As we weave through the children running from ride to ride, their parents scrambling to keep up, and the park staff monitoring the scene, Roderick van Zuylen can’t help but pull over our golf cart when he sees something out of place. A trash bin that was supposed to be emptied or an overgrown flowerbed warrant a grumble and a furrowed brow. But once he’s barked a complaint into his walkie talkie, he smiles and returns his focus to the tour.

He zigzags and crosses through the vast park as if it’s a supermarket. Although he spent the majority of his career working in a bank doing mergers and acquisitions, his father, Count Hugo van Zuylen van Nijvelt, handed over the reigns to Roderick (above right) and his brother, Philip (above left), about six years ago, and now the park has become his career, his ambition, and, judging by his broad grin, his joy.

We pass the campgrounds freckled with tents and caravans, and head to “Duingalowpark,” a wooded field inhabited by hundreds of cottages. As we reach the rows of wooden bungalows bejeweled with barbeques and bathing suits drying in the sun, van Zuylen searches his brain for numbers. “We just added 50 or 55 new Duingalows because we were too full. Now we have 425.”

And on this spring day on a holiday weekend the entire park is bustling with people checking in, packing into the Duingalows, pitching tents, and lining up in their bathing suits for the Tikibad. Duinrell is in full vacation mode.

In spite of its brilliant colors and cartoony atmosphere (the frog mascot—“Duinrell, puts a spring in your step”), Duinrell, amid western Holland’s dunes, woods, and sea, is as lush and dignified as ever. In the town of Wassenaar, a seaside village with 26,000 residents, and located less than an hour from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, Duinrell has worn many hats throughout the past century. Today, it’s a popular vacation spot for the Dutch, who travel there for weekend getaways at a reasonable price. There are camping and camper parking and, for the less rugged, deluxe cottages equipped with laundry and ironing facilities, kitchens with dishwashers, and a romantic atmosphere in the Wassenaar woods.

From April 12 through October 26, Duinrell guests get free access to the amusement park, the Tikibad waterpark, playgrounds, dozens of restaurants and eating spots, and beautiful gardens. Groups—even those on business outings—are accommodated in Duinhostel, a former Coach House that was built among the trees, close to the spot where the majestic castle once stood.

The castle inhabited the spot until WWII, and it will be there again, this time surrounded by a waterslide, bobsled track, roller coaster, carousel, Ferris wheel, and more.

Picking Up the Pieces

For centuries, before it was a vacation spot, Duinrell was an estate inhabited by the van Zuylen family. During WWII the estate, like much of the country, became a sitting duck during the German occupation. Holland’s terrain is flat, leaving few hiding places for the Dutch during the war. With the open sea to the north and west, the German Reich to the east, and occupied Belgium to the south, escape beyond the borders was difficult and dangerous. In May of 1940, Holland surrendered to the advancing German army.

With his staccato speech, Roderick recounts some of the history of the estate and his family as it’s been told to him. He points up at the black-and-white picture of the castle hanging above the conference table, gesturing across with his hand to show its impressive size. “There was a lot of fighting here. My grandfather died during the war; he was shot by a German guy. The Germans came and took everything, and after the war, the castle was destroyed. After a while it got too dangerous so we either had to build it back up or tear it down, and there was no money to [build it back up], so we tore it down.”

But because of Duinrell’s proximity to the beach and other major cities, the open land became attractive to vacationers in years following the war. By the early 1960s people were regularly asking Hugo van Zuylen for weekend use of the property. He began to charge visitors a small fee for staying at Duinrell, and to cover the cost of building amenities, attractions, and rides. Throughout the years the estate took on themed HUSS coasters, rides, and play elements and is now as much an amusement park as it is a place to stay. Throughout the past four decades it’s been transformed by the van Zuylens from an estate in shambles to a beautiful park and successful vacation spot.

Duinrell distinguishes itself from the other regional parks by offering a mixture of rides for small children and early teens, Roderick says: “Six Flags is for older children, pure teenagers, which I think is a very difficult market because they get bored by things easily. They want something new all the time.”

The markets Duinrell targets are more inclusive—holiday travelers, families, teens, and young children. Although reeling in such a broad demographic group can be challenging, Roderick says it gives the park a kind of synergy that is missing in many other parks. “The combination gives us a very special place in the market.”

