fissha
We loved it!
We ate on the ferry (paid for the ferry and the meal with our Tesco vouchers) - both lunch and dinner were very good quality and were very welcome. Otherwise food and drink on the ferry is expensive - 4.25 euro for a ham sandwich, 2.25 euro for bottle of water, 3.25 euro for small cup of coffee. Take lots to do on the ferry because it's really a dull long journey. On the return leg we arrived 90 mins early and were loaded straight away so ended up being on the ferry yesterday from 12.45 to 8.30! You can buy drinks, sweets and lollies from guest services which was a bit cheaper than the food outlet.
Driving wasn't as scary as we feared. We didn't encounter many cyclists and when we did it was on main roads so cyclists didn't just career out into the street! We just made sure that when we queued at the port that we got behind another vehcile so we could follow them off the ferry.
We were camping in Eiland. The campsite is very shady and many of the pitches are under trees - were were under the trees but got some sunshine. There were very few pitches which were not under trees. We were on the lake side of Eiland on the bigger pitches but several had big trees in the middle of the pitch - slightly irritated that they weren't shown on the map and some people ended up having to move to other pitches because they couldnt' get their big caravans and campers on the pitches. If you've pre booked or not you may want to check with the campsite if there are trees on the pitch. The best pitches in eiland were on the same side as the toilets (clear from the map that they send in advance).
We followed signs and sat nav to Den Haag on the way to Duinrell and ended up driving through the town centrel On the return journey we found the A4 motorway which was much easier but would have been a difficult journey without sat nav. If you don't have sat nav print off an AA routemaster before you go.
Don't shop in the campsite shop - walk into town and go to C1000. If you buy beer you can recycle your crates and bottles and get cash off your shopping.
I thought (but dont' know why) that we could only use waterpark for 2 hours free before 1pm but that's not the case it's 2 hours at any time. You don't need £ for the lockers - your entry ticket is used for lockers too. Don't drop your ticket on the way out as you scan it on exit which is how they work out if you've been more than your 2 free hours - if you have its 1 euro per half an hour over. You can take photos and videos in the waterpark. Queues for the waterpark can be long - we either went 10am when it opened or 6pm onwards.
The only time we left the campsite was a day trip to amsterdam. We drove to the outskirts to Rai Central (an out of town conference centre) where it was 15 euro to park for the day (upto 8pm) and then went to dam square on the tram. We paid about 30 euro in total for the carpark and the trams. If you're going to Amsterdam find out about public transport in advance - we didn't! In Amsterdam we went to the Ice Bar which was a bar made out of ice where you drank out of glasses made from ice - 15 euro if you bought tickets in advance 19 euro if you paid in the bar itself. The price included 2 drinks in the ice bar and a 4d short film. Other than that we mooched around and walked around the red light area (15 year old boys thought it was overrated!). There weren't "sights" that we enjoy in London and I'm not sure Amsterdam would be of interest if you had small children. The shops were really expensive. Burger King was 7 euro for a meal. We also had noodles in the red light district which were lovely.
We paid 9.95 for the all you can eat pancakes - but it's not worth it. The pancakes are so big that our teenage boys could only eat 2 at a push.
We found a lovely turkish kebab shop where the kebabs were huge and really filling for about 5 euro each. Other than that we ate in the Plaza restaurant 12.50euro for steak and chips on the last night which was lovely. the other restaurant is a buffet but is 19.95 per person and didn't look that special to be honest. The take away does lovely chips for 3.00 euro for a large portion - but it closes at 9 so don't go late.
The campsite had started to fill up yesterday but the queues for the rides weren't too bad.
There is a full entertainment programme for the kids during the day - but mine didn't go. there is also evening entertainment - dirty dancing, bingo, karaoke, discos - we didn't go but heard that they were ok. The shows ended at midnight but the rules are all quiet after 11pm which is bizarre. we had two teenagers with us who got into the habit of meeting up with others at the plaza where they sat outside until 1-2 am. All was fine until the penultimate night when they were chased by security, grabbed and taken to the security box where they were questioned and told that they had been watched on the other nights and were now on their final warning and could be thrown out of the park. I would expect that if they were threatening to throw out 2 15 year olds that they would have spoken to us about it. Strange that security didn't bother to stop the parties which went on until 2am on two nights out of seven - but don't let that put you off. If you're taking teenagers just be wary that securty can be heavy handed in some circumstances.
Other than that, we didn't know about electric hook ups and whether the electic was reverse polarity. It wasn't and there was a 3 pin socket in the hookups. Golden Virginia tobacco was 64 euro for 10 pouches. Cigarettes were about 56 euro for 200. i didnt' think perfume and sprits were much cheaper.
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Topic: Holland - basic advice please
