Annemieke van Brenk has received a very inappropriate message from Efteling. She received an email in which she was festively congratulated on her deceased son’s birthday. His death was also mentioned in the email.
“How nice that it is Joey (deceased 28-09-1994)’s birthday! Are you coming to celebrate a small party in the Efteling? The Fairytale Forest residents can’t wait to congratulate you,” can be read in the email that Annemieke shares on Facebook. Below it you can read that she will receive a discount voucher for Efteling tickets as a gift.
“And then you receive a congratulations. Never received one for one of the children,” Annemieke writes in disbelief in a message on her page. Her friends also react in bewilderment. “Gee, how? What a terrible mistake, this is not possible,” is one of the responses.
After Annemieke contacted Efteling, a customer service employee apologized by email.
A spokesperson for Efteling tells us that he is disappointed with the situation and explains how things could have gone wrong. “Our guests enter the family members themselves and the birthday email is then sent automatically. You cannot indicate that it concerns a deceased person. We will see how we can prevent these types of situations, because this is of course very annoying.”
Efteling also informed amusement park site Looopings that Annemieke was offered four free tickets in compensation. “Of course that doesn’t take away the pain, but we still want to do something.”