The variety of offerings doesn’t hurt either. Beyond the rides and year-round Tikipool, Duinrell has ski vacations in the winter. But back in the 1960s it wasn’t the traditional ski resort one might expect. Folks skied on dried pine needles before the climate allowed for snow. But Duinrell built slopes and gave people the opportunity to ski there. Now the park offers snow skiing because the regional climate has changed. “Now we have real snow. We used to be the biggest ski center in Holland, but now there are lots of indoor ski slopes in the area. We don’t do that because we think it’s a waste of the landscape.”

The need for expansion projects is constant, which makes the land particularly precious, Roderick says.

More people are visiting the park than ever before—Duinrell’s location makes it the perfect vacation spot. “The beach is here. The location is very special. The themeing and the green are very important to the feel of the park.” Most important now is for Duinrell to increase its overnight accommodations; beyond its affordability and family atmosphere, it’s a short ride to shopping, famous museums, major cities, and the internationally renowned seaside resort town of Scheveningen. “It’s harder to say it than it is to get there,” Roderick says. “Shkev-en-inj-jen,” he says slowly.

The willingness to point visitors to attractions outside Duinrell is an aspect of the park that separates it from nearby Six Flags Holland, the Efteling, and other resorts throughout the country, Roderick says. “We’re not trying to keep the people inside our park. If people stay here they must have a good holiday,” he says frankly. “It doesn’t matter to me if they have a better experience outside Duinrell because it’s part of their holiday. When you do something on holiday the hotel is just one part of the holiday. We show them all the things there are to do here, we rent lots of bikes, and it’s fantastic. You can smell all the bulbs in the spring as you ride the bikes, so we encourage people to do that.
“We don’t pretend to be everything because we don’t need to.”

Flexing Their Muscles

As families wait in line to get their camp site or Duingalow assignments, they breeze through brochures for Leiden, Keukenhof, Binnehof, Museum Naturalis, the Space Expo—attractions within biking and walking distance, or within a short bus or train ride. Many plan to stay for a long weekend, a week, or even two weeks. Those families staying only for the weekend can remain at Duinrell throughout their entire stay because there are so many attractions, restaurants, and events at their fingertips. In fact, Duinrell can’t expand fast enough to accommodate all the people who want to stay there. The Tikipool, an indoor water paradise built by Roderick’s father, Hugo, in 1984, now has a two-hour time limit because it can only hold 2,000 people at a time. “It’s our most popular attraction, the best one we have,” Roderick says. With 1.8 million liters of water, the Finnish Sauna, the Turkish Steam Baths, and the cold immersion bath all add a relaxation element to the park that gives the older crowd a more fulfilling experience, Roderick says.

Beyond expansion, being competitive is important to both van Zuylen brothers—“With just 15 million people in Holland and lots and lots of attractions, you have to be,” says Roderick. Alert guests at Duinrell may spot Roderick or Philip sitting on a park bench or standing in line at a ride. This is a great way, he says, to find out what you can do better. “You listen to the people when they talk to each other after they come off a ride or out of the Tikipool. They’ll say, ‘this is great, or I wish it had a bigger slide,’ or something.” He also took a trip recently to California to visit parks with his family and bring home ideas to incorporate at Duinrell. “We rented a camper, and we saw Disney, of course, and we saw many small parks and waterparks. It was good to see what they do. We rode our bikes in the San Francisco hills and down Lombard Street,” he says, and then interrupts himself. “Those bikes cost $80 for one day only! One day; I couldn’t believe it.”

One major way the van Zuylens plan to improve Duinrell in coming years is to re-create the castle that originally stood on the property into a place where guests can stay on their holidays and enjoy a piece of history. The plans for the hotel are still mostly in the van Zuylens’ minds, but Roderick is sure that it will happen.

Brotherly Love

The division of labor between Roderick and Philip is clearly defined, Roderick says, which is important to their partnership. “My brother always knew he wanted to work here,” Roderick says. “I worked in a bank in mergers and acquisitions for three years, and then in the sales department of the same bank, and then I came here. I do the marketing, sales, and public relations, and my brother does the operations side. The division is very important so we know who does what. If Philip weren’t here, it would be no fun.”

Both Roderick and Philip have big families—there are seven kids between them—which he says makes managing the park all the more meaningful. Experiencing the park through his children’s eyes helps him decide what improvements to make, and what he can add to make the park special for children of all ages.

As we pass by coasters, playgrounds, and restaurants, Roderick shares information about each spot—when it was developed and what company built it. But every now and then he smiles and says, “I used to ride that when I was a kid,” or “I remember when that was just a forest.”

Still, what he loves about Duinrell seems to go beyond his own personal history or his children’s future. “It’s fun to build things for happiness, you know?”