Locked into a chair and cornered by a growling, drooling, bloodthirsty alien… Braving the otherworldly unknown hidden within the historically haunted Hollywood Tower Hotel… Racing through the cataclysmic darkness of the final minutes of the Cretaceous with a hellish Carnotaur giving chase… Navigating the misty graveyard path into the flickering parlor of the Haunted Mansion…
Long before these frightful experiences were part of a Disney Parks visit, guests were startled, spooked, and downright scared by a Fantasyland favorite that tricked its riders into expecting princesses and happy endings. For generations of visitors who grew up with this scary adventure, it was a test of bravery to come out the other side with eyes open.
Here at Theme Park Tourist, we’re working to assemble a library of Lost Legends – in-depth entries that tell the full, unabridged stories behind forgotten favorites and closed classics. We’ve told the complete behind-the-scenes tales of everything from Maelstrom, Soarin’, and California’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, to The Peoplemover, Horizons, the original Star Tours, and so many more! Across the site, watch for links to Lost Legends entries.
Image: Disney
But today, we focus on a ride scary enough to have left an impression on kids of all ages, concealed by its placement among Peter Pan’s Flight and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Magic Kingdom’s quaint Fantasyland. It can only be the full story behind Snow White’s Scary Adventures at Walt Disney World. In this in-depth look back, we’ll dissect the ride’s history and what it was like to see it up close. Then, we’ll explore its demise and consider how a boy wizard might’ve spelled the end for the Wicked Witch. Ready to ride?
A History in the Dark
Believe it or not, dark rides have been around for more than a century. In the late 1800s, simple dark rides cast as “Old Mills” or “River Caves” invited guests to sail through darkened scenes, (sometimes lit by the brand new electric lightbulb!), canoodling in the dark. Before long, these historic dark rides gained a familiar name – “Tunnels of Love” – as they presented the perfect opportunity for a secret kiss in the years when public displays of affection as innocent as hand-holding were forbidden.
(Today, for example, the oldest surviving dark ride in the world is at Kennywood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania… Originally an Old Mill dating to 1901 – that’s 116 years ago – an unfortunate Garfield overlay is currently in place, making the ride seemed quite a bit less esteemed than it ought to be.)
As the years pressed on, the settings and scares of these dark rides became more elaborate, resulting in spook houses, ghost trains, Noah’s Arks, mine rides, and laff-in-the-dark funhouses. Increasingly, props, sounds, theatrical lightning, scenery, and surprises made dark rides a staple of amusement parks across the globe. Some were even ambitious enough to tell stories.
Image: Disney
It’s thought by his friends and early Imagineers that Fantasyland was Walt’s favorite of the Disneyland’s themed lands. He once asked, “What youngster has not dreamed of flying with Peter Pan over moonlit London, or tumbling into Alice’s nonsensical Wonderland? In Fantasyland, these classic stories of everyone’s youth have become realities for youngsters – of all ages – to participate in.”
Dark rides would be the perfect medium in which to tell the stories of Disney’s greatest animated films, so they were given a prominent position in mirrored showbuildings branching from Sleeping Beauty Castle, creating an inner courtyard to the land. Upon Disneyland’s opening in 1955, the three dark rides of Fantasyland proved to be some of the park’s starring features.
California: Snow White and Her Adventures (1955)
While Walt Disney and his designers were far from the first to tell a story through the unique medium, their installations at Disneyland from its 1955 opening were something of a rebirth, setting a new precedent for the style and substance of future dark rides.
Image: Disney
As Walt had promised, guests could soar over London and tour Neverland aboard Peter Pan’s Flight, race through the British countryside en route to “nowhere in particular” on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and recreate the unforgettable journey of the world’s first ever full-length animated film on Snow White and Her Adventures. (Guests would be able to “tumble into Alice’s nonsensical Wonderland” three years later, when Alice in Wonderland opened in 1958.) Each was concealed within the two showbuildings, decorated by pastel, medieval tournament-tent style facades.
One particularly strange thing about these early Disneyland dark rides was that, in each, we, the guests, were meant to take on the role of the protagonist. We became Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, or Snow White, experiencing things from his or her point of view. The end result is that none of those three characters were physically present within the ride, leading to some understandable confusion: why, for example, do we not see Snow White even once on the ride named for her?
Image: Disney
That’s probably why Snow White and Her Adventures quickly gained a reputation for being a little spooky. After all, a Snow White ride without Snow White left only dark forests, a vengeful queen seeking her (or is that, your?) heart, poison apples prepared in grimy dungeons, and spooked woodland creatures.
Of course, these early Fantasyland dark rides would look rudimentary by today’s standards, mostly comprised of painted panels, static mannequins, and simple props lit by the unforgettable glow of ultraviolet paint humming under blacklight. In other words, Snow White and Her Adventures was a simple and modest evolution of the kinds of dark rides being produced elsewhere, with the inclusion of Disney and his Imagineers giving it something special.
