Toverland: Troy, the wooden coaster nobody queues for

The lift hill takes thirty-eight seconds. Long enough to look down at the tangle of wooden bracing underneath you and guess where the track goes next. You will guess wrong.

From the crest on, Troy(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed never lets up. No element lasts long enough for you to settle into it. The layout folds back into itself, crosses its own track, and somewhere in the middle of the ride it fires straight through the station building at full speed, past the people waiting, who duck without meaning to.

110 seconds later you are back where you started, and you turn around. Behind you: nobody. You can stay in your seat.

That is the part I struggle to explain. Troy is one of the best wooden coasters in Europe, and it sits in a park that hundreds of thousands of coaster fans drive past every year without turning off: the A67 between Venlo and Eindhoven, exit Sevenum. Most of them still have a good hour ahead of them, on to Kaatsheuvel and the Efteling(Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands)Low, the Disney of the Netherlands.

Seventy kilometres separate the two parks. Both have a wooden coaster from the same American manufacturer. For one of them you typically wait 16 minutes, for the other 34. The shorter queue belongs to the better ride.

What Troy gets right

The specs are solid rather than spectacular: 35 metres tall, 1,077 metres long, 90 km/h, a footprint of just over 20,000 square metres. That still makes it the tallest, longest and fastest wooden coaster in the Benelux, and the numbers explain very little. There are bigger woodies that feel far more sluggish.

The difference comes down to two decisions.

The first is the layout. Troy is a twister, not an out-and-back with hills lined up in a row. Instead of running straight and going up and down along the way, the track changes direction constantly and spends every metre of height on a change of direction. On paper the element list reads harmless: lift hill, first drop, airtime hill, overbanked turn, camelback, double down, brake run. In the train you never get a moment's peace.

The second decision is the train. Great Coasters International (GCI) builds the Millennium Flyers: cars with a single row of seats each, linked together like a chain. A train like that leans into a curve instead of fighting its way through it. Which is exactly why GCI can build radii that would rattle the riders of a classic wooden coaster train. 24 people per train, two trains, 850 guests per hour.

That leaves the prejudice every wooden coaster picks up past a certain age: that it gets rough. The park has been working on it very methodically since 2024. A multi-year retrack replaces around 198 metres of layout on both rails every winter, close to 400 running metres of wood per season. The work happens under a temporary roof so rain and frost can't hold it up, carried out by twenty people from the park's own team, trained specifically for the job. The first drop and the horseshoe went first. If you rode Troy ten years ago and remember it as "brilliant, but rough": ride it again.

Ride spotlight

Troy

Toverland · Sevenum, Netherlands

Closed

16 minutes, measured across two seasons

"Best-kept secret" is easy to put in a headline. Harder to back up. So, the numbers.

Across the last two seasons, calculated from 112 operating days with wait-time data, Troy's typical wait is 16 minutes (median). Even the 90th percentile, the value nine out of ten measurements fall below, only reaches 21 minutes. That is not some dead Tuesday in March, that is the average across every operating day.

Seventy kilometres to the north-west, the Efteling(Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands)Low has Joris en de Draak, also by GCI, three years younger, and a crowd magnet as a racing coaster. Same data basis, same method:

More than double, for a ride that hardly any enthusiast ranking puts above Troy. Across ride types the picture gets clearer still. What do the big names of the region cost you in waiting time, wood or steel?

Both Toverland rides sit at the bottom, by a margin. In the time it takes you to queue once for Taron(Phantasialand, Germany)Closed at Phantasialand, you ride Troy(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed three times here.

The reason is a division I worked through in detail in The Art of Waiting: waiting time is demand divided by capacity. Toverland had 1,137,000 guests in 2025 and spreads them across five coasters, five water rides and more than forty attractions in total. A park with three times the crowd rarely has three times the capacity.

On top of that comes something other parks built in long ago and this one hasn't: Toverland sells no fast pass, no express pass, no single rider. In the entire park there is exactly one way to trade money for time, and it only exists in October. On every other day, the queue you see is the queue there is.

The rest of the park

Troy is why enthusiasts come. But the park does not live off one ride.

