Snow White's Enchanted Wish
| Snow White's Enchanted Wish | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Dark ride |
| Opened | July 17, 1955 |
| Designer | WED Enterprises |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Snow White's Enchanted Wish is a dark ride in Fantasyland at Disneyland Park in the Disneyland Resort, California, based on Disney's 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the studio's first animated feature. A Snow White ride has stood on the site since Disneyland's opening day, July 17, 1955, first as Snow White and Her Adventures and, from 1983 to 2020, as Snow White's Scary Adventures. The current version, which shifts the emphasis from the film's frightening scenes to its romance and resolution, opened on April 30, 2021.
The 1955 original
In the opening-day attraction, guests were cast as Snow White herself, which is why the character did not physically appear in the ride. The route emphasised the Evil Queen and her transformation into the Witch, the haunted forest and the Dwarfs' mine, and ended abruptly with the Witch's apparent triumph rather than the film's resolution. The Witch's repeated attempts to offer riders a poisoned apple became a running problem in a different sense: the apple prop was stolen so often that it eventually had to be replaced with a projected image.
Scary Adventures, 1983–2020
The 1983 New Fantasyland reconstruction rebuilt the ride with dimensional figures, added Snow White herself to several scenes and introduced the name Snow White's Scary Adventures, partly as a warning to parents of young children. The façade was redesigned as the Queen's castle, with a brass apple at the entrance that triggered the Queen's laugh when touched, and a window above in which the Queen periodically parted the curtains to survey the courtyard. This version ran until January 2020, when the attraction closed for its most extensive reworking since 1983.
Enchanted Wish, 2021–present
Disney announced the new version on December 21, 2020, the eighty-third anniversary of the film's premiere. Imagineering, with creative executive Kim Irvine leading the project, kept the ride's structure and much of its scenery but rebalanced the story: new scenes show Snow White waking to the Prince's kiss and a concluding celebration at the castle, the Dwarfs' cottage gained animated details and the scent of pie, and the whole attraction received new music, LED black lighting, laser projections and a revised façade in warmer colours. Because Disneyland was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year, the finished ride waited empty until the park reopened on April 30, 2021, when Enchanted Wish debuted as part of the reopening-day line-up.
Voices retained from earlier versions include Ginny Tyler as the Queen in her Witch form and Jimmy MacDonald as Doc, drawn from recordings associated with the original productions.
Other versions
Snow White dark rides also operate at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Park in Paris, both of which retain versions of the scarier pre-2021 format. The Magic Kingdom's Snow White's Scary Adventures closed on May 31, 2012, and its role in Florida's Fantasyland is now partly filled by the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster, which opened in 2014.