Snow White’s Not-So-Scary Ride Reimagining
Snow White’s Scary Adventures closed for refurbishment earlier this year, with the Fantasyland dark ride behind construction walls before the parks closed. Disneyland has since offered a preview of the park’s only ride-through princess attraction, which has been reimagined and renamed as Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.
While Disneyland has been closed, Walt Disney Imagineering has been working on this attraction overhaul, which is now finished and will open with the park…whenever that happens in 2021. (See When Will Disneyland Reopen? for predictions.) Since that could still be months away, Disney offered a preview of the reimagined attractions, including familiar elements, modified story details, and all-new scenes.
None of this is new news. Disneyland offered this sneak peek at the beginning of last week and we didn’t immediately cover the story. However, it was unsurprisingly controversial among Disneyland fans, and I can’t stop thinking about it…so I’ve decided to offer some belated commentary about the preview of Snow White’s Enchanted Wish…
Let’s start with the details provided by Disneyland (skip down to the Muppet Christmas Carol photo for commentary.) Imagineers have updated this classic Fantasyland attraction with new details inside and out. Using state-of-the-art audio and visual technology, including new music, LED black lighting, laser projections and a new animation system, the attraction brings to life Snow White’s “happily ever after.”
There are new appearances of beloved characters, including Snow White cheerfully dancing and twirling with the Seven Dwarfs in their cozy cottage. There’s even the scent of Doc’s handiwork — a baking apple pie — wafting through the air, before heading “off to work we go!”
Vibrant new shadow projections bring to life the dwarfs as they march happily off to work in the mine singing “Heigh-Ho.” The most dazzling scene is the mine, which sparkles with shimmering lighting effects and glittering jewels all around.
During one of several dark scenes in Muppet Christmas Carol, Rizzo the Rat says “Whoa, that’s scary stuff. Should we be worried about the kids in the audience?” Gonzo the Great Charles Dickens brushes of the concern with a simple “nah, this is culture.” In typical Muppet fashion, it’s a humorous and incisive remark. When thinking about Snow White’s Enchanted Wish and the fan debate surrounding it, I keep coming back to this exchange.
This used to be the view of Walt Disney Animation Studios. If you go back and watch older films, things often get dark. Not just Bambi’s mother dying (although that’s probably the most memorable example), but in a variety of ways big and small. Disturbing, confusing, and intense scenes are fairly commonplace, as the studio saw the value of challenging kids, raising big questions, and delivering emotional lows and highs.
Historically, Disneyland and Walt Disney World attractions have done similar things. It’s not just roller coasters that are rite of passage attractions–so too are Haunted Mansion, Tower of Terror, Dinosaur, Indiana Jones Adventure, and even Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Really, just about any attraction can qualify, as different things will evoke fear in different kids. I was terrified of Universe of Energy.
Whether there should be anything scary in Fantasyland attractions is a matter of perspective. As someone without kids, my viewpoint is probably of little value here to most readers. I can only speak to my personal experiences growing up, which often involved confronting fears. My dad was a military man who could be likened to Calvin’s dad, touting a range of unpleasant things as life lessons that “build character.” With the benefit of hindsight, I now really value this, but most definitely did not at the time.
This itself raises the question of the role Disney theme parks should or do play, which is also very much a matter of perspective. Touching again on my personal experience, Disney has been a gateway to the world for me, and my view is unquestionably colored by that. I grew up in a small Midwestern town, attended a small Midwestern college, and despite the aforementioned challenges, was fairly sheltered.
Disney theme parks have expanded my horizons by presenting the unfamiliar in approachable ways. Disney has exposed me to different places, cuisine, and customs. The parks have made the globe just a little smaller and within reach. As for attractions, I like the idea of rides offering exhilaration and provoking strong emotional responses via an experience that is ultimately unthreatening.
Others have very different views of Walt Disney World and Disneyland. For many, the parks aren’t just sentimental and nostalgic–they’re familiar and reassuring. The annual trip to Disney presents something safe and relatively predictable. It’s about the comfort, not the challenge.
There’s no value judgment here–neither approach is “right” or “wrong.” Disney theme parks are like open world video games that can be “played” a variety of ways–so long as you’re having fun, you’re doing things correctly. This is simply to illustrate two extremes of how the parks can be experienced; in reality, most guests are likely doing a blended approach. (That’s even true for us–especially in a year like this, we strongly value the familiar, reassuring, and comforting.)
This might seem like quite the rambling digression, but just stick with me…
All of this is to establish that I’m probably at the far end of the spectrum here in terms of how the parks should challenge guests. There are a lot of ways I think Disney coddles and condescends to guests, and many of those are concerning to me. I worry that the natural progression to a lot of this is vanilla experiences that lack personality and flavor. If you aim for the lowest common denominator to appease everyone, you’ll end up with something bland and uninteresting that pleases no one.