Fēnix(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed is the prestige build of 2018: a wing coaster by Bolliger & Mabillard, 40 metres tall, 813 metres long, up to 95 km/h, one dive drop plus two inversions (an Immelmann and a zero-g roll), 13 million euros spent. The first wing coaster in the Netherlands and still the longest in Europe. Wing coaster means you sit out to the left and right of the rail, with no track above or below you, and because your seat swings wider through a curve than the vehicle does, every turn feels bigger than it is. Along the way a phoenix sprays mist over you, which has nothing to do with physics and improves the whole thing anyway. Wait: the same 16 minutes as Troy.

Booster Bike(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed is the oddball, and my second favourite here. In 2004, Vekoma built the world's prototype motorbike coaster in Sevenum: you don't sit, you lie on a motorbike, hands on the bars, knees tucked in, and then get launched. An uncomfortable, absurd, wonderful ride. With a median of 21 minutes it has, of all things, the longest typical wait of any coaster in the park, which comes down to boarding one at a time, lying down, which takes as long as it takes.

Dwervelwind(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed by Mack Rides is a spinning coaster in the dark, half dark ride, half coaster, with freely rotating cars and onboard audio, a first for the type at the time. Its opening date is a small trick question: the ride was finished long before the rest of the Magische Vallei, and rather than let it stand idle for a year, the park simply ran it from 29 September 2012, five weeks, until 4 November. Then it closed again over the winter so construction could continue around it, and came back in April 2013 with the complete themed area. Which is why sources say either 2012 or 2013. Both are right.

Toos-Express(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed from the opening year of 2001 is the junior coaster where children here have been riding their first coaster for a quarter of a century.

The wet-and-dark department is better than its reputation:

• Merlin's Quest(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed (2018), the boat ride through Merlin's tower, with animatronics and a run of scenes other parks would charge extra for. The quiet star of Avalon.
• Djengu River(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, the Hafema rapids. The question is not whether you get wet.
• Expedition Zork(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, a "Twist & Splash" by Mack: water ride and carousel in one, and considerably meaner than it looks.
• Villa Fiasko(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, a Vekoma madhouse, the room that spins around you while you swear it's the other way round.
• Dragonwatch(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed (2023), a 40-metre observation tower from which you see how small this park actually is, and how complete.

From rainy-day hall to theme park

Few parks this size have such an unlikely backstory. It starts without a single roller coaster.

On 19 May 2001 the Gelissen family opened an indoor playhall in Sevenum. No theme park, no coaster, no scenery: 2,000 square metres under a roof with climbing frames, slides and a ball pit, built for rainy days in a region that has plenty. A family business in the borderlands, whose business model was that children have to go somewhere when it pours. The opening was performed by a young Dutch illusionist who had no world career yet: Hans Klok.

What followed is an unusual growth story, because this park never had money it could afford to waste, and still built something twice over that had never existed anywhere.

2004 brought the second hall, then "Magic Forest", today the Wunderwald. And with it Booster Bike(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, Vekoma's worldwide prototype of the motorbike coaster. A park that barely anyone outside Limburg had heard of had a ride type developed that did not yet exist.

2007 brought the first proper outdoor area: Ithaka, Greek antiquity, built around a single ride. For 6.5 million euros, a park with around half a million visitors at the time got itself a GCI wooden coaster of the kind normally bought by places with five times the crowd. Troy was only the second GCI installation in Europe, after Thunderbird at Finland's PowerPark, and the eleventh worldwide. In March 2007, shortly before opening, part of the half-finished lift hill structure blew over in a storm. The park rebuilt it and opened on time for the season anyway.

2013 brought the Magische Vallei around the "Dwervels", with Dwervelwind(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed and Expedition Zork(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed. And 2018 brought the leap that turned a day-trip destination into a theme park: a 35-million-euro expansion with a completely new entrance area in Mediterranean harbour style (Port Laguna) and the Arthurian world of Avalon, home to Fēnix(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed and Merlin's Quest(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed. That is also when the park picked up its current claim, "Discover your own magic", replacing the older lines "Magisch mooi" and "Feel the Magic". The same year Toverland cleaned up at the European Star Awards: best theme park in the category up to one million visitors, plus an award for Avalon and Port Laguna as best new development. Troy came in just behind the winner in the best wooden coaster in Europe category, with a ride that was eleven years old at the time. 2023 grew Avalon further, among other things by the 40-metre observation tower Dragonwatch(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed.