Still, the idea of a dark ride based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs deserved to be renowned. So when designers began to develop ideas for the “Florida Project” and its Magic Kingdom park, the inclusion of a Snow White ride was assured. But designers were also determined that this new Disney World would supersize its contents, “plussing” the shared elements of Disneyland.
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland was zany? Then Florida’s would be zanier. Peter Pan’s Flight was graceful? Florida’s would be more graceful. Snow White and Her Adventures was scary? Florida’s would be scarier.
Florida: Snow White’s Adventures (1971)
Magic Kingdom opened in 1971 with the same tournament tent style Fantasyland that Disneyland had featured for 16 years. And just like its older sister, one of those medieval exteriors housed a dark ride based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Here called Snow White’s Adventures, you might be fooled. But know this: despite the fact that “Scary” had yet to make its way into the ride’s name, Snow White’s Adventures was scary – very scary.
Image: Foxxfur, Passport to Dreams
In designers’ quest to make Snow White’s ride into the deliberately frightening ride of Fantasyland’s lineup, they’d taken a cue from classic spook houses… Loud noises, “jump scares,” sudden crashing sounds, unexpected flashes, and glowing figures coming within inches of the ride vehicle made this “fantasy” ride far and away scarier than the Haunted Mansion, and perhaps more sinister than any ride that Disney’s ever aimed at children. “Happy haunts” need not apply, as this old-fashioned haunted house style ride was fast, loud, dark, and scary.
Snow White’s Adventures was genuinely unsettling – floating eyes in dark forests with demonic trees scratching, crashing shelves, and distant screams in forgotten dungeons…. Even a moment of would-be reprieve – the approach of the Dwarfs’ cottage – turns to misery as the fixtures and furniture inside look darkly alive with terrified, quivering eyes. Our glimpse of the woodland animals gathered outside the window shows them staring right through us, petrified, at a dark corner just ahead. Most unsettlingly, there is no score – no music whatsoever – on this ride… Simply the echoing screams and evil laughter from other rooms echoing endlessly down hallways.
Image: Disney
Snow White is no where to be seen on this ride, and here in their cottage we get our first and only view of the Dwarfs, racing up the stairs in terror as a shadowy figure passes overhead. Two menacing vultures lurk in the swamp outside as the horrifying and crudely carved Witch races toward us, her screaming mad laughter paralyzing.
She’s in the Dwarfs’ mine, too, pushing over the supports above us to cause a cave in and she grimaces, “Enjoying your ride?” When you enter the mine’s gem-filled caverns, it might seem that this colorful finale will alleviate some of the tension. But no, the Witch is here again, pushing a gigantic gem from a lofty cavern and down onto up. “Goodbye, dearie!” And with a flash of light… we’re dead.
The end.
Legitimately petrifying and “scary” in a way that no other Disney attraction attempted, Snow White’s Adventures was an unimaginably unique ride. No analysis or “ride-through” we create could be as useful, compelling, or complete as the vividly in-depth write-up created by noted Disney historian and design guru Foxxfur and the Passport to Dreams Old & New blog which we highly recommend.
You may also want to watch this frantic on-ride video of the terrifying original version of the ride:
While you might think that this depraved and dark version of the tale couldn’t have lasted long, the sinister spook house retelling of Snow White was a prominent piece of Magic Kingdom’s lineup for more than 20 years. From its opening in 1971 to a refurbishment in 1994, the Wicked Witch terrorized a generation. Yet this horrific ride is not our subject today.
Because in 1994 – spurred by a test across the Atlantic Ocean – Disney redesigned Magic Kingdom’s Snow White ride from the ground up. And that is the version of the dark ride that many children of the late ‘80s and ‘90s are likely to remember… That ride is also a Lost Legend. Read on…
Let’s keep this straight: Disneyland opened with Snow White and Her Adventures in 1955. It was a subtly spooky dark ride a little more imposing than most of Fantasyland’s, with riders living out the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through Snow White’s point-of-view (and thus, becoming target of the Witch)!
When Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, it brought with it an overtly terrifying version of the ride – called Snow White’s Adventures – that more closely resembled a classic carnival spook house than a fairytale retelling, filled with classic dark ride gags, jump scares, and loud noises.
Image: Disney
Now, through the ’80s and ’90s, both would change.
Let’s jump forward a decade and fly back to California to insert a piece of the story that will become very important very soon.
California: New Fantasyland and Snow White’s Scary Adventures (1983)
While Walt Disney might’ve adored the concept of Fantasyland and the childlike wonder its dark rides inspired when Disneyland opened in 1955, one thing he never hid was his disdain for the low budget look of the land. A showbuilding crudely disguised behind pastel awnings and medieval tournament tents looked like something from a cheap Renaissance fair, not the kind of cinematic world Walt was determined to showcase.
BEFORE. Image: Disney
To be clear, Fantasyland at Disneyland looked low budget because it was. Disneyland opened literally one year and one day after the first shovel of dirt shifted at its groundbreaking, and Fantasyland was evidence of the quick timeline. But Imagineers say it was always on Walt’s mind that when the time was right, he’d craft Fantasyland into the detailed land he had imagined from the start.
