I recently went to Disneyland Paris with my three children. It was quite the experience. We were there for two nights and three days. They had been there before with their mother, as day trippers from Paris. It was my first time.

The first thing you need to know, if you go with three children, or even two, is that two adults are needed. The second thing is, always, always pay that bit extra for what is called a FastPass, which allows you skip the queue for certain, mostly popular, rides. The third thing is, try not to go with a child with a broken arm.

Two weeks before we travelled, my eldest lad, Joe, 12, broke his elbow at judo practice. It was a pretty bad break. He had to have a metal pin inserted, which he thought was cool. He has a photograph of it on his mobile phone, which he still shows to everybody.

Anyway, we thought we'd go, broken arm or no broken arm. The other two, Esther, 11, didn't want to get up on any of the scarier rides until the last day; the youngest, Vincent, 8, was too small to get up on several of the scarier rides. So was I, to be honest -- too scared, not too small.

The nearest I have ever come to anything like the rides they have in Disneyland Paris was when a carnival came to my home town every summer. They'd set up stall on a plot of ground near Joe Quinn's supermarket. Swinging boats were my favourite, and, of course, bumping cars. They had a carousel as well, or a merry-go-round as we used to call it, but that never excited me too much.

When you officially enter Disneyland Paris the first thing you see is a merry-go-round of wooden horses. We didn't get on. My daughter thought there was something spooky about their smiles. I knew what she meant.

The other thing we forgot, until we arrived, was that Joe is kind of freaked by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the rest of them. So when they approached us, as they regularly did, to put their arms around us and hug us and all of that, he ran away.

He puts it down to me taking him to the St Patrick's Day Parade when he was very young. At the time I was an enthusiastic young father. (I still am). We became separated, briefly, on Grafton Street and he ended up being scared by one of those human statues. He still remembers it. All of this could be true. It occurs to me, however, that my children might be slightly nuts. I blame their mother.

Notwithstanding our various handicaps, we really enjoyed Disneyland Paris. The biggest thrill for me was to just hang out with them for three days. I'm not sure what it was for them, but I think it was the initial thrill of just being there.

Here is how Joe put it, when I asked him to email me something: "Going to Disneyland I was a bit anxious. Having recently broken my arm I feared that it would be a boring trip in which I would have to sit out of a majority of the rides. However, as if by magic, the moment I went through those famous main street gates all of my troubles just left my head not to return until I left the theme park." All of his troubles?

I asked the other two to email their thoughts on Disneyland Paris as well, but they never quite got around to it. But they told me it was the various rides, girly ones for Esther, before she found her courage, and anything rough and tumble for the other two. Truth is, everywhere you go there is something to do, something to try out.

What Joe says is true. Nothing quite prepares you for that first entrance. It is like stepping into a fairytale. The novelty wears off after a while, but, boy, oh boy, that first moment, their faces; it will stay with me forever.

I can't remember now all of the rides we got up on, but I know the favourite: Big Thunder Mountain. It's a runaway train thundering through a mountain, based on a wild west theme. It looks scarier than it is. We didn't get on until the last day, because Esther didn't want to, and I couldn't leave her on her own. Finally, we persuaded her. After that I couldn't keep her off of it, or the rest of the scarier ones: the Tower of Terror, the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Space Mountain.

You would want to be up in the whole of your health to get on these things. We weren't. One with a broken arm, the other too small, the other initially too scared. But still... the thing about Disneyland Paris is that there is something for everyone. Our favourites, considering our restraint, were: Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Peter Pan's Flight and Star Tours. We also enjoyed the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show which was, well, as you can imagine, good fun.

Disneyland Paris is constantly evolving. At the moment, they are getting ready for Christmas. I would say the place is something else at Christmas time. They are advertising special offers at the moment, up to Christmas. On December 8, for example, you can stay at Disney's Newport Bay Hotel for 3 Nights/4 Days for €495 per adult and €175 per child. That includes flights, taxes, all meals and your theme park passes.

I would advise, the best way to see Disneyland Paris is to take, say, a week off, spending your time between Paris, the city, and Disneyland itself. After three days it can be, shall we say, exhausting; splitting your time between the city and theme park would be the best way of enjoying it.

We stayed in the New York hotel, which, like everything in Disneyland Paris, is themed on something. It was nice. There are plenty of hotels to chose from, the Santa Fe, Cheyenne, Sequoia Lodge and the Newport Bay, for example.

Bookings can be made through Breakaway, the main distributor in Ireland for Disneyland Paris.