After years of critical comments about ‘racial stereotyping’ in some of its rides, amusement park the Efteling has announced a huge renovation programme.

An attraction called ‘Monseiur Cannibale’, where visitors used to be whipped around a black man’s cooking pot, will be converted into sailing boats caught in a whirlpool as part of a new Sinbad the Sailor theme.

The change will be part of a €2.8m investment in modernising two rides, in the first phase of a redevelopment and extension programme.

A spokesman for the Efteling told DutchNews.nl that it had responded to criticism, and wanted to be a place for all audiences. ‘Of course, we know about the criticisms raised about the portrayal of the main character in the attraction,’ he said in an email. ‘The attraction is 33 years old now and so it came from a different time. We would never have made it in the same way now because we look differently at the world.

‘The Efteling is a place for everyone and that’s why the criticism of Monsieur Cannibale affects us. But we’re not going to make a change overnight and have always said we have been waiting for the right moment.’

The general director of the park Fons Jurgens said he was happy that it had been given permission to expand on its south eastern side in the future. ‘We are extremely pleased about this, but we have had to delay our larger expansion plans due to corona,’ he said in the press release.

The Sinbad the Sailor theme, based on The Thousand and One Nights and the sea adventures of early traders, is according to head developer Sander de Bruijn the perfect ‘hook’ to help create a fairy tale environment at the park.

However the changes to Monsieur Cannibale have already sparked strong reactions, with far right politician Geert Wilders criticising the changes as ‘politically correct, inclusive, lefty nonsense’ and others saying they will ‘simply make the park more fun’.