Walt never lived to see the Fantasyland he wanted, but he would be proud of the one Disneyland recieved. In the early 1980s, Fantasyland was nothing but a construction-wall-lined pathway connecting Frontierland and Tomorrowland. In 1983, Sleeping Beauty Castle’s drawbridge was lowered for the first time since Disneyland’s opening, welcoming guests into a New Fantasyland.
AFTER. Image: Disney
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey joined the auspicious dark ride lineup from the ’50s, and the Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, and the Mad Tea Party all moved to new homes. But most importantly, each of Fantasyland’s dark rides was expanded not only to include new ride scenes and extended queues, but to finally transform the Renaissance fair style into a quaint European village.
The entrance to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride became a full-sized Toad Hall; nearby, Tudor-style towers and turrets marked the entrance to Peter Pan’s Flight. A new Wonderland area was crafted for the Alice in Wonderland dark ride (where the Mad Tea Party found a new home), and a German marionette theater was built as the entrance to the new Pinocchio’s Daring Journey…
Click and expand for a larger view. Image: Disney
And right next door, in the tower of an imposing German courtyard, an ornate iron-lined window looks out over the land. Every few minutes, the curtains part as the Evil Queen glares out…
It’s not just that the Snow White dark ride looks different on the outside. The Imagineers behind New Fantasyland had swept through the rides themselves, updating, expanding, and “plussing” the dark rides – sometimes from scratch! – to entirely new versions of the originals.
That’s true of Snow White, too. Refreshed, reimagined, and redesigned, the new ride gained a more fitting name: Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
Image: Ruth Hartnup, Flickr (license)
Despite the addition of “Scary” to the ride’s name, Disneyland’s dark ride had, in many estimations, become slightly less scary, as the 1983 renovation to Fantasyland’s dark rides inserted each story’s main character. That means that Snow White herself was now visible – though only once! – in the ride. That was enough to lessen the scare-factor, as it cast guests not as the victim’s of the Evil Queen, but as friends of Snow White, just a few steps ahead of her as the Queen prepares for her trickery.
The more well-balanced ride featured a yodeling sing-along in the dwarves’ warm cottage, glistening gem mines with the echoing of “The Dig Song” in the distance, and a few happy woodland creatures. Still, the ride’s emphasis was on the spookier aspects of the tale – sinister woods, snapping crocodiles, and the cackling Witch – up to and including the ride’s abrupt finale.
Image: Disney
While Florida’s ended with the Queen smashing us under a gemstone, California’s had the Witch’s attempt to pry a boulder onto us cut short by a lightning strike that instead puts an end to her. The next sight? A mural with the words, “And they lived happily ever after!” Abrupt and unexpected as it may be, the sudden end to the ride has become one of its charming features.
Well-balanced and fittingly “modern,” the refreshed version of the ride in Disneyland was a more traditional re-telling of the story. And it should be no surprise that when Tokyo Disneyland opened the same year as California’s New Fantasyland, the Japanese park included the New Fantasyland version of the ride. Keep in mind that all-the-while, the terrifying and jostling Snow White’s Adventures continued to scare visitors in Florida, making it the only one of the three Snow White rides to be grotesquely out-of-sync.
It was clear that the new Snow White ride at Disneyland was destined to become the standard. But the concept became even more assured thanks to a simple addition across the sea…
France: Retelling the Story of “Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains” (1992)
Image: Disney
A decade after Disneyland’s new Snow White ride debuted, Disneyland Paris opened. In many of our Lost Legends entries, this momentous 1992 opening becomes a turning point after which everything goes south. That’s because Paris was overbuilt and initially disowned by the French, leading to a tremendous financial loss that convinced then-CEO Michael Eisner to suspend any and all major projects, downsizing budgets across the Disney Parks division for a decade or more.
But in this story, Disneyland Paris’ opening was actually an impetus for change. Tony Baxter – famed Imagineer and Disney Legend behind Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and its never-built Possibilityland: Discovery Bay, Indiana Jones Adventure, and Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and STAR TOURS – was given the unique opportunity to be the creative director for the entire Disneyland Paris park, and his team ingeniously crafted completely new versions of Disney classics from the Haunted Mansion to Space Mountain.
Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)
And since Tony had also been integral in Disneyland’s 1983 New Fantasyland, he was eager to expand on the lessons learned there in Paris’ Fantasyland. There, Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains largely looked like the Snow White dark ride Disneyland had debuted as of the 1983 Fantasyland redo – balanced, with a nod to the story’s darker elements – but for one significant and noteworthy addition: a happy ending.
Now, the lightning strike still foils the Witch’s attempt to crush us alive, but the doors we pass through beneath her lead to a welcome sight: a glowing castle in the distance, with Snow, Prince Charming, the Dwarves, and a menagerie of adorable woodland creatures waving us goodbye to the angelic chorus finale of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”
You can watch Paris’ ride – an evolution of California’s with the addition of a happy ending – here:
Now between California (1983), Tokyo (1983), and Paris (1992), three of the four Snow White dark rides on Earth were in-sync: modern, carefully-crafted, slightly-shadowed tellings of the story. And Disney’s experiment in Paris – the addition of a happy ending – had convinced executives that they might have found the definitive version of the ride.
