Het Land van Ooit (which roughly translates into ???The Land of Once???) was a small themepark in the Netherlands without rollercoasters or other big rides. The main focus of the park was to create an experience for the guests that they went to another land were giants lived, children are in charge and the parents are just the servants. This was mainly done by having a lot of (small) shows. The park also had some TV series which were pretty horrible when I look back to them. Just watch the follow video of the intro of the TV series of "Kloontje" the giant child:
I???ve been here once when I was little but I don???t remember a lot from my visit anymore. Most of my knowledge of this park I???ve got through stories from other people. So I apologize in advance if I got something wrong.
There still were a few rides in the park but most of the things weren???t really special. Except for two rides: ???OpSlot??? and ???Donderballen???.
OpSlot translates into ???Locked??? and the word Slot translates into ???castle???. And that is basically what it was. You must find your way out of a castle with many doors. At the entrance, you would receive a keycard which opened some of these doors. Because there were different keycards, you can???t go through the same doors each visit. This attraction was partly maze, partly haunted castle.
Donderballen translates into ???Thunderballs???. They were steel balls in which you would take place. A lift would bring you to the top of a small hill and you would roll down a track.
The park went bankrupt and closed in 2007. After the park was closed, nothing was done with it. Some of the giant statues were sold to another small park and the costumes of the characters were auctioned.
The park stayed abandoned until about one year ago. The town decided to clear all the paths and reopen it as a normal park for the town where everyone could walk around. A few days ago I decided to take a walk through this abandoned park myself. Most of the things were removed but I could still use an old parkmap to see what roads I could take:
Since the park was reopend, they changed one of the big open fields as a parking lot. This is the entrance to the current parking lot which I only found at the end of my visit.
This is the current parking which literally no one used. There used to be a giant chair, a table and lots of other things on this spot.
Next to the parking is a small lake. There used to be some swan boats in here but the only thing that was left is the line which kept the boats in the right part of the lake.
This looked a bit creepy now???
This pink castle is the most iconic thing from the park. It???s probably the thing everyone remembers from it.
It was pretty empty inside the castle.
The back of the castle looked a bit less nice.
Behind the castle was still a track from some sort of ride.
A small theater were one of the many shows were preformed. If I???m correct, this is the theater for Sap de Aardwortel (which translates into Juice the Groundroot).
This is Waterloo. It were just some fountains but I think this was also a very iconic thing of the park.
His mind was blown???
For some reason there were a lot of guys walking with metal detectors through the park. Most of them were on large open fields. This should also be the place where the big knight show had took place.
According to the map, there should be a huge building right here which located the entrance of the park and the opening show for every visitor.
This should have been the path from the entrance / exit to the parking lot???. Also looks pretty creepy now.
I think this was the parking lot when the park was still open??? I don???t know for sure though???
According to the map???. there should be a train riding on this path??? Now it looks just like an ordinary forest.
This tree probably likes metal fences??? *omnomnom*
Probably one of the creepiest real trees I???ve ever seen.
I think there are some statues missing over here.
Random castle wall without any sign of other castle parts.
Some of the bridges didn???t feel safe anymore.
Overall there is not much left of the themepark??? but it was still fun to pay a little visit of about 1.5 hours to walk on all the roads and try to look for traces of rides or other things that used to be here.