The visitor numbers tell the same story in figures: 620,000 in 2013, 862,000 in the last pre-covid year of 2019, consistently above a million since 2022, most recently 1,137,000 in 2025. That is roughly a third of what the Efteling or Europa-Park push through, and that is precisely the appeal.

Both original halls are still there, by the way, and they are not a rainy-day plan B. Land van Toos and Wunderwald are a programme of their own, with Djinn(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, the swing carousel above the oriental market, as the prettiest example: 12.8 metres tall, fully covered, and lit in the evening in a way other parks would need an outdoor area for.

2026 is the anniversary year, and the park is celebrating it in a way no corporation would come up with. Since 18 April, "Magic Memories" has been running, an illusion show by that same Hans Klok who opened the gates 25 years ago, around 30 minutes long, several times a day, included with admission. And on the weekend of 27/28 June, Toverland stayed open for 25 hours straight for the first time in its history, with a surprise every five hours, an XXL parade and fireworks.

Halloween, and the night from the other side

For six weeks a year this park takes on a second personality, and for many guests from western Germany that is the actual reason to come. Where it sits in the European field is in our Halloween guide; here is the Toverland version.

The season runs from 3 October to 8 November 2026 and splits into two very different events:

• Halloween Days (17 days), daytime, family-friendly, for children up to around 12: pumpkin farm, shows, harmlessly costumed characters, scare zones without the scares.
• Halloween Nights (13 nights, through 7 November), 18:00 to 23:00, recommended from age 12: six scare zones, six haunted experiences, an opening parade, ground fog everywhere, fireworks to close.

The 2026 newcomer literally grows: "Entwined: The Maze", a seven-hectare corn field with walls metres high behind Fēnix, according to the park twice the size of the whole Avalon area and marketed as the largest Halloween experience in Europe. It replaces the long-running rat labyrinth "Trapped". The only rule that counts in there: stand still and you get caught.

For Troy fans, though, the best part is still to come. One of the scare zones is called "DesTroy" and sits in Ithaka, right beside and underneath the wooden coaster. Mutated Trojan soldiers guard the ruins of the city wall, and Troy runs straight through it. There are not many chances in Europe to ride a first-class wooden coaster in the dark through a live scare zone, with fog on the brake run and performers in the queue.

One of the six experiences has a second layer for me. With the Freundeskreis Kirmes und Freizeitparks, a German funfair and theme park enthusiasts' association, I went backstage in the Maison de la Magie, and we got to try being the haunt ourselves. Not during operating hours, no real guests, just us and an empty house.

It was still enough to understand the respect the job deserves. You stand in a position from which you can see almost nothing, and you are expected to be on cue to the second anyway. Anyone doing that for five hours an evening, in a way that gives the two-hundredth group the same fright as the first, is achieving something you never notice from the outside. Ever since, in every scare zone I see the people in the costumes first and the costumes second. That the park manager came by the same evening and took the time says a lot about this place: small enough that it can happen, and evidently important enough that it does.

Park spotlight

Toverland

Sevenum, Netherlands

Closed

What else is coming

If you haven't been for a while, one attraction will be missing. On 17 May 2026, Maximus' Blitz Bahn(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed in the Wunderwald opened for the last time, the 2007 Mack bobsled where a brake lever let you decide how fast you went downhill. For years our history had it as the attraction with the longest wait in the entire park, a median of 34 minutes, and on busy days it hit 60 or 90.

That came down to arithmetic that could never work out: one car held one, maybe two people. And because the current record was posted at the exit with a photo, couples regularly took two cars instead of one so each of them could set their own time. Throughput collapsed at exactly the point where the ride was most fun. Ninety minutes for ninety seconds, and people queued for it anyway, again and again, because there was a name on a board up front they wanted to beat.