That meant that it was high time for Imagineers to take a second look at the one remaining outlier. Yes, even in the early ’90s, Magic Kingdom still featured the terrifying, spook house style opening day version of Snow White’s tale. The legitimately frightening Disney World original was due for an upgrade… On the next page, we’ll ride through Magic Kingdom’s Snow White’s Scary Adventures and relive the spooky experience that left many Millennials cowering in their mother’s shoulder…
Florida: Snow White’s Scary Adventures (1994)
Image: Disney
In 1994, Magic Kingdom’s Snow White ride re-opened from a brief refurbishment as Snow White’s Scary Adventures, in line with the name used in California. However, the ensuing ride was much, much less scary than the ride that had come before. Instead, it almost exactly followed the dark-but-even rhythm of the rides in California, Tokyo, and Paris, offering a spooky-but-survivable adventure through the more sinister settings of Snow White’s story just frightening enough to leave kids plugging their ears and burying themselves into their parent’s lap.
That meant that by the mid-1990s, all four versions of the ride in California (1983), Tokyo (1983), Paris (1992), and Florida (1994) were all approximately the same: the ride many readers will remember.
Image: Disney
While the experience of Fantasyland’s dark rides may differ wildly, they typically have one thing in common: gorgeous murals set as a backdrop to their loading areas. In the case of Magic Kingdom’s Snow White’s Scary Adventures, the mural is decidedly benevolent: a wooded glen with sunlight streaming through the trees overhead, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs smiling together outside their storybook cottage, beside a babbling brook. Prince Charming himself is depicted stepping down from his horse, smiling mid-step as he walks toward her. Your only indication that something “Scary” might be afoot is the Wicked Witch, sneering from behind a tree in the distance.
With that in mind, you’ll step aboard a high-capacity, three-rowed cart seemingly carved from wood, each adorned with the name of one of the Dwarfs.
The first scene is a Florida exclusive, as your cart enters the courtyard of a towering Germanic white castle with red-tile turrets. In the center of the courtyard is a beautiful stone wishing well with white and pink flowers blooming along vines that creep across it. The cart circles the wishing well where Snow White comes into view, dressed in rags and sitting on the stone steps of the castle. A number of doves tweet around her, with one sitting on her finger singing as Snow vocalizes.
Image: Disney
But in a tower beyond, we get our first sign that something is amiss… the red velvet curtains part behind a window to reveal the Evil Queen, staring at Snow in disgust.
The cart turns again, heading now toward a set of heavy wooden doors. They part to reveal an otherworldly, undulating mirror against the wall ahead, with the mask-like face of the Magic Mirror calling out, “Alas! Snow White is the fairest one of all…”
Image: Disney
The cart presses past the mirror and into a dark stone throne room where the Evil Queen is facing a mirror opposite us. “NEVER!” She yells, laughing darkly. As we grow closer and closer, sneaking up on the self-absorbed Queen, the sinister laughter becomes maniacal and nasal… We’re a few feet away now and the Queen turns toward us… Only, the Queen is a queen no more… Somehow, the regal reflection we saw with our own eyes was a trick, and a transformed, hunched Wicked Witch stands before us now.
As tense strings build, the cart moves forward through the castle’s dark lobbies past chained skeletons and dripping puddles until we reach a cauldron where the Witch is reciting incantations, dipping a glowing red apple into a frothing, fogging mix. “With one bite, Snow White will sleep forever, awakened only by love’s first kiss.”
Image: Disney
As the cart pushes through another set of wooden doors, we come upon the Huntsman standing against a tree in a dark forest. “Quickly Princess, run away… and never come back!” To our left, flashes of lightning reveal the startling sight of a frightened Snow White with gnarled branches tearing at her dress.
Then, the cart faces a clouded horizon and a river that cuts through the dense forests. The Witch appears at the Riverbank carrying a woven basket of apples. Then, we find ourselves in the dark woods, where trees appear to have sinister faces, their branches reaching for us. Hanging moss obscures any light and terrified eyes in the darkness soon become evil themselves. But in this version of the ride, terror is much more temporary. Indeed, it seems that we might’ve only been dreaming… A musical cue and sunlight trees ahead signal our exit from the terrifying forest.
Image: Disney
And rounding the corner, we see a charming cottage with warmth glowing from the windows. As the doors open, we’re overcome with laughter and celebration as the Seven Dwarfs sing and play music together! But as the Dwarfs dance, woodland creatures gathered in the window look on in horror. As we round the corner, we see why: beneath the stairs, the Witch is positioned at the open window. “That’s right, dearie!” She hands Snow White an apple. “Now take a bite and all your dreams will come true!”
As we exit through the cottage’s back door, we hear her laugh. “Now I’m the fairest of them all!” A barren, rocky landscape lies ahead with midnight’s dull blue glow. The only sign of life is a misshapen tree with two vultures overhead. They spot the cart and, together, look to the right as if pointing us on. But a flash of lightning reveals the Wicked Witch again, her dark cloak speckled with age.
