Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains
| Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park (Paris) |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Dark ride |
| Opened | April 12, 1992 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) is a dark ride in Fantasyland at Disneyland Park (Paris) at Disneyland Paris. It opened with the park on April 12, 1992, and retells Disney's first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), in a ride of about two and a half minutes aboard mine cars named for the Dwarfs. It sits between Les Voyages de Pinocchio and Le Carrousel de Lancelot, in the cluster of classic storybook dark rides at the heart of Paris's Fantasyland.[1][2]
History
Snow White dark rides are as old as Disneyland itself: a version opened in California in 1955, followed by Florida in 1971 and Tokyo in 1983. The Californian and Tokyo rides were both comprehensively rebuilt for 1983, in the New Fantasyland project led by Tony Baxter, and it is that 1983 Californian model — its scenes, sequence and figures — that Paris largely follows. Comparisons of the two rides describe them as close counterparts in layout and staging, with Paris using larger mine cars: three rows carrying six riders, against four riders in California.[3]
Paris is not a simple copy, however. Where the 1983 Californian ride ended abruptly after the Witch's defeat, the Paris version adds a full happy ending: Snow White, seated on the Prince's horse and surrounded by the Dwarfs, waves guests goodbye from a bridge. That finale set a standard later Californian updates would eventually follow. The Paris ride also adds small extra effects of its own in several scenes, and it retains the story's darker material in full — a balance later summaries describe as largely looking like the 1983 rides, albeit with a nod to the story's darker elements.[4]
Context matters here: Florida's original 1971 version was, by most accounts, the most frightening of all, and it was only in 1994 — after Paris opened — that Florida was redone to be more consistent with the Californian version. Paris therefore belongs firmly to the Californian line of the ride, frightening scenes included, rather than to the original Florida approach.
Experience
Guests board in a castle courtyard beneath a window where the Queen periodically parts the curtains to survey the scene — a detail shared with California. The cars enter the Dwarfs' cottage first, all candlelight and music, with the Dwarfs at home and Snow White on the stairs, before the tone shifts.
From there the ride follows the film's darkest thread. In her dungeon, the Queen transforms before the Magic Mirror into the Witch; the cars pass skeletons in the castle passages, take on the poisoned apple at the cottage door, flee through a haunted forest of clawing trees and glowing eyes, and pause in the Dwarfs' diamond mine, glittering under the lights. The climax restages the storm on the cliff: the Dwarfs pursue the Witch, who tries to lever a boulder down on them — and is struck by lightning and falls.
Only then does Paris add its coda: the bridge scene, bright and calm, with Snow White, the Prince and the Dwarfs waving farewell in front of a painted mural. There are no drops and no height restriction, but parents are regularly warned — by the park's own guides and by experience — that the transformation, the forest and the Witch's cackling make this one of the darkest of the Fantasyland storybook rides for very young children, despite its gentle pace and happy ending.
See also
- Snow White's Scary Adventures
- Snow White's Enchanted Wish
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Disneyland Park (Paris)
- Disneyland Paris
- Fantasyland