"Is it true that you have to give the illusion that there's only one Mickey Mouse in the world?" I ask Regis, the ambassador for Disneyland Paris, a man who's talking me through the park's 20th-anniversary celebrations – a man who himself appears Pixar generated. "What do you mean?" he replies. "You know," I say, clearly – it's early evening and the parade is starting up: Minnie's singing threatens to drown out conversation. "To tell kids that when they meet Mickey here, it's the Mickey."
"I don't understand the question." He pauses, face blank. "There is only one Mickey." It is… awkward.
When you enter Disneyland Paris, you sign an invisible disclaimer. You sign away cynicism, the right to question what is myth and what is real – whether the shopfronts, their design an optical illusion to give the effect of height, actually sell the ye olde cameras and cakes they advertise (spoiler: they sell Disney hats – everywhere sells Disney hats); the scale of the castle, looming pinkly above everything like a romantic memory, carefully built at an angle to prevent backlighting when photographed from Main Street, which in turn is built as an homage to early 20th-century New York. I stay the night in a hotel decorated "in a Disneyland version of the Victorian style" – it's Gone with the Wind as imagined by a 14-year-old in love.
Twenty years ago, this was all fields. Literally, fields – when the wind blows, the smell of candy floss (in French, barbe à papa, "daddy's beard") is replaced with manure. In 1992 outraged French citizens complained it was a "cultural Chernobyl"; today, the Disneyland Paris site covers more than one-fifth of the area of Paris. With more than 30m meals served each year, it even boasts of being "the largest restaurant in France".
In the hot spring light the rides look magnificent, soaring above us. Out of the sun, so does the dark cellar of the castle where the Disney dragon lives, in a stony pit that reminds me of somewhere else. It takes an hour or so to put my finger on exactly where. I'm sitting on a slow boat, on a Prozac cruise through It's A Small World, through the chlorinated water and saccharine dolls, all singing, and I realise it reminded me of the Playboy grotto. It's the same fantasy world, all rounded edges and grins and pinkness. It makes me feel nicely mad.
And then I go "backstage" and, abruptly, the fantasy dissolves. Behind Main Street, a small city of cabins houses Disney's offices and workshops. I walk through the costume room, kept at summer temperatures so the costumiers' hands stay supple, and the sprawling warehouse housing 50,000 costumes where all staff – "cast members" – check in to pick up their outfits in the morning. Rather than the cupcake romance of the park itself, at picnic tables under bright strip lights, this is where the real love affairs happen – everywhere cast members are holding hands, giggling at each other with lusty intent. Until their breaks are over, when they must adjust their tunics in the full-length mirror nailed to the right of a concealed gate, and reappear as princesses and cowboys.
It's here, too, that darker discussions must take place, such as the plans that arose after a staff pay-freeze in 2009. On one of the busiest days of the Disneyland Paris year, cast members stormed both the cinema-themed Studios park and the fairy-tale Disneyland park chanting "Mickey, sois pas un rat!" Since then, two employees have committed suicide. The first, a chef, killed himself after what his trade union described as "humiliating" treatment at work. The second, allegedly, wrote on his suicide note that he did "not want to return to working for Mickey". Six of seven Disney unions later agreed to co-operate with a "social audit" of conditions at the park – today, on Main Street, everyone is beaming.
As night falls I make my way back into the closed-down park to watch the first full test of the Disney Dreams show – lights and lasers are to be projected on to the Sleeping Beauty Castle after dark. As I walk down from the entrance, the castle emerges from the shadowed rocks like a beautiful tumour. The park seems smaller at night. I stand in the cooling darkness, the park noisy still as they test the music blasting between buildings. "When I Wish Upon a Star" explodes from speakers on a stilted loop, and one of their Californian Imagineers (the revered people responsible for creating Disney's magical experiences) talks into a headset.
After an hour, during which they send men up the castle walls to make readjustments, silence falls and the air changes – it feels like a lot of people are holding their breath. Tonight's show has been almost two years in the making. A lot is riding on this light show, a story in which Peter Pan rediscovers Disney stories, where lasers are projected from the tops of the shops and from a tiny house by the moat, erected silently one night.
And it starts, and at one point, perhaps the moment when it appears as though the castle is disintegrating into fairy dust, or the bit where characters from Beauty and the Beast run up and down its pink height like ants, I squeal loudly. Standing there, in the dark, with fountains and fireworks erupting around me, I got it for a second, that feeling of – as a plaque says by the gate – "ageless fantasy".
The park is celebrating its 20th anniversary all year, but the fantasy – of timelessness, of placelessness, the fantasy that, rather than the eastern suburbs of Paris, you're navigating the most American street in the history of America – means this is a red herring. Instead of looking back at 20 years of Disneyland Paris, the illusion is that this theme park has been here for ever – that it was only unearthed in 1992. "It's as if," says Regis mistily, "you are seeing the future from the past."
Essentials
Prices for a two-day package this month start at £480 for a family of two adults and two children (aged four to six). The price includes return travel on Eurostar, one night's accommodation with breakfast at Disney's Newport Bay Club and two day-hopper tickets with unlimited access to the Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park. For longer stays, save up to 40% off Disney hotels and park tickets, as well as free entry for kids under seven. Call 08448 008 111 or go to disneylandparis.com