The last day was not a quiet one. The park sent it off with a proper party, with a supporting programme and souvenirs made for the occasion, and the queue was one last time as long as in its best years. The very last ride, though, belonged to the one the ride has always belonged to, according to house lore: Maximus Müller, the eccentric inventor who lives in the Wunderwald, climbed in himself and took his own contraption down one final time.

You can find that silly, a fictional character in a bobsled. I thought it was right. For nineteen years this ride took its own story seriously, and on its last day the park finished telling it instead of just cutting the power. That is exactly why I like this place.

Its successor is the reason I consider Toverland the boldest small park in Europe. This winter a Swinging Bobsled opens there, a ride type that does not exist anywhere in the world yet. It was developed with ETF Ride Systems from Nederweert, from the same province of Limburg, 30 kilometres from the park. The principle of the Blitz Bahn stays, you still control your own speed, but the vehicles swing out dynamically at certain points. The cars come in a steampunk look, matching the inventions of the tinkerer Maximus Müller who lives in the area. The park has not revealed a name or a story yet. This is the third time a world first has been created here.

After Halloween the park closes briefly and opens from 28 November 2026 to 17 January 2027 as Winter Feelings: lights, Christmas market atmosphere, ice skating and curling, Wednesdays and weekends plus daily through the Christmas holidays. The water rides pause then, and the world premiere joins the line-up. Beautiful, just no longer a secret once the lights are on: December and January are the toughest months of the year in our data.

When to go

This is the most relaxing part of this article, because the answer is so easy: almost always.

By month, June is the sweet spot (typically 18 minutes park-wide), followed by May and July at 20 and 22 minutes. The hardest work is April at 25 minutes, when Easter, King's Day and the Dutch May holidays land together, then the winter weeks in December and January at 31 and 26 minutes. That surprises a lot of people: the busiest period is not summer, it is the short, heavily booked winter season, when only part of the attractions run and the park only opens on Wednesdays and weekends. One caveat: winter and early season have so few operating days that these monthly values rest on far fewer measurement days than the summer months. The direction is clear, the decimal place is not.

By weekday the numbers barely spread out. Saturday is the busiest (25 minutes) and Friday next (24 minutes), and from Sunday to Wednesday it is 20 minutes throughout. At Phantasialand there are worlds between a Tuesday and a Saturday. Here, almost every day is a good day.

You can't rely on that the moment Dutch and German holiday calendars, weather and opening hours all overlap, and in the Limburg border region they overlap constantly. Here are the quietest days coming up:

And this is how the crowds break down by month and weekday, calculated from the last two seasons:

One thing to keep in mind: the Dutch holidays hit harder here than the German ones, especially the autumn and May breaks in the southern provinces.

The perfect day, in six sentences

Since there is no fast pass, all you have here is timing. You won't need much of it though.

At opening, head straight to Ithaka for Troy, not because it gets busy otherwise, but because a wooden coaster is still cold in the morning and runs measurably faster as the day goes on. Ride it early and late, and you will have ridden two different coasters. Then Fēnix in Avalon, the two headliners are practically wall to wall. Third Booster Bike, because it has the longest typical wait of any coaster in our data. Save the water rides for the midday heat. When "Magic Memories" is on, a sizeable share of the guests spends half an hour in the theatre, and it is noticeably quiet outside. And the last hour belongs to Ithaka again: Troy at dusk, when the structure is lit and the train runs audibly faster through the station than it did in the morning.

Practical: tickets, getting there, food

Tickets. The pricing is pleasantly old-fashioned.

• Day ticket at the gate: 42.50 € (from 140 cm), 34.50 € for children from 90 to 140 cm, under 90 cm free, seniors from 60 pay 28 €.
• Much cheaper online. Book at least seven days ahead and you get the early bird discount of 7 € (from 140 cm) or 3.50 € (90–140 cm); later bookings still save 2 € or 0.50 €. Realistically you land at 30 to 37 €. There is a ticket window, but no reason to use it.
• Parking: 13.50 € per car per day, bookable online in advance. Bicycles park free at the entrance.
• Summer Pass: 79 € for adults, 59 € for children from 90 to 140 cm, unlimited visits from 1 July to 30 September, parking add-on 25 €. It pays for itself on the second visit.
• Magic Member (annual pass): 160 € for adults, 120 € for children, 130 € from 60, monthly instalments from 6.75 €, parking 50 € a year extra. It includes unlimited admission to special events such as Halloween too, plus one of the Halloween mazes free and 5 % off food and shops.