However, Snow White’s dark ride is absolutely not the hill to die on when it comes to any of that. Even with my “extremist” viewpoints, I can recognize that. Which is why I’m somewhat surprised there has been such an online backlash to Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. Of course, I shouldn’t be. Many Disney fans are uncomfortable with any changes because…see above section about the familiar and reassuring nature of the parks.
We’ll be blunt: Snow White’s Scary Adventures was not very good. In our Rankings of All 70 Disneyland & DCA Attractions, it placed #49. We called Snow White’s Scary Adventures the “weakest of the Fantasyland dark rides…dated and disjointed.”
There’s a reason it has been tweaked so many times over the years, with incremental improvements but no fix to its core issues. Its abrupt ending with no real conclusion or proper closure to the story has always been a problem, and this reimagining should remedy that.
Above is the video Disneyland released previewing Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. It’s premature to make any definitive assessment from that, but I’m optimistic.
The previous modernizations to Peter Pan’s Flight and the Alice in Wonderland dark ride did a good job of balancing technology and maintaining the charm of the original incarnations. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish looks like more of the same. I’m also optimistic that it will port over some of what works from Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, while leaving behind the creepy projected faces that have already aged poorly.
While we love the idea of Disneyland attractions that are “scary,” there’s a time and a place for that. Rides that work on multiple levels and strike the right balance between ominous and lighthearted are great. Haunted Mansion, for instance, conveys its nature in the name and does a better job with mature themes and the macabre.
A Fantasyland dark ride based on a princess-helmed fairytale is probably not the best place for scares, even if “Scary” is on the marquee. Moreover, Snow White’s Scary Adventures was not startling because it necessarily needed to be for the sake of storytelling–it was that way just because with a surplus of mindless jump scares used as a crutch to prop up its weaknesses.
Ultimately, I suspect the biggest driver of outrage with the reimagining to Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is that Disneyland fans fear that it means they’re coming for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride next. That’s a valid concern, especially as several Fantasyland dark rides have been modernized, and it would make sense for that to be next up.
The difference is that every bit of irreverence and zaniness is essential to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Disney would never build something like that today, but hopefully Imagineering has the sense not to ruin it. The very things that make that attraction so special are its oddities; it’s an oddball attraction, great precisely because of that. By contrast, Snow White’s Scary Adventures was never great at all, and whatever goodness it possessed had literally nothing to do with cheap scares and dark qualities. I’ll be right there with a pitchfork if they give Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride the same treatment. With Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, a wait and see approach is warranted.
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Snow White’s Enchanted Wish preview? Looking forward to this, or will you miss its predecessor? Do you think Snow White’s Scary Adventures was a good attraction? Was it too terrifying for your kids? Concerns about this being a slippery slope for other changes? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I wonder when little girls and boys can have meet and greets with Snow White, along with Ariel and Cinderella ☺ï¸â˜ºï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸ in the Royal Hall â¤ï¸â¤ï¸, after they get their princess makeovers at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique? I know someone who has two daughters and they look like they would make excellent Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique customers and the kind of girls who would like to get a hug from Ariel Snow White and Cinderella ☺ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸ in the Royal Hall ☺ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸ and, if the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and the Royal Hall ☺ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸ doesn’t open up again at the same time Disneyland opens up again, they’ll be very disappointed ☹ï¸.
Bambi’s mother died? Seriously…when I was five years old my mother took me to see it and five minutes in I said to her, “I want to go home.” I’ve owned a copy ever since Disney released it on VHS. I can’t bring myself to watch it and I’m 62 years old. I know. One day I will break down and watch it. Keys words there? Break down. Get the Kleenex ready.
Tom said it best: we have to wait and see before judging. But it’s very telling what’s NOT shown or mentioned in Disney’s preview clip. There’s a real chance of a Queen-free, one-note “happily ever after” experience. I think the new elements introduced in the clip look great, but…
I always loved Snow White at DL. Not a great attraction, plenty of issues, but super weird – and I mean that in the best way possible. Keep Disneyland Weird!
I agree that losing Snow White’s Scary Adventures is in and of itself not much of a loss, but the change still makes me grumpy (har) because it’s a change in the wrong direction – toward bland and away from adventure. Have you ever watched a ride through of the original MK Snow White? Now THERE’S an intense dark ride lol. I loved that thing and I was the biggest fraidy cat kid ever.
Nice reference to the Muppets. I liked both the DL and WDW’s Snow White Scary Adventures attraction. I like rides with physical sets, animatronics, and do not rely on screens. Hopefully in the version, they retain the animatronics and physical sets from the SWSA. Although 7D Mine Train is a nice rollercoaster, I wish the ride was longer with more integration of the show scenes and animatronics from Snow White Scary Adventures plus convert those terrible projection faces to regular animatronic faces. Also, its too bad another dark ride wasn’t installed into the former WDW’s SWSA spot.
