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Manchester Evening News

Entertainment

Emma Gill & Kate Fielder

'I took my nieces to Totally Christmas and it was utterly fabulous'

Darcie Bella Grinch Manchester

A new Christmas experience has opened in Greater Manchester featuring two 'magical' trails.

Totally Christmas, at Walkden Town Centre shopping centre, involves families making their way through festive themed rooms, answering a different puzzle in each room, before moving on to the next.

Trail one features the likes of A Christmas Carol, Land of the Nutcrackers, Marvel and Polar Bears, while trail two includes The Grinch, Narnia, Andy's Bedroom from Toy Story and more.

There are 10 rooms with each trail and your group gets around five minutes in each, meaning the full experience lasts around an hour - and you can take as many photos as you like along the way.

Both finish with the North Pole and Santa's Grotto, where each child gets to meet the main man and is given a present to take home.

Kate's nieces Bella and Darcie at Totally Christmas in Walkden (Manchester Evening News)

The M.E.N's Kate Fielder took her nieces along to the opening weekend. Here's how they got on.

"I visited the festive trails with my two nieces in tow. Upon entering the venue, we were met by some friendly elves. An elf took us to a desk, and the girls were given pieces of paper so they could write their letters to Santa, while the grown ups watched an information video about the trails.

We made our way through trail one, as trail two was busy that day. Darcie, aged 5, and Bella aged 18 months made their way through the trail excitedly. Bella seemed a little overwhelmed in parts at the big installations, but did do a lot of pointing and shrieking as we entered a new themed area.

The Grinch features in one of the trails (Totally Christmas)

Darcie was very excited by the riddles and letters she had to work out along the way to guess the festive puzzle.

We started with A Christmas Carol themed room, we found ourselves in a street scene straight from the Charles Dickens novel. You get five minutes in each room to work out the riddles and work out your letter for your trail quiz. Once the light above the doorway changed from red to green, you were able to move onto the next room.

Our next room was Snowman Land, this was my favourite! Huge snowmen statues and fake snow made this a winter wonderland. Darcie skipped in and wandered round taking in the scene and looking for the riddle for us to solve. Bella followed her little sister around taking in each snowman, as she moved around the room - all of them much bigger than her.

Magical Woodland was another fab room, think festive Alice in Wonderland. Gigantic toadstools, beautiful flowers and plants and animals.

We also made our way through Christmas Down Under, Land of the Nutcrackers, Marvel at Christmas, Santa’s Stables, Polar Bears and finally the North Pole where there is an opportunity to have a family photo, before you get to meet Santa.

Darcie chatted to Santa for a few minutes and he shared his gifts with both girls, then there was a chance to make reindeer feed before we left.

All in all our trip around the Totally Christmas event space took about one hour."

Darcie with Santa (Manchester Evening News)

Tickets are available at £18.95 for children and £12.95 for adults and this includes a small gift per child from Santa. Under twos and carers go free. To book, visit the website here.

Here are the full details for each trail

Trail one