COPENHAGEN FOR FAMILIES

The Aquarium Copenhagen’s vast “Blue Planet” is designed to make visitors feel they’re underwater, and is home to hammerhead sharks and the Amazonas area, with butterflies and birds (denblaaplanet. dk/).

Cycle Copenhagen is perfect for biking: there’s comparatively little motor traffic, wide cycle lanes (you can circle around the harbour), and there are regular or Christiania (child carrier) bikes for hire (copenhagen. com).

Science Museum To the north of Copenhagen in Hellerup is a huge, newly opened science museum, with superb hands-on exhibitions exploring areas such as physics, the senses, and Kids aged four to 12 can dress up as a 19th-century schoolchild or board a Viking boat at this dedicated part of the National Museum (en. natmus.dk).

Solar Go Boats Equipped with picnic tables and benches, these boats are perfect for pootling around the calm of Copenhagen’s canals (goboat. dk/en). Disneyland Paris is a far superior experience to any British theme park: it’s larger, there’s a greater variety of rides, it has prettier plantings and, of course, it’s only 40 minutes by train from Paris.

The resort is divided into Walt Disney Studios, with special-effects rides based on films, and Disneyland Park, which is filled with the dreamlike enchantment of Walt Disney. Just outside the parks is an entertainment centre – Disney Village – with shops, restaurants, bars and a cinema. Within the resort, there are multiple hotels and promenades linking the hotels els to the parks.

From the Jedii Academy, where young Padawans ns learn to wield their lightsabres, s, to the new Forest of Enchantment, ntment, a celebration of nature filled with wandering g Disney characters which ch will please young children, , Disney caters to all ages,s, though the majority of attractionsactions is geared towards childrenn primary age and up – my son n found plenty to love when he was five, and d again, recently, at the age of 10.

On the negative side, ride queues snakeake everywhere.

Paris is for flâneurs, âneurs, going with the flow and spontaneity, butt the secret to Disneyland Paris aris is that you need a plan. . Decide which rides you’d u’d like to try in advance, arrive ve very early and avoid bottlenecks by strategically timing your route; there is a science to navigating the parks.

We managed to get our entire hit list done one in one day by arriving before ore the official opening time andnd working out the best order der in which to do rides, often n counter-intuitively vely criss-crossing the he park to save time,me,