Ravensburger Disney Castle 3d Puzzle review

This year, Disneyland Paris is celebrating its 25th anniversary, but if you're not lucky enough to have a cross-channel trip on the cards, Ravensburger have the perfect way to bring a little of the Disney magic into your own home, courtesy of their fabulous 3d Disney Castle puzzle.

It looks like it will be very complicated to put together and when you open the box, there are a daunting number of pieces to deal with.

However, once you take a closer look, many of the larger plastic parts are easily identifiable as turrets and roofs, so it all starts making more sense.

The full colour instruction booklet shows you exactly what to put where, and gives you the most logical place to start. From there on, it's all plain sailing.

There aren't a huge number of actual puzzle pieces to put together - 216 to be precise - so the first job is creating the panels, using the plastic puzzle pieces that you will instantly recognise if you've already tried a Ravensburger 3d puzzle. They are numbered on the back with an arrow to show which direction the next piece goes in, and some of them are hinged, so putting them together is child's play.

It will soon start taking shape as you slot the different sections into the plastic base.

More plastic pieces slot on top of the puzzle sections to give it extra stability, so you can move it around or even pick it up without worrying about it all falling apart.

The attention to details, such as the portcullis, make it look extra special.

We found the trickiest part was the assembly of the turrets and towers, because the curved strips need to be slotted in between two plastic rings which is a bit fiddly and they keep falling over. They look fantastic when you've managed though.

The finished castle is truly magnificent and we were very proud of our finished work. It only took about an hour to put together so it's a great family project for a wet weekend.

The castle features a whole host of Disney characters from a wide variety of films - there are 116 for you to try to spot, and you can even make a game of it, challenging each other to locate a specific person or making a list of as many different characters as possible in one minute.

Unsurprisingly, in pride of place on the front balcony, are Mickey, Minnie and their closest friends. It's a fitting tribute for such a special pair in their anniversary year !

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.