Living Like a Little Woodland Creature at Tripsdrill's Natur-Resort

When scoping out a trip to Tripsdrill, what finally made me book wasn’t the siren song of silly animatronics and solid coasters, but the treehouses Tripsdrill offers in its Natur-Resort by the neighbouring wildlife park, Wildparadies. Deep down, I just want to be a little woodland creature living in the forest in a little whimsical mushroom-shaped house, so until a theme park offers me a little whimsical mushroom-shaped house, I will accept any treehouses or otherwise woodlands-y accommodations available. To live out my woodland creature fantasies, so far I’ve tried Alton Towers’ Enchanted Village Woodland Lodges, Efteling’s Bosrijk Village (alas, just the secluded hotel rooms, rather than the cottages – one day!), and Parc Astérix’s La Cité Suspendue, so I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of woodlands-y theme park dwellings. Tripsdrill had big whimsical boots to fill, so in this review of sorts, I’ll be assessing just how well Tripsdrill filled them…

My treehouse, Kuckucksnest.

What are the Treehouses?

Tripsdrill has 48 treehouses, sleeping up to 4-5 or 6-8 guests with en-suite bathroom facilities, as well as 20 far smaller ‘shepherd’s wagons’ out in a field with shared toilet and bathing facilities. The treehouses are all quite new, with the oldest being built in 2011, and the newest opening in 2022. I stayed in one of the newer ones: Kuckucksnest. The treehouses aren’t technically treehouses, as they’re not supported by a tree; instead, they have been built amongst the trees on stilts.

The Cost

I booked just over a month in advance of my mid-week off-peak stay, and paid £268.60 for 2 nights (£134.30 a night), staying on my own. Whilst I’ll admit this is not objectively cheap, I’d still say this was a fantastic deal, as that price included 2 nights in onsite themed accommodation designed for 4 guests, 2 breakfasts, 2 days of park tickets for both the theme park and the wildlife park, and a coupon for a free drink and cake in the park’s main restaurant. The only way to get dinner without driving out to a local restaurant is to get food from the onsite food truck, so if I factor in what I paid for my 2 dinners and 1 soft drink I bought, it takes it up to £147.92 per night.

For the same set-up for fair comparison (room, breakfasts, park tickets, dinner) Efteling’s Bosrijk Village cost £174.11 per night in September 2022, Parc Astérix’s La Cité Suspendue cost £235.60 for the night in August 2023, and Alton Towers’ Woodland Lodges would’ve cost a whopping £242 in June 2022 if I didn’t have Merlin staff park tickets.

Enchanted Village (Alton Towers), Bosrijk Village (Efteling), and La Cité Suspendue (Parc Astérix)

Getting There by Public Transport

If you’ve been dropped off by the bus at the park entrance, you have around a 13-minute walk, back out of the car park, and along a very long footpath towards the wildlife park. Clearly absolutely no one arrives by public transport, as when I checked in, they couldn’t quite believe I didn’t have a license plate to put on the form. This isn’t surprising, given that local public transport is infrequent and the bus stops are so inconveniently placed; depending on when you want to take the bus back towards a major city, you could be walking 45 minutes amongst the vineyards up the lower slopes of the local mountain to get to the correct bus stop.

The long, long path to Wildparadies from just outside the Tripsdrill car park.

Inside the Treehouses

Thankfully, the treehouses more than make up for the effort of getting to the park! For woodlands-y vibes alone, these treehouses beat the other accommodations I’ve stayed in hands-down. Firstly, the treehouses are secluded enough that you’ll have a hard time spotting them on Google Maps, as they nestle right up against the wildlife park. The seclusion of the treehouses, plus the fact that you have no wall-sharing neighbours means that they are delightfully quiet; I’m a horribly light sleeper, but I managed to sleep for the first time without earplugs in around four years!

