We heard about the “Nowa Holandia” (“New Netherlands”) Family Theme Park located in Elblag few weeks before arrival. We decided to include this place in our expedition plan through eastern Poland. We started our journey on the north of the country, first visiting Malbork, and even spent one day at the sea. Now, our route was going in an easterly direction. So Elblag was on the way.
Children love to play, and the Family Amusement Park, which was built in Elbląg was a great place to get some entertainment for the whole day. Park is accessible from two sides – main gate is in front of the S7 expressway near Shell gas station and second one is on opposite side. There is also the restaurant with the same name “New Netherlands”. The second entrance is less marked, located on the back of the park – it’s more for the local people who are not using S7 road. As there are two entrances and two ticket offices, there are of course also two gates. What is unusual, to get to some of the park’s attractions we needed to go outside to the public road for a while to go to the other side of the park.
The park has some strange rules. It prohibits bringing your own food inside. It is rare and strange — we hadn’t experienced that kind of restriction in any previously visited theme parks. Fortunately, you can pass entrance multiple times a day, so we could go outside to the car for some snacks. As a result of this rule in general people were eating sandwiches on parking lot. It looked strange. Maybe the reason was to force people to buy food at the catering point inside the park. However, it shouldn’t be done this way.
Tickets were wristbands attached by the park service at the ticket office. It was possible to buy a family ticket, and Large Family card members also got a 10% discount. We used it! Regular price at the entrance to the park for a family of 5 was PLN 98. At the entrance we have got a map with all attractions.
Theme park is located in the area covered by the artificial channels which are common around Elblag. The land parts are connected to each other by small bridges. There is an option to rent pedalo and make some cruise through connected channels (requires additional fee).
A few words about the sanitary conditions of this park. It was dirty and unpleasant there. The first area near the entrance had only mobile toilets (not in the building) and also mobile water tanks. The toilets had not been emptied for a long time and smelled bad. Additionally water tanks were empty so there was no water at all to wash our hands. It was literally a drama. Fortunately, after this first unpleasant surprise at beginning, further was better.
There is a lot of attractions in the park. We were welcomed by a lion and took a photo with it.
The first set of attractions was inspired by illusions, and there we found:
– Enchanted faucet which pours water, but was not connected to the pipe,
– Mad tunnel,
– Crooked house (a bit too small)
– The illusion of great furniture – huge chair,
– Head on a plate,
– Cabinet of mirrors,
– land of laughter with “pasta” commonly used at the pool playground
We went further. After a while, in the distance, the Giant Lion slide appeared. It was the largest inflatable in Poland – 28 meter high slide nominated to make entry to Guinness Book of Records. The children were overjoyed!
Here a small note from the service park: younger kids could use only small parts of inflatable – steeper slide was dedicated to older children. Inflatable is also accessible by adults. We just needed to take off our shoes to get on. From the top of Giant Lion there was a great view of the surrounding area. We could select one of two slides. A large dose of excitement for kids (and parents as well). Next to the slide we had a restaurant and ice cream parlor, benches and tables with umbrellas. Here parents could take a rest when they didn’t have more energy to play.
It was hard to take kids away to next attraction, we promised to come back here again when we went back to the car.
Nearby is another set of attractions, this time King Arthur’s manor – Camelot. Here kids could pull the sword from the rock and make some tiny fight. Knight’s clothing was also available to wear, however it was very warm in a knight’s helmet. We made some knight fight there.
Next, there was playground with few small inflatables, balls pool and trampoline. We decided to play here at the return. By now there was maze that we wanted to visit first. It was very easy to get through this labyrinth because the main route was heavily trodden. Idea was cool, unfortunately the walk-through took less than 3 minutes.
When we were at the exit of the maze there was a ring where we could take a ride on a pony. The girls had to do that.
Next point was cruise by small ferry (water tram) that took us for a while along the artificial channel. During the cruise we could see Stonehenge replica and Moai Island monuments. It was nice to have such break in walking. Our legs could rest for a while.
When cruise has ended we went to the Monster Island. It was best attraction in theme park. It is rare to feel fear in theme park. During a walk small sensors were activating monster sounds and turning on mechanical constructions that were lying in the water. A few monsters, including a Yeti, were hidden in the forest. The girls believed that they were real. You can watch their reactions in our video. Only one place had an uncovered speaker, all other were nicely hidden. Justine was so afraid that she didn’t want to cross the bridge while a monster lay underneath. Fortunately with parents she is not afraid of anything so we could continue our walk.
Next we reached the mini zoo. Here we discovered very tired animals that were hiding from the sun. One pony was lying on the ground and looked dead. We reported that to the park staff and they didn’t react at all. It was terrible.
From the mini zoo we went to the Viking village. It was nicely named but in reality it was only one shed that was not accessible at all.
Finally we were going back to parking. On the way back we stopped for a while at the Gold Mine. Here Kris was trying to find real gold in the sand. There were some special small pieces colored with gold paint that looked like real gold. Kids could separate them in the sieves.
Last attraction was Giant Lion again, as we had promised. That’s all. The kids were almost sleeping (completely out of energy). Mostly because of sweltering heat and amount of attractions. Park service in such hot day put some water sprinkler where kids were able to soak a bit.
Conclusion: Family Theme Park “New Holland” (“Nowa Holandia”) is good place for active rest for whole family. Everyone has some own preferences and it is hard to prepare something universal for everybody. Amount of attractions is so big that sometimes we were thinking it is too much of them. Some of them were not related to each other. We think it would be better to choose one theme and try to be the best in this niche. If there is biggest inflatable Giant Lion why there is no other big inflatables? While walking in this park we felt a bit lost what the main theme of the park is.
It is young theme park and we think it will change in the future. We hope that it will be a change for the better.