doing all the same day sales. You need to scan your ticket to get in and out of the facility so make sure you don’t lose your tickets. If you do they charge you €5/ticket. The purpose of scanning out is so that you don’t overstay your time limit. We bought 4-hour tickets but for a few more Euros, you can get all-day tickets.
Once you are checked in you head to the locker rooms. Family changing rooms are upstairs. You get a locker by using the keypad. These lockers are free of charge. We got two lockers for all our stuff. We found everyone waiting in line for one keypad, but each section of lockers has its own keypad. Don’t wait in line, just look for an open bank of lockers. These keypads have an English language option.
We brought our towels and packed lunch into the waterpark. We found a table that overlooked the kids area and left our stuff there so we would have a place to eat lunch. When we got into the park at 10 nearly all the tables and chairs were open.
Until about noon there were hardly lines for anything. We went with friends and alternated sending people on slides while the other group watched the little kids. These are hands down some of the fastest water slides I’ve ever ridden.
The layout is a bit confusing. If you want to ride a ride with tubes you have to wait in line by the main hut for a tube. If however you want to ride a body slide then just head up to the slide and get in line. The signs are not really clear what can be ridden by whom. We took the Big Little and his friend on a tube slide and when we got back in line were told by a new attendant that they were too little to ride.
There are several kids areas though so your kids are sure to find something they enjoy. The new “playa” had four water slides perfect for kids to enjoy. Our Big Little easily rode these slides on his own. Our Middle Little rode them with an adult. There are also two paddling pools with small slides and some water play that the kids really loved. The Little Little went down the little slide over and over and over.
There is a lazy river that is really really lazy. There are tubes floating in it though, so you get a tube and go on your way. The river crosses under several slides and through a tunnel, so the kids thought this was great fun.
The central pool area has a wave pool with incredible waves. A little musical tone plays when the waves start so you’ll be sure not to miss it (every 20 mins). There is also a really fun slide that feels a bit like jumping off a cliff into a deep pool. The adults that tried this all enjoyed it. There is also a small pool with a kids tunnel slide here.
When it was time to eat lunch we retreated to our saved table. We packed heavy snacks of fruits and vegetables and supplemented with mains from the snack bar.
The snack bar has your typical Dutch options of fries and krokets. They were exactly what we expected and a perfect compliment to our healthy packed snacks.
There are plenty of baby chairs and baby boxes around the facility. We grabbed a baby box for the Little Little to play in while we had lunch and got things sorted. He has become accustomed to these boxes and was happy to relax a bit safely away from his brothers.
Overall we had a great visit. It wasn’t the best water park we’ve been to in Europe, but it is certainly the closest to us. Kids of all ages can have fun here. It is a wonderful way to get some fun pool time in the heart of winter.
I did want to add that the the bus conveniently stops at the park. If you’re visiting with kids you could stay here and take the bus to/from Den Haag Centraal plus have access to the amusement park and water park.
We haven’t done this bus route ourselves but it looks like two buses frequent the park.