Scheveningen Pier History

Heavenly Holland and a tip for the perfect family holiday - give the kids go-karts

I will never forget the grins on the faces of my children as they realised, moments after arriving at our destination, that we would be camping inside a giant theme park.

We had arrived at one of Thomson’s 'Al Fresco' sites - Duinrell in Wassenaar, the Netherlands - a short distance from a number of delightful beaches and less than an hour's drive from Amsterdam.

Camping holidays for me usually mean roughing it in the wilds, so ‘posh camping’ on a large and busy site, in a mobile home with three bedrooms, hot and cold running water and our own loo and shower felt rather odd at first.

All sizes of tents, caravans, and mobile homes nestled close together in the middle of dense forest and sand dunes. The sound of distant screams from huge rides wafted through the trees.

While the children were happy from the word go, we were slightly apprehensive.

‘I feel like I’m about to be processed like a chicken,’ said my husband as we drove through the giant holiday park looking for Thomson's reception area.

My heart sank slightly when I saw the little plastic Nissan hut that was to be our home for the next week. The fact that the weather was grey, rainy and cold after weeks of sun in the UK didn’t help matters.

I imagined us all sitting around the table playing cards while it poured with rain outside, the kids squabbling and us getting tetchy about the lack of personal space.

But the next day our mood changed considerably. Despite a gloomy weather forecast it turned out to be blisteringly hot.

Our cabin, although basic, was just the ticket, with enough room for us to cook and eat in the open plan kitchen diner, and with small but perfectly formed bedrooms and a shower room. And, of course, we didn't plan to spend a lot of our time inside.

We hired go-karts for the children and for the whole week all three of them roamed free, together or with random friends they picked up along the way.

The most difficult thing for them was deciding which rides to go on, where to explore next on their go-karts, or when they should spend a couple of hours in the amazing 'Tikibad'. This pool and slide complex is consistently voted one of the best water parks in Europe, and had some of the fastest waterslides I've ever been on.

The children appeared when they were hungry or needed to pick up their swimming things, and then vanished again, loving their new-found independence.

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