The cart takes a shortcut through the Dwarfs mine, glowing with carts full of gems.
Then, it’s back to the rocky peaks where the Dwarfs look upward. “She’s on the cliffs! Let’s go!” Higher and higher, the Dwarfs encircle the jagged rocky path as it ascends until we spot her. “I’ll crush you fools!” She cackles, leaking back as her wooden cane pries a tall boulder, suspending it directly over us! But as she laughs, a lightning strike bolts from the sky! Just as we pass beneath, she screams!
After a few seconds in darkness, a set of doors open to a new sight: moonlight streaming through the trees as Prince Charming hovers over Snow White’s coffin, growing closer and closer.
A symphony of finale music signals something grand is about to happen. As daylight breaks, we see, in the distance, Snow White and Prince Charming, smiling as they make their way into the sunrise toward his glittering castle. On a stone bridge carved with “SW” overhead, Dopey waves us goodbye as we pass beneathe and return to the loading area’s mural.
As always, we try to end our Lost Legends ride-throughs with a point-of-view video to bring the memories back to life. You can relieve the experience of Snow White’s Scary Adventures here:
Fright Factor
So in Florida alone, Snow White’s ride had existed in two very different forms: the horrifying Snow White’s Adventures (1971 – 1994) and the much less frightening Snow White’s Scary Adventures, beginning in 1994. The inevitable comparison is a point of contention for Disney Parks fans. Some allege that Snow White’s Adventures went too far, choosing the wrong aspect of Snow White’s story (fright) to highlight. Others remember it as a pivotal and memorable ride that left a lasting impression and shaped a generation of scaredy-cats through exposure therapy.
Maybe that’s why it’s hard to decide if that original version deserves Lost Legend status itself. It’s controversial and – admittedly – didn’t work well enough to last. Was it merely a poorly conceived stepping-stone on the way to the much more fitting Snow White’s Scary Adventures that opened in 1994? Or was it a masterpiece in its own right, taken too soon?
Image: Disney
In her own in-depth look back at the terrifying Snow White’s Adventures, another author here notes that the “new” version of Snow White’s tale lost a bit of the artistry, swapping Claude Coats’ gothic colors and patterns (above), imposing special effects, and zippy ride for a subdued journey through a carbon-copied scenes and feel-good, book report finale. In that sense, it’s easy to see that the closure of the imposing original is a shame, and many would agree.
It’s also true that placing static figures of Snow White among scenes recast as “happy” ones did turn the ride (and other Fantasyland rides) into the dreaded “book report” ride that fans detest, cramming a 90-minute story we already know into 180 seconds and (worse) turning riders from participants to observers.
It’s also worth arguing that the exaggeration of the “fright” factor was intentional, and zooming out a bit we can see that each Fantasyland dark ride is deliberately unique in its delivery: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is “zany,” and Peter Pan’s Flight is “graceful,” and Pinocchio’s Daring Journey is “daring,” and Alice in Wonderland is “wild,” and Snow White’s Scary Adventures is… well… “scary.” And it doesn’t hurt to remember that a child’s imagination can be all of the above, including sometimes being a scary place.
Image: Disney
Even if the retooled Snow White’s Scary Adventures lost the petrifying horror, echoing screams, and deliberate terror of its predecessor, it still scared a generation of riders, and most every ‘90s kids who visited Disney World will remember keeping their ears plugged, buried into mom or dad while riding. Even in its more subdued form, Snow White’s Scary Adventures was a classic, ready to ride on.
But it didn’t last. On the next page, we’ll dissect what led to the closure of one of the Magic Kingdom’s opening day dark rides and where it lives on today.
Orlando Expands
Though it may seem a disconnected aside, the first falling domino that would lead to the closure of Snow White’s Scary Adventures came with the arrival of a new theme park in Orlando in 1999.
Don’t misunderstand – since its opening in 1971, Walt Disney World had been the undisputed tourism capital of Florida and among the leading destinations within the United States. Universal’s arrival in 1990 was, at most, an annoyance. Even then, Michael Eisner had rush-delivered Disney’s own studio-themed park – Disney-MGM Studios – to open first, leaving Universal’s Orlando outpost a mere aside at best with not much at all for families with young children to do.
That was due to change less than a decade later, when Universal commissioned a second gate for their Florida property. Universal’s Islands of Adventure opened in 1999. Their first real push against Disney’s monopoly, Islands of Adventure was a visual wonder comprised of six themed “islands” situated around a great lagoon, each meeting (and in places exceeding) Disney’s standards.
(That wasn’t just luck… Universal’s park was largely built by Disney Imagineers who’d left the company, fed up with the cost cutting that ran rampant at the time, to form Universal Creative. In fact, Disney’s decision to axe an ethereal and celebrated land from Animal Kingdom led to a walkout. Former Imagineers then took their plans to Universal who were all too happy to bring their ideas to life instead. We’ve got the full story in our Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom feature.)
