While Disneyland in Anaheim, California, has been closed to visitors, it’s given one of its long-standing attractions a major makeover.
The theme park’s Snow White’s Scary Adventures ride will soon be known as Snow White’s Enchanted Wish — but it isn’t just the name that’s changing. The ride itself has been redone and includes all-new scenes.
By Disney standards, the original Snow White ride was known to be frightening, which led the park to add the word “scary” to the ride’s name in the 1980s.
For as long as the ride was open, the Evil Queen was at the forefront, tempting riders with the same poison apple that put Snow White into a deep slumber in the Disney animated classic.
However, in a preview video released by Disney in December 2020, John Gritz, Walt Disney Imagineering’s principal concept designer, said that the ride is “finally giving Snow White the happily ever after she deserves.”
The ride has new music, animations, lighting, and laser projections. Even the attraction’s castle-like exterior has been repainted in a more cheerful color palette that feels inviting and warm.
The original version of Snow White’s Scary Adventures was rife with scary elements.
Though the attraction has been updated multiple times since the California theme park opened in 1955, it’s always told essentially the same story. In the most recent version, guests visit the dwarfs’ cottage and a diamond mine where they “dig the whole day through” before traveling to the Evil Queen’s castle.
Riders move past an illustration on the Snow White ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in 1955.
Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images
Inside, rides experienced the castle’s foreboding dungeons, skeletons, cobwebs, and the Evil Queen’s alter ego.
After escaping the castle, riders would enter a haunted forest, where the trees appeared to be alive. Visitors would also see the Evil Queen attempt to push a large boulder on the dwarfs — but before that, the villain was struck by lightning and fell to her death.
Unlike the 1937 animated movie, neither Snow White nor her prince appeared in the original ride.
While Snow White’s Scary Adventures may sound like a typical Disneyland attraction, it had a reputation among fans for being notably spooky. The park’s website included warnings about the original experience’s “dark, spooky scenes that may be frightening for young children.”
But based on the name change and the scenes that were shown in the sneak peek, it seems the new attraction may give fans of the fairy tale the best of both worlds.
As it did before the refurbishment, the ride appears to open with a trip through the dwarfs’ woodland cottage, but Disney’s reported enhancements will add an element of celebration to the scene.
A TikTok video also released by Disney in December 2020 shows fans the beginning of the made-over attraction. Clothes that hang on a line outside the cottage appear to be dancing with Snow White, while forest creatures look on from the window and stairs.
According to Disney Parks Blog, Snow White will be “cheerfully dancing and twirling with the dwarfs in their cozy cottage,” and visitors will also get to experience the aroma of Doc baking a fresh apple pie.
The scene is reminiscent of the party the dwarfs throw for Snow White in the classic film.
The ride’s new effects include sparkling gemstones.
Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort
Once riders leave the cottage, shadow projections show the dwarfs marching off to the diamond mine.
Inside the mine, gemstones shine with special lighting effects, and the dwarfs’ animatronic effects seem to be enhanced with additional movement, according to Disney’s video.
Concept art of Snow White’s Enchanted Wish released in 2019 shows a ride scene where the prince wakes Snow White with a kiss.
In a blog post accompanying the concept art, Disney also acknowledged that guests can expect to see “familiar elements of the attraction you know and love.” Disney’s blog post mentions that the attraction will end with Snow White waking from her sleep and being “reunited with her animal friends and a shimmering castle is seen in the distance.”
A view inside Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.
Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort
While Disney has yet to release a full ride-through of the made-over attraction at the time of writing, a video shared on the Disney Parks Blog in February confirms the Evil Queen won’t be completely removed from the ride.
In one scene, the witch is at her cauldron, offering up the fairy tale’s infamous poisonous apple.
Disneyland has been closed to visitors since March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and has yet to announce a reopening date.
A representative for Disney confirmed to Insider that once guests can return to the California theme park for leisure, they will be able to ride the newly renamed Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.
For now, the California resort is operating as a COVID-19 vaccination site. More than 100,000 vaccines have been administered there since January, Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced in February.
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