Monorail

On 17 November 2025, the Volk van Laaf Monorail started moving again. Its return ended a maintenance period that had begun on Monday 8 September and lasted ten weeks. The reopening came slightly earlier than Efteling’s public maintenance calendar had first suggested, as the ride was initially expected to remain closed until the end of November.

The comeback caused some confusion along the way. The attraction disappeared from the public maintenance calendar on 13 November, but the so-called snail track did not actually carry visitors again until four days later. During the closure, the main focus was the station building and the various Laaf houses along the route. They stood in scaffolding for weeks while plasterwork, scenery and the overall look of the area received attention.

For visitors, the Monorail is more than a transport system. The ride offers an elevated view of Lavenlaar and makes the village readable as a whole: houses, inhabitants, jokes and scenic details glide past at a gentle pace. The fact that this specific attraction returned after visible renovation fits Efteling’s wider care for the Volk van Laaf. It shows that even a calm, story-driven ride from 1990 needs serious upkeep when it shapes the atmosphere of an entire area.

By late September 2025, it became clear that the maintenance round in Volk van Laaf was larger than the Monorail alone. Efteling had already scaffolded the Slakkenhuys, the station building for that attraction. Soon afterward, structures also appeared around Leunhuys and Lavelhuys, while Loof en Eerhuys was fenced off.

Elsewhere in the Lavenlaar, signs of work were visible as well. Several slides had been missing at the Glijhuys for some time, and the exit of Lal’s Brouwhuys was closed. The Monorail was scheduled to remain closed through 28 November. By then, much of the work in the rest of the village was also expected to be largely finished.

For visitors, the situation showed that Efteling was treating the Lavenlaar as a full area rather than a single ride. That mattered after years in which Volk van Laaf mostly made news through small repairs and postponed plans. The reopening of the Loerhuys in July had already marked an important turning point; this wider refurbishment visibly continued that direction.

In September 2025, the long closure of the Monorail at Volk van Laaf became visible in the park itself. The station building, known as the Slakkenhuys, was placed in scaffolding. Work had started that week and was expected to last almost three months, after it had already become clear that the attraction was receiving a major refurbishment.

Scenery along the route was removed for maintenance. Organ-playing Laaf Loetwiek was also temporarily gone. Efteling had not yet shared further details about the exact content of the project, so visitors mainly had to infer the scale of the work from what they could see on site.

The Monorail, also called the Slakkenspoor, is more than a small ride above the Lavenlaar. In snail-shaped gondolas, visitors get a 450-metre overview of the village, while the houses themselves reveal their scenes only on foot. The work therefore affected an important viewing window onto Volk van Laaf. At the same time, it fitted the broader renewed appreciation of the Laven village after years of limited attention.