Image: Universal
Universal had assembled a stunning and historic collection of intellectual properties. From the high-energy comic book streets of Marvel Super Hero Island to the dense jungles of an entire land themed to Jurassic Park; the towering ancient ruins of The Lost Continent and the whimsical curved coast of Seuss Landing (a highly sought after and fiercely protected intellectual property).
And perhaps the most stunning of all is the park’s “Main Street” equivalent, here the astounding Port of Entry that leads us to believe that all corners of the globe have come together to create one harmonious seaside outpost of traders, windchimes, seagulls, red rocks, pagodas, ivy, and merchants, all lorded over by the park’s astounding icon, the Pharos Lighthouse.
Image: Universal
In short, Islands of Adventure contained the sort of creativity, detail, and character that people talked about, but hadn’t actually seen from Disney World in years.
With Islands of Adventure’s opening looming, Disney began to fortify its defenses. Over the next decade, Disney World rolled out a laundry list of services and discounts all meant to incentivize staying on-property. Disney re-configured its ticket offerings to Magic Your Way Tickets (lowering the per-day price for longer visits) alongside the launch of the Magical Express (providing direct transportation from Orlando International Airport to your Walt Disney World Resort hotel, all meant to make it so that guests wouldn’t rent a car and instead be effectively “trapped” on Disney property). Then there’s the Disney Dining Plan, FastPass, and even MagicBands, each cleverly disguised to keep guests staying at Disney World… or maybe, staying away from Universal.
Image: Disney
Ultimately, they didn’t have anything to worry about. Universal infamously botched the marketing and naming of their second gate, leaving guests confused about what exactly “Universal Studios Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios Escape” even was. A product of the school of hard knocks, no one else had turned a single park into a tailor-made resort in all at once growth spurt. Even once Universal corrected course (Universal’s Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando Resort), the damage was done and their second gate didn’t get the praise, appreciation, and visitor numbers it rightly deserved.
But something was coming that would change all that.
Magic in the Air
The popular story is that J.K. Rowling – the creator of the Harry Potter series and its ensuing, expanding universe – was in talks with Disney to bring “the boy who lived” to Disney Parks, but Disney wasn’t willing to bend to the storyteller’s demands for the total exclusion of the outside world (no Coca-Cola, no LEGO sets in gift shops, etc.) or the reverence she thought her characters deserved. (And honestly, can’t you imagine Disney insisting on doing cross-over action figures with the Muppets dressed as Hogwarts students? We can only imagine that Disney would’ve treated Harry Potter with about as much reverence as they did Star Wars, having Darth Vader dance to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” at the annual Star Wars Weekends… Imagine the same for Voldemort…)
Image: NBCUniversal
Negotiations between Disney and Rowling allegedly stagnated and then fell through. Disney executives, we can imagine, probably figured that no one else would have the capability to bring Rowling’s world to life to the level she demanded. They might’ve even thought that Rowling would shop around for another operator to bring her Wizarding World for life, inevitably fail to find one worthy, and come crawling back. They were wrong.
In 2010 – after years of stagnation despite its grand foundation – Islands of Adventure received its first major expansion: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Built to a staggeringly lifelike scale and insulated from any interference from the real world, the snowy town of Hogsmeade and the towering Hogwarts castle perched on a rocky outcropping became an international destination.
Image: Universal
All the while, Disney executives must have looked on in stunned awe of people queued for hours – waiting in packed lines – not to get onto rides, but to get into gift shops. People were tripping over themselves to buy $45 wands, and $5 cups of “Butterbeer,” and $10 chocolate frogs. This was a world they wanted to inhabit. This was not just a ride, but a place.
A new precedent had been set… New attractions would no longer do. The market had spoken, and the people wanted lands. The Wizarding World had signaled that shopping and dining could be part of a theme park experience in an indelible way if they were an inseparable part of the experience; part of the story; part of the world.
Image: Disney
You know where this new scheme took us: Cars Land and a Marvel land at Disney California Adventure; Star Wars lands at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios; a Ratatouille land at Walt Disney Studios Paris; Toy Story Lands around the globe… Disney green lit projects so vast in scope, the mere idea of them would’ve made executives cringe a decade earlier.
No doubt bruised from the loss of Potter, Disney rallied with a knee-jerk reaction to purchase something – some say, anything – that would be “Potter-sized.” Thinking quickly, they purchased the worldwide exclusive rights to build attractions based on the biggest box office earner of all time. Of course, we know where this leads: PANDORA – The World of Avatar.
Of course, Disney’s official word was nothing but celebratory in the wake of the Wizarding World up the street. Insiders assured that Disney didn’t expect a drop in visitors at all. Instead, they imagined that guests would spend just as much time at Disney as they always had, and would simply add a day to their vacation to visit Universal. But in practice, the resort seemed to mobilize for the first time in a while. A big change was coming.
Fantasy Plans
In 2009 – just as the finishing touches went into Hogsmeade – Disney made an ambitious announcement: after nearly four decades with the Medieval tournament tent styling that Disneyland had done away with in the ‘80s, Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom would at last receive its own overhaul… a New Fantasyland.
