Screams are heard from many children’s throats in the Spinning Coaster rollercoaster, further on the youngest children are bouncing on a pony. Parents sit contentedly in the sun on a terrace, a cup of coffee or a cup of soft drink within reach, the children with a bowl of chips and a frikandel in their hand. This has been the success formula of Drouwenerzand amusement park for twenty years.
If you walk through the amusement park, you will imagine yourself at a luxurious fair. Spectacular attractions interspersed with quietly rotating merry-go-rounds, purchased here and there and integrated into the park in recent years. The big advantage compared to a fair? You pay a one-time entrance fee, which allows you to enter all attractions and in the meantime you can enjoy fries and soft drinks, but also fresh fruit and sandwiches all day long.
How different was the situation in 1994, when owner Bert van der Linde bought the park from founder Hendrik Buntjer. Well, park? A luxurious playground that attracts several tens of thousands of visitors. “Nothing had happened to it for years,” Van der Linde looks back. “It was a playground with free entrance, with the number of visitors decreasing every year. Moreover, Buntjer had mainly focused on the conference world and the catering industry. And I didn’t dare to do it any other way in the beginning.”
The history of Drouwenerzand Amusement Park goes back to 1956. Bakker Hendrik Buntjer starts a tearoom. He is building a playground for the children. In the decades that followed, he expanded it into a holiday park with a playground and an entertainment center. You can climb on climbing frames, slide down slides and swing on air swings. And of course there is the funicular. Play miniature golf with the whole family or take a ride in a covered wagon. But the absolute highlight are the bumper cars.
“At one point, in the 1990s, I visited the canteen of Avonturenpark Hellendoorn. There I saw photos from the 1970s, when Hellendoorn was also a playground. It looked just like in Drouwenerzand,” says Van der Linde. “My park was 25 years behind schedule. With great difficulty I took out a loan from the bank. In the end I had 650,000 euros for attractions. That seems like a lot of money, but you can only buy one or two beautiful attractions. In the end I have all old and cheap attractions bought at the fair.”