Just last weekend, the whole ACA team got together on a three day long epic adventure. This year, we visited Vlieland. Let’s recap our ACA amazing team weekend in this blog post!

Friday: sailing, Seeduyn and Stoep

Friday morning, somewhere between 7 and 8 a.m., two buses started their engines and began their journey to Harlingen in the Netherlands. While some of us were still sleepy, we were all excited to go on this trip and couldn’t wait to get to our destination!

It’s about noon when we got to Harlingen, where a huge sailboat was already waiting for us. During the sail to Vlieland itself, we enjoyed a nice lunch, some refreshing drinks and some famous Dutch ‘stroopwafels’. With the wind blowing through our hair and smiles on our faces, we relaxed and even spotted a seal for a couple of seconds, before it ducked underwater again.

After about 3 hours of sailing, we arrived at Vlieland, unloaded our luggage and received our rental bikes. We biked to the hotel, explored our rooms and quickly freshened up a bit. Before long, we hopped on our bikes again. This time to beach hotel Seeduyn to enjoy a delicious BBQ buffet while the sun slowly set.

While some people preferred to play some poker or board games to end the night, most of our team members chose to explore the most popular pub the island has to offer (De Stoep) and danced the night away.

Saturday: activities, guided excursion and delicious food

Day two started off with a delicious breakfast, or a 7 km long jog for the sporty amongst us. By 10:30 a.m., we were split up in groups and headed off to various activities we’d chosen prior to the team weekend. Whatever floated your boat, there was something for everyone:

• beach activities: high intensity activities on the beach, including beach volleyball, surfing, archery and more.
• culinary and beach discovery track, during which team members go out and gather ingredients for a cooking workshop from a local chef and a guided tour about the beaches and wreckages nearby.
• sealife spotting: a fishing workshop and a chance to spot seals aboard a RIB.

We were very lucky: the weather was great! Most people hadn’t really anticipated this, so quite a few of us got sunburned. That didn’t stop us from having tons of fun, though!

In the afternoon, a guide took us to the other side of the island and talked us through the island’s unique ecosystem. We got a first-hand experience with some of the island’s most peculiar and interesting flora and fauna!

Back at the hotel, we had some free time. Ideal for freshening ourselves up, relaxing on the balcony or taking a swim in the hotel’s indoor pool! Afterwards, we started our culinary tour. A guide took us to an outdoor location overlooking the entire island, where we enjoyed some wine and fresh, locally caught oysters as starters. While the sun was setting, we walked to De Dining, an excellent restaurant that served us delicious fresh fish and meats, and a dessert buffet to top it all off.

At the end of the night, we were free to do whatever we wanted to do: playing some poker, having a drink, relaxing in front of the TV or going out.

Sunday: Island Games and going back home

Sunday, day three of our Vlieland adventure. After a delicious breakfast, we formed random teams to play the ‘Island Games’. Each team was given a map with various tasks and one hour to complete them. Climbing the 40m high Vuurboetsduin to the lighthouse, taking a picture with a live crab, locating the church and so much more fun things to let us explore the island a little bit more.

At lunchtime, we headed off to the pier and boarded a ferry that took us back to Harlingen. No sailing this time: this boat was powered by engines and turned out to be a lot faster than the one with which we arrived!

In Harlingen, we boarded the buses back to our offices in Hasselt, Olen and Ghent. During the four hour drive, we were already reminiscing of the great times we had in Vlieland and singing songs together. For a lot of us, it was probably one of the most fun bus rides they’ve ever had!

An awesome weekend with awesome colleagues

The whole ACA team returned home, happy, a smile on everyone’s faces and with lots of interesting stories. There’s only one word to describe the ACA team weekend accurately: awesome! Can’t wait for the 2020 edition… 😉

Last, but definitely not least: thank you to 3vents for organizing a fantastic ACA team weekend at a great location once again! After all these years, they’re not just one of our wonderful partners, but also a part of our team.

Would you like to join us on next year’s edition? Then check out our vacancies and apply!