Secondly, the treehouses are loosely but adorably themed to be in keeping with their rustic, nature park setting. Whilst there was nothing overtly ‘Tripsdrill’, little touches showed that great thought had gone into the presentation of the rooms to capture the spirit of the place, from a watering can for the shower head, to a small (decorative) kitten hanging onto one of the beams just above head height. I’m not one for opulent accommodation, so the quaintness of the furnishings, with wall-to-wall wood, and chintzy little deer-themed curtains and lamp fittings, suited me perfectly.

Despite the woodland setting, the accommodation still has the comforts of a hotel. There’s underfloor heating if you need it, a fan (but no A/C), a nice bathroom mirror, good wifi – and even tiny bags of sheep-shaped gummy sweets left on your pillows. Be aware that the mini fridge in the room is actually more of a cooling cabinet, since it only claimed to be 10 degrees cooler than the outside temperature (which was 33 degrees a lot of the time). The room was spotlessly clean, much like La Cité Suspendue (and unlike the Enchanted Village), and I also amazingly wasn’t bothered by any insects in the room during my stay, despite plenty hanging around outside of the windows. Bosrijk Village on the other hand seemed to have a massive spider issue, as I got to wind down in the evening by watching a Daddy Longlegs spider weave its way precariously across the ceiling above my bed, towards another Daddy Longlegs spider in the corner. There were enough spiders in that room for me to feel like I’d intruded on their booking.

The main downsides to the room are that the mattresses are a bit thin compared to others I’ve experienced, as are the pillows, and if this matters to you, that there’s no kettle, despite teabags being provided. Supposedly you can ask reception for one, but I was not about to add further fuel to the stereotype of Brits being unable to survive one evening without hot leaf water.  

Breakfast

Breakfast was between 8am and 10am deep in the heart of the wildlife park itself at the Wildsau-Schenke restaurant. I actually scouted out the joint the evening before because I couldn’t quite believe how far set back the restaurant is; it’s about a 10-plus minute walk up a slight incline from the treehouses, past the deer and bison, who’ll be tucking into their breakfasts as you’re hiking towards yours.

Perpetually stuck in competitive theme-parking mode, I always rope-drop theme park hotel breakfasts, and with Tripsdrill being a comparatively quiet regional park, this meant I was the first one there. Either the accommodation wasn’t at capacity or Germans like a late breakfast because on both mornings, I was only joined by around two families, the children of which were perplexed by my existence as this inanely smiling foreign woman eating a huge bowl of Nesquik cereal on her own. To be honest though, the restaurant can’t cope with lots of guests; breakfast is a modest range of cereals, sweet and savoury breads, fruit, cold meats and eggs all crammed together on a few tables. The spread was slightly underwhelming as I’m not a Cold Meats girlie, but the cake-breads I had were lovely and hearing birdsong at breakfast was very soothing, so as long as you’re not expecting a cooked breakfast, it’s more than fine.

A good, balanced breakfast.

Dinner

Dinner was a little different from my other theme park hotel experiences, as the only dinner option is the onsite food truck, Schäferwagen Imbiss; you can either take your meal back to your treehouse or eat at one of the outdoor tables nearby. This food truck serves regional specialities, such as spätzle (a kind of egg noodle), maultaschen (a cross between a dumpling and giant ravioli) in various sauces, and boiled sausage with lentils. There’s not an awful lot for vegetarians or vegans, but it seemed like there was at least one veggie option each day, and the staff I chatted to on the first day were very happy to explain as best as they could what was in the dishes. I appreciated the decision to serve Swabian food rather than the standard theme park fare of burgers and chips, but I can imagine the lack of an English menu and the unfamiliar dishes being off-putting for some international guests.

Maultaschen on the veranda. (I believe these had meat in them but it was unidentifiable...)

Portion sizes were quite large and prices lower than those I’ve experienced at other European theme parks (a little under £14 for a main course and soft drink), but I had a hard time judging the flavour of the food as I was queasy with heat exhaustion. I had the maultaschen with the recommended ‘meat sauce’ (gravy?) one night and turkey breast with spätzle the next, and I think that both were a little salty and bland, but I’m glad I got to try some regional dishes I’ve not had before and from the comfort and calm of my own treehouse veranda! Avoid the potato salad if you can however – it’s a frankly haunting slime of cold slivers of potato in mustard and oil.