That last point is worth a look across the border: Toverland sells a perfectly ordinary annual pass with Halloween included. Phantasialand scrapped theirs after the pandemic and, despite several fan petitions, has not brought it back. If you live in the border region and visit a good park more than once a year, read those two sentences twice.

Getting there. Toverland is in Sevenum (municipality of Horst aan de Maas), Toverlaan 2, about ten minutes' drive west of Venlo. Via the A67 you are there in about an hour from Düsseldorf, a good 1:15 from the Ruhr area, around 1:20 from Cologne. By train, go to Horst-Sevenum, from there bus lines 79 and 679 take about ten minutes to the entrance; the frequency is rural, so plan the return trip before you set off. There is no park hotel of its own, but plenty of guesthouses and holiday parks nearby. If you are touring the region anyway, it combines well with Bobbejaanland(Kasterlee, Belgium)Closed (around an hour) or indeed the Efteling(Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands)Low.

Food. Two addresses are genuinely worth it.

• The Flaming Feather (Avalon) is where you go when you want to sit down properly: medieval tavern setting, Burgundian cooking, meat and fish dishes, vegetarian options, seasonal specials. Order the bread starter, that is the real insider tip of the house: very fresh bread with a whole range of spreads. Take it between two or three of you though, on your own you fill up on it before the main course arrives.
• Katara Plaza (Magische Vallei) is the food court with the best view: tropical dishes, tables by the water, and the Katara water show alongside.

For something in between there is the Waldstube in the Wunderwald (pizza, burgers, sandwiches, a blessing in the rain), Hungry Harry and Mañana for wraps, fries and soft ice, and the snack vending machines in Port Laguna, which most people walk straight past. Unfairly: no queue, no detour, and the least complicated solution in the park for a gap between meals. Eat early or late, half eleven or from half two.

Frequently asked questions about Toverland

Is Toverland worth a visit?

Yes, especially for coaster fans who have had enough of queues. With around a million guests a year the park is small compared with the Efteling or Europa-Park, but it has one of Europe's best wooden coasters in Troy(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed and the continent's longest wing coaster in Fēnix(Toverland, Netherlands)Closed, at typical waits of 16 minutes.

How long are the wait times at Toverland?

Across the last two seasons the typical park-wide wait is 20 minutes, with Troy and Fēnix at 16 minutes each in the median. The values are highest in December and January, and in April. Current figures are on the Toverland park page(Sevenum, Netherlands)Closed.

When is Toverland least busy?

June is the calmest month in our data (typically 18 minutes), followed by May and July. Weekdays are a little emptier than weekends, but the difference is small (20 against 25 minutes on a Saturday). Avoid April, the Dutch May and autumn holidays, and the short winter season.

Do you need a fast pass at Toverland?

There isn't one. Toverland sells neither a fast pass nor single rider; the only exception is the Fear Pass for the haunted experiences during the Halloween Nights (62.50 €). With 16-minute medians on the headliners you don't need one on a normal day either.

Is Troy the best wooden coaster in Europe?

"Best" is a matter of taste, and there is plenty of competition: Wodan(Europa-Park, Germany)Closed at Europa-Park(Rust, Germany)Closed, Untamed(Walibi Holland, Netherlands)Closed at Walibi Holland(Biddinghuizen, Netherlands)Closed and Balder(Liseberg, Sweden)30 Min at Liseberg(Gothenburg, Sweden)High. Among enthusiasts, though, Troy sits in the European top group regularly, and at 35 metres tall, 1,077 metres long and 90 km/h it is the tallest, longest and fastest wooden coaster in the Benelux. One thing it definitely is: the world-class European woodie with the shortest queue.

What's new at Toverland in 2026?

