Skip to main content
Park Queue TimesPQT

Efteling cheat sheet

worked out from 60 days of our own wait data26 rides

Arrive for 10:00 and ride Joris en de Draak, De Vliegende Hollander and Symbolica first. Leave De Oude Tufferbaan until after 6pm, when its queue drops to about 8 minutes. The park's queues peak around 12:00 at 21 minutes and are lowest around 21:00.

Before you go

When to go

The days and months this park's rides run quietest

Quietest weekday
Thursday
Busiest weekday
Saturday
Quietest month
January
Busiest month
August

Each ride's own quietest and busiest day, tallied and weighted by how long its queue runs. For a dated answer use the crowd calendar, which scores every day of the year.

The shape of the day

Average queue across the park, hour by hour

  1. 10:0015m
  2. 11:0020m
  3. 12:0021mpeak
  4. 13:0020m
  5. 14:0021m
  6. 15:0021m
  7. 16:0020m
  8. 17:0018m
  9. 18:0017m
  10. 19:0015m
  11. 20:0015m
  12. 21:0013mquietest

Arrive for 10:00. Queues climb to their peak around 12:00 and fall back through the afternoon; the last hour or two is the quietest the headliners get all day.

Ride these first

The headliners: longest queues, worst by late morning

  1. 1Joris en de Draak ~31 min typical · up to 33 at peak · worst around 11am31m
  2. 2De Vliegende Hollander ~30 min typical · up to 32 at peak · busiest right at opening, so go straight there or leave it to the last hour30m
  3. 3Symbolica ~30 min typical · up to 33 at peak · worst around 12pm30m

Straight to these from the gate, in this order. Every minute before the park fills is worth three later.

Leave these until later

Rides whose queues collapse late in the day

  1. 1De Oude Tufferbaan~22 min typical · about 8 min after 6pm8m
  2. 2Droomvlucht~26 min typical · about 15 min after 6pm15m
  3. 3Gondoletta~19 min typical · about 11 min after 5pm11m
  4. 4Carnaval Festival~14 min typical · about 6 min after 4pm6m
  5. 5Python~17 min typical · about 10 min after 5pm10m

Save them for the last two hours, when the coach parties have gone and the queue is a fraction of the afternoon's.

Fill the gaps with

Walk-ons at any hour, and the single-rider lines

Watch-outs

Rides that spend the most of the day not running

  1. 1Halve Maenrunning 19% of the park's open hours19%
  2. 2De Oude Tufferbaanrunning 60% of the park's open hours60%
  3. 3Pythonrunning 71% of the park's open hours71%
  4. 4Stoomtrein - Oostrunning 82% of the park's open hours82%
  5. 5Stoomtrein - Marerijkrunning 83% of the park's open hours83%

If one of these is the reason you came, ride it the first time you see it running rather than saving it. The full picture is on the reliability page.

On the day

Your day-of sheet

The same park, for one date: the forecast, the hours, and your ride order

Plus members get this sheet for a date: the crowd forecast for the day, its published hours, a ride order worked out against that day's wait curve, and a printable version to take in.

PlusThe day-of sheet is part of Plus

Here, that is a ride order for your date, the forecast and the hours, printable.

  • Your rides, in order

    Sequenced against the wait curve, so the headliners land in their quiet windows.

  • quiet till 111pm · 66m

    Your date, hour by hour

    How the wait climbs on the day you picked, and the window it stays low.

£16.99for two daysor £49.99 for a whole year. Paid once - it never renews.

Everything above is each ride's own recorded queue over recent weeks, sampled every few minutes through the park's opening hours - not an opinion. A ride with too little history is left out.