Turkey breast with spätzle for Night Two, plus potato salad... 

The Wildlife Park

Given that in summer the wildlife park is open to 9pm, you can consider this the accommodation’s evening entertainment. I would say that around 3 to 4 hours is enough time to see every corner of the wildlife park, but you can certainly get a lot out of even just a one-hour visit at the end of your park day. My evening visits were also blissfully quiet, with just a handful of guests in the park; you could walk five minutes through woodland without seeing another soul.

The big draw of Wildparadies is that guests are able to feed the deer with food available to purchase by the cup from machines dotted around the park for one euro (bear in mind the machines only take one-euro coins), but there are plenty of other animals to see that are less free-roaming, like wild cats, boar, wolves, bears and birds of prey, and there are feeding/flight displays during the day. The park offers a pleasant evening stroll even if all the animals choose to hide away, but there’s likely to be at least one fallow deer always ready to mug you for any food on your person.

A deer plotting its next move.

My personal highlight was getting to feed the muntjac deer. On my first evening, I reached their enclosure towards the back of the park, but by that point my heat exhaustion was getting to me and I had to make a speedy exit, so I vowed that the next night I would come back with feed for them. Incoming thunder and lightning almost scuppered my plans and I had to fight off a fallow deer that bit me on the ribs in its attempt to shake me down for my food cup, but I just about managed to hotfoot it to the muntjacs before the storm rolled in, cradling my little food cup and fuelled by my love for those silly little-legged tubby-tummied guys. It took a minute or two of crouching for the muntjacs to hesitantly come over, but they went wild once they realised the entire cup of food was exclusively for them and it wasn’t just the dregs left by the fallow deer who hang out at the entrance as an intimidation tactic.

My besties, the Muntjacs.

Satisfied I had achieved my mission and fearing a lightning strike, I bade my farewells and skedaddled back to my treehouse to sit under the cover of my veranda with an orange ice lolly from the nearby ice cream vending machine (Capri ice lolly, my beloved, why are you not available in the UK?) and to listen to the summer storm rumbles. Retreating to my cabin and watching the pouring rain off the roof as the sun went down has got to be one of the cosiest experiences of my life, so even poor weather won’t necessarily (figuratively) dampen your stay.  

The Verdict

Below is a summary of how I rank the four woodlands-y accommodations I’ve stayed at in European theme parks, and from this it’s clear to see that Tripsdrill is my winner by a fair margin. The treehouses aren’t perfect – the beds leave something to be desired and dinner wasn’t fantastic (although different!) – but what you’re paying for is really the unique experience of sleeping in a wildlife park in a treehouse, not fine dining.

Enchanted Village, Alton Towers

Room: 3.5/5 (Half a point deducted for terrible thin curtains that blast sun into the room)

Cleanliness and maintenance: 2/5 (Grimy, and non-functioning lights)

Food: 3/5 (Standard Merlin park food)

Location/environment: 2/5 (Not really in woodland…)

TOTAL: 10.5/20

Bosrijk Village, Efteling

Room: 4/5

Cleanliness and maintenance: 3/5 (Spiders everywhere and broken sink – later fixed!)

Food: 3/5 (Insanely slow dinner service)

Location/environment: 5/5

TOTAL: 15/20

La Cité Suspendue, Parc Astérix

Room: 4.5/5

Cleanliness and maintenance: 5/5

Food: 2/5 (Weirdly salty dinner buffet…)

Location/environment: 4/5

TOTAL: 15.5/20

Natur-Resort, Tripsdrill

Room: 4.5/5

Cleanliness and maintenance: 5/5

Food: 3/5

Location/environment: 5/5

TOTAL: 17.5/20

Yet again, I am left disappointed by the feeble and extortionate accommodation offerings we have to put up with in the UK, when across the channel, there are so many gems for those looking to experience a little forest idyll. If you’re looking for the best of the best of these gems however, Tripsdrill has got to be your pick.