I will be angry if they ever remove Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride from Disneyland. As long as Iger is still in the picture, whatever his title is now, no classic attraction is safe. It may sound absurd but I wouldnt shock me if Toad is replaced with one of Iger’s “precious” IPs like Frozen, Wreck it Ralph, Star Wars, Marvel, or Princess & the Frog.
I am so surprised by the comments even on this thread about controversy over changing it. I love that Disneyland has kept their dark rides instead of removing them like in WDW. We still have pretty much all of them. Snow White was laughably awful! The Evil Queen shrieking and falling off the cliff with light flashes, the ride spins you around the corner and off the ride you go, there’s no proper ending. That’s not changing the movie, it doesn’t accurately reflect the movie. Not to mention the tight queue was not in ADA compliance. My sister in law is special needs and has mobility challenges and we tried going through this queue and it is a nightmare. Way too narrow, way too tight, a tripping hazard. This ride needed an overhaul, and I am excited that they have incorporated a little of Mine Train. Hopefully they are too COVID broke to ever touch Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, there should be no editing of that ride, it is already great. Unless they plussed it like they did Peter Pan and Alice, which both were updated amazingly. We can’t wait to ride when DLR opens… in however many years that is. We will be going to WDW before we get back to DLR. We had a trip for April 2020 for DLR, and still have our tickets. I have a feeling it won’t be opening until maybe fall or winter of 2021… We are excited for Avengers Campus as well!
Wish they would just update, improve effects, and refurbish rides not change them. We all have favorites and hated rides for our own different reasons . I hate Space Mountain because I have managed to ride it only once and was sick as a dog. My kids loved it and still do. I just hope they do something about the aluminum foil and light bulb volcano in Peter Pan.
This isn’t the first time that the Snow White dark ride has been changed around to minimize frights. The DL version was changed in the early 1980s; the WDW version wasn’t changed in a similar match until the 1990s. I remember clearly the addition of Snow White and the word “Scary,” as well as the removal of 5-7 jump scares where the Witch would pop out at least as aggressively as the Haunted Mansion graveyard heads.
It’s fascinating that Disney is trying to tackle this again. (Are the lines typically shorter for this ride than others?) It can’t hurt that, as Tom mentioned, the ride seems to borrow liberally from the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train scenes. I do like the idea of cloning parts of rides and tweaking them from park to park; while the results have differed over the years, the potential of something different appeals to me.
I think it’s ridiculous to change it for a two second scary scene……..are they going to change the movie as well? I remember it as a kid and how different it was than any other ride, it was something you were anxious yet excited to go on. It broke my heart when it left Disney World because it was one of the original/nostalgic rides. Sooooo, we
– Change Snow White because it’s scary
– Change Pirates due to political correctness
– Consider removing or replacing The Hall of Presidents (due to the “current environment” or dislike of Trump). Hello it’s History!!!
So what’s next????
worst of all Iger’s foolishness – Splash Mountain
If I am betting man, my money is on Mr Toad, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, Country Bears, Carousel of Progress, and Enchanted Tiki Room will all be tweaked or removed
They changed the ride because it was poorly designed. The original concept was that the rider was Snow White, and Snow White was barely in the ride (same with Peter Pan originally as well). But guests didn’t understand that, so they tweaked it to add more characters. Snow White was poorly designed, a quick ending. The mural of Snow White and Prince Charming is a cheap facade. I am so happy they fixed it after so many years, about time. ALSO, they still have the Evil Queen peek out the top of the castle. They made an original ride better, not edited, fixed.
I think it is funny to think that a somewhat creepy 3 min Fantasyland dark ride visited rarely really amounts to anything compared to the hours of darker weekly media bombardment which most kids receive. I think that the scariness of Snow White is fairly irrelevant for most kids in today’s world. I agree that the real issue is that it is a fairly cheap looking ride which is not popular and therefore doesn’t inspire repeat rides during most families trips. Bringing in new effects and interesting things to look at can only help drive more attendance and diffuse the crowds better in Fantasyland.
I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other. I was first exposed to the DL ride in my 40’s, so didn’t find it scary, and neither did my 5-year old. But maybe if she’d been younger? I like the concept of updating old rides (as you said, Alice in Wonderland was well done).
Funny thing is I don’t feel appropriate critiquing something which is simply a possibility. However, the one thing I am disappointed about is that there seem s to be no mention of the uncomfortable seating for Disney World’s ride. At 5′ 10″ and 240 lbs, I know I need to lose weight, but the ride is super uncomfortable. I have heard from many individuals about my size that they won’t even go on the ride, and my sons who are all over 6′ tall all complain about being crammed into the ride. Although this is not due to imagineering… is is due to design and engineering. Help on tis front would be immeasurably appreciated.
