Dutch Pinball Museum

The Dutch pinball museum is absolutely worth a visit. Or better yet, an 'useum,' as founder Gerard likes to call it. This isn’t a boring museum, but a place where you can, and should, interact with everything.

As you can read in my review of the previous location I was already highly impressed by this museum. In 2020, they moved to a new building. Below is my 2021 visit to the Dutch Pinball Museum in its new premises.

The new location is in Rotterdam’s historic harbor district. The address is: Voorhaven 12, 3024 RM Rotterdam. The building is HUGE, especially compared to the old location. Currently, the museum only occupies about half of the available floors. There are plans to expand to the other floors in the future. A small coffee bar has also been added. All this extra space has made the museum both larger and better than it was before.

The 'museum' section and the antique, non-playable games from before 1960 have now been moved downstairs. In the old location, they were upstairs while most people remained below, playing the newer games. Now, the museum is more intentionally organized. Don’t worry, once you head to the upper floors, there are still more than enough games to play. The newer machines are better spaced and grouped. There are about twice as many pinball machines now compared to the previous location.

That brings me to my only criticism when comparing to the old museum: it’s become almost too large :-) At the previous site, you could stay for half a day and manage to play nearly every machine they had during that time. The new location operates on timed entry. There are three time slots available each day, each lasting two hours. Two hours isn’t enough to play all the machines. However, for most casual visitors, this setup is ideal. For those of us aiming to play every pinball machine, there’s the option to buy a day ticket, granting access to all three two-hour blocks. Six hours should be sufficient, if you’re physically up to the challenge :)

In Rotterdam, you’re never far from the water. The Dutch Pinball Museum now resides in the large old warehouse on the left side.

Everywhere you look, there are wonderful pinball-themed decorations.

When I visited, a particularly unique machine was on display: a Magic Girl pinball. This version had upgraded software and new mechanisms, so the gameplay was finally 'complete'.

Even next to the Magic Girl, there were fascinating things to see, such as artwork and internal work-in-progress sketches.

The museum pieces are now well organized.

Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty, Cinderelly, and other early flipper machines are beautifully displayed.

There are many more antique pinball machines to admire.

The museum also houses a large collection of tooling—molds that were used to manufacture various parts. Were you curious why Chicago Gaming Company created new sculpts for their Cactus Canyon remake? It's because the original molds used by Bally/Williams are here at the museum.

One particular highlight the museum founder takes pride in is a real-life diorama of the curio shop depicted on the Twilight Zone pinball machine's backglass..

Upstairs, all the machines are playable.

There’s also a pinball wall of fame. The museum’s owner puts a great deal of effort into promoting the venue, and there’s an overview of well-known (mostly Dutch) visitors.

You’ll also find rare pinball machines from the 1980s.

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