This site uses cookies - see our privacy policy. Ads & links in bold may give us a small payment from the seller, at no cost to the buyer. However, this never affects our views - if we like it, we recommend it.

Which Center Parcs is best in the Netherlands and Holland?

There are nine Center Parcs across the Netherlands and Holland – that’s more than any other European country. But which is best?

We’ve attempted to narrow it down by comparing price, location, customer reviews, facilities and travel time from the UK to come up with some suggestions.

If you don’t fancy reading all this waffle, the headline is that we think Center Parcs Het Meerdal should be the first you look at, closely followed by De Kempervennen and De Huttenheugte.

If you want to see our working (and you've got time on your hands), read on...

Which Center Parcs in the Netherlands and Holland is nearest to the UK?

The Netherlands is about half the size of Scotland, so it’s not a huge country and the differences in driving distances is not as significant as it would be in Germany or France.

However, some parks are more convenient for travelling from the UK. There are various ferries and flights to the Netherlands available, but for simplicity we’ve just looked at the travel time from Calais. You can take the car on the Eurotunnel at Folkestone which takes 35 minutes to get to Calais.

Stena Line offer bundled deals which give a discount if you book Center Parcs Netherlands and a ferry from Harwich in Essex.

We’ve ranked the parks in order, based on approximate driving times from Calais:

Center Parcs De Kempervennen - 3 hours drive from Calais
Center Parcs Het Meerdal - 3 hours 15 minutes
Center Parcs Port Zelande - 3 hours 15 minutes
Center Parcs Limburgse Peel – 3 hours 15 minutes
Center Parcs Het Heijderbos – 3 hours 30 minutes
Center Parcs De Eemhof – 3 hours 30 minutes
Center Parcs Park Zandvoort – 4 hours
Center Parcs De Huttenheugte - 4 hours 30 minutes
Center Parcs Parc Sandur - 4 hours 30 minutes

It’s interesting to note that several of the Center Parcs in the Netherlands are actually closer to the UK than many of the French Center Parcs. In my head, France is nearer than the Netherlands to the UK, but it turns out that it isn’t that simple…

Search Center Parcs Netherlands
+ Stena Line ferry bundle offers

Which Center Parcs in the Netherlands and Holland gets the best reviews?

There’s quite a big variation in customer reviews of the nine Center Parcs in Netherlands - unlike in the UK where they all get pretty much identical average scores from customers.

When we checked, two Center Parcs in the Netherlands were scoring 4/5 on TripAdvisor - De Kempervennen and Center Parcs Het Meerdal.

Park Zandvoort was scoring 3/5 on TripAdvisor, whilst the remaining six parks were scoring 3.5/5.

So, based on TripAdvisor we have two clear winners - De Kempervennen and Center Parcs Het Meerdal.

However, reviews on Google (which also include thousands of customer opinions) were much closer.

Park Zandvoort remained in last place with 3.5/5 but most of the remaining parks were all bunched together, with these holiday parks on either 4/5 or 4.1/5:

So, I think it’s worth looking at all the other factors before coming to a conclusion on which is the best CenterParcs in the Netherlands/Holland.

You may have noticed that the two Dutch CenterParcs with the best reviews on TripAdvisor are also the two which are closest to the UK. This may be because a shorter drive is putting parents in a better mood - or it might just be a coincidence.

Which CenterParcs in the Netherlands and Holland is cheapest?

To get an idea of which Dutch Center Parcs offers the best value, we looked at three sets of dates for a family holiday at all nine parks. We looked at the cheapest available holiday (excluding activities and upgrades) for two adults and two children for:

a week in August 2019
a week in early October 2019
a week over Easter 2020

Prices for a week in August 2019 for four people from cheapest to most expensive:

De Huttenheugte – £873
Het Meerdal - £1051
Limburgse Peel – £1158
Parc Sandur – £1167
Het Heijderbos – £1292
De Kempervennen - £1391
De Eemhof – £1452
Port Zelande - £1818
Park Zandvoort – £2023

Prices for a week over Easter 2020 for four people from cheapest to most expensive:

Limburgse Peel – £749
Het Meerdal - £756
Parc Sandur – £784
De Huttenheugte - £791
Park Zandvoort – £820
Port Zelande - £870
De Kempervennen - £884
Het Heijderbos – £920
De Eemhof – £991

Prices for a week in early October 2019 for four people from cheapest to most expensive:

Het Meerdal - £385
Limburgse Peel – £417
De Huttenheugte - £449
Parc Sandur – £489
Het Heijderbos – £536
Park Zandvoort – £537
De Kempervennen - £545
De Eemhof – £585
Port Zelande – £585

Searches carried out in June 2019

Which Center Parcs in the Netherlands and Holland has the most facilities?

There’s a pretty big variation in the number of activities on offer at the nine Center Parcs in the Netherlands/Holland.

Of course, this doesn’t give you much idea as to the quality of the activities but it gives an idea of whether you’ll have plenty to do. Bear in mind that you pay extra for most things at Center Parcs.

Here they are, ranked from the park with the highest number of activities to the least:

De Kempervennen -108 activities
De Eemhof – 104
Het Meerdal - 104
Port Zelande - 103
Het Heijderbos – 95
De Huttenheugte - 95
Parc Sandur - 79
Park Zandvoort – 63
Limburgse Peel – 60

So, six of the parks have about 100 activities whilst three of the CenterParcs are bit behind.

Other notable differences between the nine Center Parcs in the Netherlands and Holland

Three of the Dutch Center Parcs were previously known as Sunparks, but were rebranded (Limburgse Peel, Parc Sandur and Park Zandvoort)
Het Meerdal and De Huttenheugte were built in the early 1970s and are the oldest Center Parcs in the Netherlands.
The newest park was built in 1999, although that is Parc Sandur which was previously a Sunpark.

Conclusion – which is the best Center Parcs in the Netherlands and Holland?

Center Parcs Het Meerdal ticks a lot of boxes for me.

It came joint top in our ranking based on customer reviews and was the cheapest or second cheapest in all our price comparisons. It also has plenty of activities and is one of the closest Center Parcs to the UK, assuming you are coming from Calais via Folkestone in the South East of England.

In second place, I’d choose either Center Parcs De Huttenheugte or Center Parcs De Kempervennen.

De Kempervennen is marginally ahead on customer reviews, has a few more activities and is the closest if you’re driving from Calais.

However, De Huttenheugte was cheaper in all of our price comparisons and wasn’t far behind on the number of activities. It’s about 90 minutes further in the car, so you might decide that you’d rather pay a little bit extra to save yourself the drive.

Limburgse Peel is one of the cheapest Center Parcs in the Netherlands but it is marginally behind on customer reviews.