De Eemhof Center Parcs

De Eemhof is a Center Parcs holiday village less than 40km east of Amsterdam and 40km north of Utrecht in the centre of the Netherlands. The main concept of Center Parcs is to provide a basic level of accommodation in woodland surroundings, while having plenty of energetic activities laid on. There are 4 Center Parcs villages in the UK, but more in the Benelux countries and Germany. This was our third visit to different villages, having also been ...
...in the woods. In de Eemhof, there are lots of little ponds among the woods, which were really pretty as the leaves had turned red, yellow and brown and only just started to fall.

The two main areas are the activity factory, which also has a children's farm nearby with goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and poultry, and is near the Eemhof marina on the river. The other area is the market zone, which also has the Aqua Mundo swimming pool. The ... more

De Eemhof is a Center Parcs holiday village less than 40km east of Amsterdam and 40km north of Utrecht in the centre of the Netherlands. The main concept of Center Parcs is to provide a basic level of accommodation in woodland surroundings, while having plenty of energetic activities laid on. There are 4 Center Parcs villages in the UK, but more in the Benelux countries and Germany. This was our third visit to different villages, having also been to De Heijderbos (Netherlands) and Erperheide (Belgium).

= BOOKING VIA THE WEBSITE

=

The basic website is www.centerparcs.com, where you will be asked your country of residence and your preferred language. When you get to the main page, you can choose to browse the different villages, facilities, types of accommodation or look at the various special offers. There is also an easy search option, where you can select all the relevant criteria of date, length of stay (weekend, mid-week or week), village, accommodation, and you will be provided with the appropriate information.

As we had been before, we received promotional codes by email to book through www.centerparcs.be, but even after the discounts it was €160 cheaper to book as an overseas visitor via centerparcs.com, which was offering a 15% discount for families with children. In all for a midweek stay (Monday-Friday) we paid €483.05 including tourist taxes and booking fee, for 5 people (2 adults and 3 children), which works out at less than £70 per person.

We got an immediate confirmation email and then were able to print out an e-registration before we left.

= ARRIVAL, CHECK-IN AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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The Center Parcs website has a map from Google on it where you can type in your starting address and get a route planned for you. This route took us there in 2 hours from Brussels with no hitches. We showed our e-registration to the very friendly lady at the entrance, who gave us our room keys. We then drove to the bungalow, unloaded and then parked the car in a large car park near where we came in, and didn't go back to it until Friday when we left. The result is there are no cars anywhere so it is safer for children to walk and cycle.

The lay out of the village is that there are two main clusters of buildings for activities, and then various groups of bungalows spread out in the woods. In de Eemhof, there are lots of little ponds among the woods, which were really pretty as the leaves had turned red, yellow and brown and only just started to fall.

The two main areas are the activity factory, which also has a children's farm nearby with goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and poultry, and is near the Eemhof marina on the river. The other area is the market zone, which also has the Aqua Mundo swimming pool. The style of the market zone is clearly meant to give a classical Mediterranean feel, similar to some resorts in Spain I've visited. There are small fountains, columns covered in climbers and the area is clean, even if the weather made the feel of this area less authentic.

= ACCOMMODATION

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We booked what is termed a DeLuxe Children's Villa. This transpired to be a three bedroom bungalow, with a large living room with galley kitchen, three bedrooms, hall area, bathroom, separate toilet, and a terrace area outside. All the children's bungalows had a picture of an animal with the number on it, ours being a yellow hedgehog, leading my 6 year to complain that we should have booked the one with a dolphin!

The bedroom with bunks was quite small, but our girls were fine in it. The second bedroom was a children's room, with split bunks (from above they form an L shape), a wooden puppet theatre with 5 puppets, a selection of play bricks (like Duplo but not quite as good quality) and even a blackboard and chalk. The lightshade was a wooden bi-plane. Our son absolutely adored this room, so getting him to go to his room, if not to sleep was never a problem. The third, master bedroom, had a double bed, TV and in the wardrobe there was a code-operated safe.

As it was a deluxe room, the beds had been made up for our arrival and the linen was clean. There were also 5 towel sets - bath towel, 2 hand towels, flannel, although as usual in my experience the largest towel was not particularly large. These too were clean.

The galley kitchen has a hob with 4 rings, a microwave, smallish fridge and dishwasher, but no oven. The cupboards overhead had a good inventory of crockery, glasses and kitchen utensils, and there was even a package of tablets for the dishwasher provided.

The living area was a slightly odd shape, like two trapezia tagged onto each other. In the smaller part was a circular dining table, while the larger one had a corner sofa, coffee table and TV. There was also a fireplace for a wood fire, which we didn't use. The best feature was the large French windows, which led out onto the terrace. There was also a small lawn leading down to a lake, and we saw a good number of birds in the morning, while we were eating our breakfasts - blue tits, ducks, jays, sparrows.