Click and expand for a much larger view. Image: Disney
And borrowing from the new formula of immersive cinematic styling demanded by a post-Animal Kingdom audience, this New Fantasyland would be like stepping into your favorite Disney animated films, complete with opportunities to eat, drink, and shop where beloved characters might. Dining in the Ballroom in the Beast’s castle, drinking “Le Fou’s Brew” in Gaston’s Tavern… Tellingly, people described the planned expansion as having a “Wizarding World level of detail,” establishing Universal’s new island as the standard to match.
There was a problem, though. As fans studied the artwork Disney released (as you can, by clicking and expanding the concept art above to see tremendous detail), they quickly noticed that the land’s audience demographic was bit skewed. Why? Well, consider the attractions – the things to do – that guests would’ve encountered in this expansion:
- A meet-and-greet / elaborate walkthrough attraction with Belle from Beauty and the Beast inside her father’s cottage (with the accompanying Be Our Guest restaurant… a sight, to be sure)
- A meet-and-greet with Ariel from The Little Mermaid
- A meet-and-greet with Cinderella inside her stepmother’s Chateau
Image: Disney
- A meet-and-greet with Tinkerbell inside an elaborate Pixie Hollow area borrowed from Disneyland, replacing Mickey’s Toontown Fair
- A meet-and-greet with Snow White and Aurora in their own dedicated cottages
- A relocated and enhanced Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Image: Disney
- A new dark ride based on The Little Mermaid, duplicated from the under-construction one at Disney California Adventure
To fans’ count, this brand-new, much-anticipated expansion – “the largest in Magic Kingdom’s history” – amounted to six elaborate meet-and-greets with Disney princesses and net one new ride.
Fans pushed back against the expansion and countered that if this was meant to be the “Potter swatter” that would win visitors back from the Wizarding World, Disney would have to try harder. And amazingly, they did.
Finalizing Fantasyland
Two years after their initial announcement of New Fantasyland, Disney Imagineers were on hand at the semiannual D23 Expo in 2011 to announce New Fantasyland again. But this time, the artwork looked a little different. While detailed “immersive” sub-areas dedicated to Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid remained, the rest of the land had evolved.
The Pixie Hollow area meant to overtake Mickey’s Toontown Fair was scrapped. Now, a fair remained in the northeast corner of the expansion. However, the cartoon circus tents would now be enveloped into Fantasyland and become the Storybook Circus. Inspired by Dumbo, this vintage carnival serves as a historic, reverent fantasy fair dedicated to Disney’s earliest and oft-forgotten cartoons. That meant that a relocated Dumbo (with a new elaborate circus playground queue) and Goofy’s Barnstormer (now rethemed as a carnival daredevil pilot) would feel right at home.
The biggest change, though, would be to the central “island” floating in the midst of the expansion. Where once a half-dozen meet-and-greet cottages and Cinderella’s chateau were planned, a new family roller coaster called Seven Dwarfs Mine Train would instead come to life, rollicking, swinging, swaying, and slaloming along forested hills in and around the gem mine from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Image: Disney
At first glance, it seemed that New Fantasyland had abandoned its capacity for ever-popular princess meet-and-greets. In fact, they’d only been consolidated. Now, guests would meet an array of rotating princesses in the custom-built Princess Fairytale Hall. But where would it go?
There were only ever two options, given that the eastern block of the castle’s showbuildings bordering New Fantasyland housed two dark rides.
First was the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, still quite new after having just replaced Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in 1999 (and partly because the double-sized dark ride Mr. Toad had occupied meant the Pooh replacement could feature a gift shop for the bear’s sought-after merchandise).
The only other slot? Snow White’s Scary Adventures. Read on…
Snow White’s Scary Adventures was doomed. The ride was on a prime piece of real estate bordering Disney’s newest expansion, and fans’ own insistence that the land include something other than princesses had created the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, leaving Snow White’s dark ride sorely redundant.
The last time a Magic Kingdom classic closed, it hadn’t been done with much dignity. On September 2nd, 1998, Disney had announced the opening day original Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride would close forever on September 7th… five days later. We chronicled the in-depth story of the ride’s development and its unimaginable closure in a standalone Lost Legends: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride feature. 1994’s closure of another Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was even worse… the ride went down for a “temporary refurbishment” and never sailed again.
Image: Disney
This time, at least, Disney gave fans plenty of notice. A January 2011 entry on the Disney Parks Blog announced that the Princess Fairytale Hall would take the place of Snow White’s Scary Adventures… but no end date for the opening day dark ride was given. In fact, fans had more than a year to take their last scary adventures.
The ride closed forever on May 31, 2012. Its very last rider ever was Ben, a young man with special needs who had an unimaginable connection with the ride. His mother’s heart wrenching and genuinely moving account of the final day is lengthy, but worth a read for fans of the resort, as is the accompanying photo report.
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Image: Disney
Even if the Princess Fairytale Hall took Snow White’s place in the park, it’s more appropriate to call the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train the ride’s spiritual sequel… The family style mine train coaster (on paper, positioned between Barnstormer and Big Thunder Mountain on the thrill spectrum) is a fun aside made all the more impressive by a truly beautiful setting and detailed queue.
