Efteling, Beekse Bergen to keep using time slot bookings

Theme park Efteling and safari park Beekse Bergen will scrap most coronavirus restrictions when the rules relax on Saturday. But they will hold on to customers booking their time slots online. Knowing when large numbers of visitors will arrive, will allow them to deploy staff in a more targeted manner and avoid lines at the entrances, the parks said to AD.

"Because as an industry we are a hundred years behind," Kees Klesman of Club van Elf said to AD. "You have to make reservations everywhere. In hotels, at cinemas. It's much nicer for a company to be able to work with that data, so we decided to keep using it."

Efteling will use the time slots to limit the maximum number of visitors in the park. "So that we can regulate the flow properly," spokesperson Steven van Gils said to the newspaper. "We are slowly building up the capacity so that visitors, but also our staff, can slowly again get used to a full park." People with subscription tickets don't have to book a time slot.

Beekse Bergen is not putting a maximum limit on the number of visitors allowed in at a time. "We are keeping the time slot because that way we can better deploy our staff," spokesperson Linda Engels said to the newspaper. You can buy tickets at the door, but online reservation will be slightly cheaper. "We hope to in this way be able to see when large groups come and it is more crowded."

Other coronavirus measures like splash guards, walking routes, and social distancing in the queues will disappear on Saturday. Visitors will also not have to show a coronavirus access pass to get into the parks, but they will have to show one if they want to visit the parks' catering establishments.