Overall, the bungalow was reasonably spacious, comfortable and clean, without in any sense being luxurious. It was certainly good enough for us, although since this was a de luxe cottage, we would have been aggrieved had it not been.

= ACTIVITIES

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Common to all Center Parcs villages is the swimming pool complex, Aqua Mundo. There was a large pool, in which they switched on the wave machine for a couple of minutes every half hour, which was quite frightening initially for our 3 year old. There are two small pools for the youngest children (0.25m and 0.60m deep), both with water slides. The 0.60m pool also has a sand pit next to it. Leading off the main pool (0.90m to 1.35m deep), there were additional features, such as long water slides ending in a splash pool, an indoor river with current and unique to this village for Center Parcs what is termed "Flow Rider", which is a constant water wave where you can learn how to body-board, for which the charge for a lesson was €8.95. The decor is meant to be tropical, with palm trees and various animal statues - elephants, monkeys and, somewhat bizarrely, pigs. There are plenty of chairs and tables dotted around, although possibly not unrelated to its close proximity to Germany, most of these seemed to have been reserved with towels from early after its 10am opening!

Another feature of all Center Parcs is the ready availability of bike hire, for those who hav not brought their own. We only rented the bikes for 24 hours (€27.90 for two adult bikes (1 with child seat) and two child's bikes), but the staff in the cycle centre were very helpful in finding the right sized bike for the children, even when we had to go back not once but twice to change it. Since all the cars are parked away from the bungalows, cycling around the village is very pleasant and safe. There are also many good, safe and well-marked cycle paths outside the village. We cycled along the river for 10km or so past some huge wind turbines, and it was uniformly flat and on good surfaces.

There were a number of free activities for children. The under-4s have to be accompanied by parents, but not the 4-10 age group. Our children thought they were OK, but some of them dragged on a bit and they got a it bored, when they were meant to looking after the animals in the children's farm.

This village had a 9-hole pitch and putt course and a practice golf net - clubs were available for hire. There was also mini-golf, tennis courts, astroturf football pitch, archery, various outdoor children's playgrounds and climbing walls. In the main activity centre, there is an 8-line bowling alley (€17.90 for an hour for 5 people), laser squash (this is a new attraction, but I couldn't work out how exactly it worked, although it seemed not unlike tennis on the Nintendo Wii but with laser racquets) and plenty of arcade games, including air hockey.

A number of evening shows for adults and children were advertised, although we didn't go to any of them, as the children had worn themselves out by that stage.

One other activity we considered, but did not have time for was a boat trip across the Eemeer to the village of Spakenburg. Three times a week, a local family makes the half hour crossing from the marina to the village - during the summer, the trip is made in a sailing boat, but in cooler weather the crossing is under cover. The cost for the return trip is €7.50 for adults, €5.50 for children.

= FOOD, DRINK AND SHOPS

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There is a well-stocked and not unreasonably priced supermarket, although they round everything up to the nearest 5c, so as to avoid the 1c and 2c coins, which annoyed me on the principle. Next to the supermarket is a bakers, which didn't open until 8 in the morning, which is not the normal Benelux custom. The selection of bread, pastries and cakes is good.

The main bars, one in the market area and one in the main activity area, are waiter service, which was more often than not quite slow. However, the prices were not too steep (€2.30 for a cappucino for instance, €1.70 for a fruit juice), and they do a range of sandwiches throughout the day. Our main gripe was that the restaurants (there are 3 - pizza and pasta, a grill and a fine dining restaurants) were all only open in the evening, so if you wanted a meal at lunchtime, your options were fast food (burgers or hot dog), a sandwich or do it yourself. There was also a cafe in Aqua Mundo, but I had put all my money in the locker, so didn't explore too closely.

The market area also had a large shop, divided into various sections - fashion, toys, ornaments etc. The toy section drew our children, the girls taken with the large array of Didl merchandise, and our son with the large number of toy cars. The prices seemed in line with most Belgian toy shops, so not too cheap, but not exorbitant either.

There is even WiFi access in the two main activity areas (for a fee), although you need to bring your own laptop or PDA.

= OVERALL

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We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here, and would definitely not be averse to coming back here. The accommodation, without being luxurious, was comfortable and we didn't feel in the least cramped. The surrounds are attractive, clean and ideal for cycling. The only criticism in this regard I would have is that the lighting on the paths could be considerably brighter at night, especially near the signposts and boards. The sandwiches were OK, but the range of food options available could be considerably improved.

The range and quality of the activities are excellent, and at under £350 for a Monday-Friday stay, in my view this represents very good value for money. Although the car park seemed pretty full, and therefore I guess the resort was very busy, we never thought it felt crowded. The only queues of any length were at the bakers first thing in the morning, but you could order the day before and just pick up your breakfast, so even then there was no problem.

Overall, for a nice family break for half-term, you could do an awful lot worse than come to this (or other) Center Parcs in this part of the world. 

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