Three things: the illusion show "Magic Memories" by Hans Klok for the 25th anniversary (since 18 April, included with admission), the end of Maximus' Blitz Bahn on 17 May, and its successor, the Swinging Bobsled, a ride type that does not exist anywhere in the world yet, developed with ETF Ride Systems, opening in the 2026/27 winter season.

How much does Toverland admission cost?

At the gate 42.50 € (from 140 cm) or 34.50 € (90–140 cm), seniors 28 €, children under 90 cm free. Online with the early bird discount (at least seven days ahead) it is 7 € or 3.50 € less. Parking costs 13.50 €. The annual pass (Magic Member) starts at 160 € and includes Halloween.

Can you do Toverland in one day?

Easily. Five coasters, five water rides and more than forty attractions in total fit into one day at these wait times, with room for repeat rides on Troy. With small children and the two indoor halls you can comfortably fill two days though.

Stay in your seat

"Discover your own magic" is the park's claim, and I am well aware that a sentence like that comes out of a marketing department. It just happens to be true here. Toverland doesn't prescribe anything. There is no fast pass you'd have to buy to keep up, no attraction that takes two hours out of your day, and no running order to work through. You walk in and find what you like yourself. For me that has been Troy for years. Other people come for the Maison de la Magie, for the Djengu River on a warm afternoon, or for the Halloween Nights.

And this is long past being a small park that is quite nice for the region. Sevenum has a wooden coaster that makes every European best-of list. Two ride types were invented for this park and built here first, and the third arrives this winter. And you are still back in the train after a quarter of an hour on a weekday.

How things look at the park right now:

And the two this was about, with their current numbers:

Ride spotlight

Troy

Toverland · Sevenum, Netherlands

Closed

Ride spotlight

Fēnix

Toverland · Sevenum, Netherlands

Closed

Take the Sevenum exit once instead of driving past it. And when you're sitting in Troy and nobody is waiting behind you: just stay in your seat and go again. And then once more. On a Tuesday in June that works here. In most other parks in Europe you can forget it.

— Patrick

Sources & further reading

• Troy (specs, type, GCI, 2007 storm damage): Troy (roller coaster) on Wikipedia · Troy (Toverland), German Wikipedia · Troy (official)
• Troy retrack: "Toverland: Retrack der Holzachterbahn Troy" (FreizeitparkNEWS)
• Fēnix (B&M, longest wing coaster in Europe): Fēnix on Wikipedia
• Dwervelwind (soft opening 29 September to 4 November 2012, complete Magische Vallei from April 2013): Dwervelwind on Wikipedia · Dwervelwind (official)
• European Star Awards 2018: "Toverland hat gleich drei European Star Awards gewonnen" (Freizeitpark News) · Awards (official)
• Park history, themed areas & visitor numbers: Toverland on Wikipedia · 2025 visitor numbers (official)
• The claim "Discover your own magic" (since 2018, previously "Magisch mooi" and "Feel the Magic"): "Toverland kiest voor nieuwe slogan" (Looopings)
• Farewell event on 17 May 2026 (programme, souvenirs): "Wir verabschieden uns von Maximus' Blitz Bahn" (official) · "Toverland ersetzt Maximus' Blitz Bahn" (FreizeitparkNEWS)
• Swinging Bobsled & the Blitz Bahn farewell: "A new attraction: the Swinging Bobsled!" (official) · "Toverland to replace bobsleigh with new swinging bobsled" (blooloop)
• 25 years of Toverland, Hans Klok & ToverFestival: Hans Klok: Magic Memories (official) · "Toverland wird 25" (Themepark Central)
• Opening hours & 2026 calendar: 2026 calendar (official)
• Prices, early bird, Summer Pass & Magic Member: Prices & opening hours (Freizeitpark-Welt) · Annual passes (official) · Summer Pass 2026 (FreizeitparkNEWS)
• Halloween Days & Nights, scare zones and Fear Pass: Scare zones & experiences (official) · our Halloween guide
• Getting there, bus & parking: Address and route (official)
• Backstage in the Maison de la Magie: Freundeskreis Kirmes und Freizeitparks e. V. (FKF)
• Wait-time and crowd data: our own history across two seasons, Toverland on park.fan(Sevenum, Netherlands)Closed