That being said, the Mine Train hasn’t quite earned “fan favorite” praise. Guests are quick to shave points off their rating, citing the ride’s short duration (often after a very, very long queue) and its lack of thrills. But the ride does all that can be reasonably expected given the miniscule property Imagineers managed to squeeze it into. Even if it’s not a stunning headliner, it’s an enjoyable enough experience and a worthwhile addition to Magic Kingdom’s lineup.
Image: Disney
And since Seven Dwarfs Mine Train offers the chance to tell Snow White’s story from a new perspective, it also offered the opportunity to feature allusions to the now-closed classic dark ride. For example, while on-board the coaster, the train passes under a wooden mining frame with two menacing vultures perched overhead, watching darkly. These simple animatronic figures are literally the pair from inside the dark ride, relocated here as a nod to fans.
And where the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train really shines is when the roller coaster briefly transforms into a dark ride of its own, passing though the Mine to the tune of “Heigh-Ho.”
Image: Disney
It’s during this scene that riders encounter the coaster’s crowning achievement: a cast of Audio Animatronic characters so exceptional, they earned a lofty position in our must-read Countdown of the Best Animatronics on Earth.
After this astounding encounter, another short coaster portion leads to the ride’s final brake run, where one last surprise is waiting: from this vantage point on the brakes, you can look through the windows into the back of the Dwarf’s cottage.
Image: Disney
The to-scale cottage positioned at the ride’s entrance might just seem like place making, but looking now through the windows on the back, you’ll see Doc, Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, and Grumpy dancing to “The Dwarfs’ Yodel Song” with Snow White, with the musical dwarfs relocated from Snow White’s Scary Adventures’ cottage scene.
You can take a virtual ride on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train here:
Elsewhere
It may also be worth noting that Snow White’s ride is still thrilling visitors to other Disney resorts around the globe.
At Disneyland in California, the 1983 update of the 1955 original is still going strong as Snow White’s Scary Adventures. And California’s version was one of the first rides in Disney’s arsenal to benefit from early experimenting with texture-based projection in 2010. In fact, the ride’s most memorable scene – when the Queen in the mirror turns into the Wicked Witch before your very eyes – is “plussed” with projection technology that makes the room around her decay and age as she does. You can watch a point-of-view video of California’s still-open Snow White’s Scary Adventures here:
(By the way, even though Disneyland’s Fantasyland is a fraction of the size of Magic Kingdom’s, it manages to have an incredible six classic dark rides: Snow White’s Scary Adventures, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Alice in Wonderland, and “it’s a small world”.)
The ride is also still in action at Disneyland Paris as Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains. If you can keep this straight, the updated 1983 Disneyland version informed the 1992 Disneyland Paris version, which added and tested the happy ending that in turn inspired the re-do of Florida’s in 1994, bringing all three into pretty close alignment. You can see a video of Paris’ version of the ride here.
And finally, Tokyo Disneyland still features the version of the ride it opened with in 1983, Snow White’s Adventures. As you can imagine, having opened the same year as Disneyland’s New Fantasyland the Japanese version is heavily aligned to the California re-do, though – oddly enough – it keeps a few extra overt frights from the terrifying Magic Kingdom original that was playing at the time. That makes Tokyo’s ride the most unique of the four. You can see a video of Tokyo’s version of the ride here.
Shanghai Disneyland turned the “castle park” formula on its head by doing away with the traditional park layout and introducing new versions of classics (as told in our In-Depth: Shanghai Disneyland walkthrough). It doesn’t have a Snow White’s Scary Adventures. But it does feature a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train of its own.
As for the Princess Fairytale Hall that took Snow White’s place in Florida? Snow White shows up to meet friends once in a while, and the book of her story is on prominent display for all to see.
Lost Legend
It’s truly a shame that the Magic Kingdom lost Snow White’s Scary Adventures. A reborn take on an opening day original based very closely on a Disneyland favorite, the ride was simply a heartwarming reminder of an earlier time. Its simple blacklight sets, static figures, and timeless story tied it closely to that earlier era from Walt’s time – the kind of simple “throwback” that’s less and less easy to spot at Magic Kingdom.
Image: Disney
Is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train a fitting replacement? That depends who you’re asking. The fact that the roller coaster’s undisputed strength is its short dark ride section seems to hint that this art form is worth renewed interest and consideration, and at least in that simple regard, Snow White’s Scary Adventures does live on. Fans may always hold a grudge against the family coaster, though, since it uprooted a 1971 original in favorite of a meet-and-greet. They also note that, given Snow White’s exit, even the more ambitious version of New Fantasyland still added a net one ride.
In any case, we’re faced with the inevitable truth that a generation of Disney Parks fans was scared senseless by the unassuming Snow White’s Scary Adventures. For that generation, its loss will be felt and remembered. That’s why this Fantasyland dark ride deserves its place in our Lost Legends series. If you enjoyed your frightening journey, head over to our In-Depth Collections Library and set course for another Lost Legend. Then, we depend on you to share your memories of this frightening chase in the comments below.