The two things I hope they keep as is are 1) the transformation of the Queen into her Witch form; and 2) the Evil Queen periodically peering out the window over the queue entrance. I went to Disneyland for the first time every a couple years ago and while a lot of the ride was showing it’s age, I thought the transformation effect still had a “magic” factor. While wandering around the land I first caught a glimpse of the Queen peering through the window above the attraction before the curtains closed, and to me the is exactly the kind of detail that sets Disney apart from most other parks. It doesn’t need to be there, a lot of people may miss it, but it adds so much to the atmosphere and feeling that you have truly gone to a different place.
Basically, I am pro Evil Queen haha
It has already been confirmed the Evil Queen peeking out the top window will still remain the same.
Disney has always done the contrast between good and evil I have been watching their movies since I was three. Witches and evil queens, and terrible step mothers all have a tinge of realism to them. None of them scared me, but I did have a harder time with the killing of Bambi’s mother. I see no reason to change what has been successful and enjoyed for so long. Just saying sugar coated Disney leaves a bad taste in your mouth. People perhaps expose their kids to somethings too early for them.
I was absolutely terrified of Snow White’s Scary Adventures as a kid (then again, family lore has it that I cried during my first time on It’s a Small World as well), but I think it’s important to have some balance; after all, you don’t get an interesting story without any threat of something going wrong, one way or another. In terms of this re-imagining specifically, I just hope they keep the witch effect. As a WDW regular, I had the opportunity to revisit Snow White for the first time in years on a Disneyland trip and the mirror scene took my breath away. Frightening? Absolutely. Worth it? Yep.
My first visit was, as near as I can reconstruct it, in June of 1956 when I was in grade school. So I have a lot of childhood memories, and Snow White was by far the least impressive for me when compared with Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, and Alice. While I haven’t been to Disneyland in a long time, the ride videos seem to indicated that upgrades to Peter Pan and especially Alice have been excellent improvements without sacrificing the charm of the original ride. So I’m optimistic about Snow White.
As to fears about Mr. Toad, I think it’s going to be many years before Disney spends more money beyond what’s already planned in DCA. It’s going to take a long time to offset the impact of Covid, especially in CA where the parks will almost certainly be closed for over a year. They’re going to have to spend a lot of money just getting the rides working again after sitting for so long. And if money is spent in the US, I suspect it will be in FL where Universal is seriously challenging Disney. I’d put Diagon Alley up against anything Disney has done in the US (maybe Tokyo’s DisneySea competes, but I’ve never been there.) So I’ll be amazed if Disney does anything significant to Mr. Toad in the next decade unless the basic mechanism breaks like PeopleMover seems to have in FL. And even there all they seem to be doing is repairing, not upgrading.
As a park history buff, its nice to hear people’s recollection of Fantasyland dark rides prior to 1983 refurbishments because I didnt visit Disneyland until 2012 and there is no decent video or pictures of those rides prior to 1983 refurbishments.
Does the Woodsman hand over Snow White’s “heart” in the box to the Queen in the ride?
I read a very interesting article by a child psychologist discussing the original Grimm fairytales – which are, uh umm, rather grim. She was explaining the need and usefulness of exposing children to difficult real life issues in a context in which they can understand and relate to, and the importance of using these stories to engage children in wider discussions surrounding topics like stranger danger, death, unkind behaviour. And I have used these tools with my children but that being said, we skipped Snow White every visit until my daughter was 10 as she was too scared. So I totally get both sides of the issue, but I agree that bringing the attraction up to today’s standard is more important than the morality tale… There are still plenty of things she is scared of and she is completely aware that she shouldn’t take an apple from a scary old witch.
I am one of those with a nostalgic attachment to Snow White’s Scary Adventures. It was always my family’s first ride of the day growing up. I never found it particularly scary, although I know I gave a shriek as a kid the first time I saw the Queen transform.
On the other hand, I hate to admit, I was one of the kids that got so scared of Monstro swallowing me on Pinocchio they ended up changing it. So I can appreciate that sometimes these rides can be intense and you never quite know what will scare a little one. My baby seems pretty fearless so far, but I am prepared for anything when we eventually go because I lived it. I also hope the Tokyo version still has the original Monstro swallowing so it still exists somewhere. Sorry about that one, everybody.
Universe of Energy scared the bejesus out of me, too. I used to pretend to be asleep on it, which wasn’t hard because my dad would totally fall asleep on it. And if they touch Mr. Toad, I’ll be there with you with a pitchfork. I went on it for the first time when I was 40, and I loved it because it was the most bananapants theme park ride I had ever seen.