Byline: Liz Hands
ONE of the tin soldiers' shoes is falling off. He is singled out from the parade and marched off to a "cast members only" area for repairs. Nothing less than perfection is tolerated at Disneyland.
And there's nothing more perfect, more magical than Disneyland Paris after dark.
Except that is for Disneyland Paris after dark, at Christmas time.
We're here to sample all that the theme park, which is now into its late teens, has to offer over the festive period.
At twilight, the whole park turns into a twinkly fairytale. Everything is done on a giant scale here.
The Christmas tree towers 24m, from ground to star, and weighs more than 24 tons. It takes near to 500 light bulbs to illuminate, 590 baubles to decorate and 23 people to put it up.
As for the iconic symbol of Disneyland, Sleeping Beauty's pink castle, that is ablaze with around 400,000 lights. It takes technicians a full three nights to lay the Led lighting curtains on the castle towers, roofs and turrets.
At the end of the Once Upon a Christmas Dream Parade, Santa Claus appears, heralded by toy soldiers (minus the one with shoe problems), to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
Later in the evening, riding an almost deserted old-fashioned carousel when most visitors have gone home - if you're staying at a hotel on site you get to stay later - is magical.
Replica Gucci HandbagsBut the part that really gets me in the festive spirit is the snow. Yes, Disney can even make a white Christmas happen on cue. As we walk down Main Street, which stretches from the entrance to the park up to the castle, snowflakes start to fall.
It's the perfect end to an unbelievably jam-packed day.
Breakfast doesn't exactly get the day off to the best start, not because it isn't delicious. It is, the scrambled eggs are particularly scrumptious. But the queues are something I wasn't expecting. We soon learn, however, that being slightly less lazy and getting down to breakfast at 8am rather than 9am is the key to avoiding any wait.
After that, it's a 10-minute stroll through the Disney Village (where many of the restaurants and shops are based) to the entrance gates to either Walt Disney Studios Park or Disneyland Park.
We choose the latter, making a beeline for Fantasyland - every little girl's dream. You can hop on to Dumbo's back for a roundabout ride, twirl round in one of the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups or board tiny boats for It's a Small World, where you are taken on a journey around the globe. But my five-year-old daughter Katie's favourite is Peter Pan's Flight.
You fly in pirate ships over the rooftops of London for a journey into Neverland.
She also loves Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland (the park is divided into four distinct areas), where you cruise through a pirate attack on a Spanish fortress, and the Toy Story-inspired Buzz Lightyear Laser Blasts in Discoveryland, which takes you into outer space to shoot rogue aliens.
For Replica Replica Gucci Watches bigger kids, there are the likes of Big Thunder Mountain rollercoaster and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril.
But I draw the line when the two mums I'm with head for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - see, just the name is enough to put you off. I stay firmly on the ground while
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