This year marks a major expansion for amusement park De Waarbeek in The Netherlands. The park opens no less than five new rides as well as a newly decorated entrance building. One of those rides is a brand new haunted house called Huyze Pelle. Earlier, the park already showed a scale model of the exterior and later announced the opening date to be 28 May 2022. Now that the date draws near, more details are gradually being revealed.
Huyze Pelle (Pelle House) is named after one of the park’s mascots, postman Pelle. The spooky house belongs to Pelle’s grandparents, but his grandfather used to have some curious hobbies, and now the house is haunted. After visitors entered the house, they walk through some of the rooms which serve as a themed queue line. Eventually, they encounter a bookshelf which has mysteriously exploded, which gives access to the boarding platform of the ride. Here, they board a train which transports them through the haunted house. The ride system is invented by grandpa Pelle, and is a time machine of sorts which transports people along some spooky scenes recognisable from various historical time periods.
Waarbeek has been involved with haunted house development for multiple years. The park’s owner, Kevin Moespot, already built several Halloween haunted houses for Drouwenerzand, another amusement park in The Netherlands. The idea to build a permanent one at Waarbeek stems from 2021, and the park desired to be closely involved with the construction of the ride. Their team took care of the interior, with their own decorators and technicians constructing the theming for both queue line and ride. The ride system was bought from an existing ride and adapted to suit Huyze Pelle. The exterior was completed in early 2022 and was constructed by Petro Art Production.
Originally, the haunted house was the only new ride planned for 2022. However, the park ran into some attractions from Valkenier amusement park, which ceased operation following the floodings of summer 2021. “We started with buying just one ride from Valkenier,” explains Kevin Moespot . “However, one thing led to another. I hesitated for a while, but eventually I thought: we should do this!” Waarbeek ended up taking over a Big Apple-roller coaster, a mini freefall tower, a rockin’ tug-ride and some water boats from Valkenier.
Apart from the new rides, the park also invested in a new facade for its entrance building. Just like the building of Huyze Pelle, it was constructed by Petro Art Production. With these investments, Moespot wants to make the park ready for the future. He took over the park in 2019, after the previous operator had hardly invested in the park. His aim is to raise the visitor numbers up from 100.000 in 2021 to 130.000 this year.
