Wallpaper pictures of the"Snow White's Scary Adventures" dark ride in Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom - presented in 4:3 regular and 16:10 widescreen formats!

If there were to ever be an official definition of 'dark ride' in the dictionary, you would see pictures of "Snow White's Adventures" as well as "Peter Pan's Flight" and "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride."

Sadly, at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, we're down to just two out of those three classic dark rides with only one of the three nearly identical to its 1971 opening day experience.  "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" was transformed into "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" back in 1998 ("Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" is still alive and well in Disneyland in Anaheim, California), while the original version of "Snow White's Adventures" was modified to today's "Snow White's Scary Adventures" ride.  Except for adding FASTPASS, "Peter Pan's Flight" is nearly identical to how it was presented to the public when Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom officially opened on October 1, 1971.

"Snow White's Scary Adventures" is a dark ride based on Disney's classic 1937 movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated movie.

The original version of the ride was called "Snow White's Adventures" and had us, the park guests, assuming the role of Snow White as we went along the ride.  The ride itself was a much darker and more sinister experience compared to today's version, and unfortunate for children, quite scary at times.  The ride's loading station was in a more elaborate (as well as foreboding) version of the forest, the Wicked Witch tried harder to scare and kill us, and we only briefly saw the dwarfs.  Like in "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," the ending to the original version of "Snow White's Adventures" was much more evil as we were chased through the Seven Dwarf's gem mine, dodging runaway mine carts before the Wicked Witch finally crushed us in the end.  It wasn't exactly a happy, fairy tale ending like in the famous movie.

Needless to say, many of the younger children did not enjoy the ride and were scared out of their wits.  The ride was a lot of fun back then, but was it worth it to keep scaring children only to have their parents keep complaining about it at Guest Relations?  Plus, where exactly was Snow White?  Many of the riders didn't know that they were playing the role of the title character.

After being in operation and scaring children for over twenty-three years, "Snow White's Adventures" was changed and toned down in 1994, resulting in today's version of the ride.

So what was changed in the conversion of the ride?

First of all, Snow White was added and we now see her many times throughout the ride.  More of the dwarfs were added in a couple of scenes and the Prince was also added to the ending of the ride.

The ride's loading station is still in a forest, but this time it's more cheerful and now includes a mural with most of the major characters.  The ride vehicles were also upgraded to fit six adults instead of four, giving the ride a slightly higher capacity.

And finally, many of the scenes in the ride were changed so that they matched the movie, starting with a poor Snow White doing chores to ending with the Seven Dwarfs battling the Wicked Witch and then the Prince waking up Snow White from her magic spell.

The Wicked Witch is still there and a scene or two may still a little bit intimidating to the younger guests, but overall the ride is a lot more happy and easier to follow for everybody.  If you've seen most of the movie, then you should be able to easily follow the ride.

The biggest mystery though is when the ride officially changed names from "Snow White's Adventures" to "Snow White's Scary Adventures."

According to page 91 in The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, the author implies that "Scary" was in the title of the attraction before the 1994 change but was dropped immediately after the change only to be re-added soon after reopening as parts of the ride were still a little bit scary.  The common belief for most Disney fans was that the name change happened when the ride was modified back in 1994.

But according to the official theme park guidemaps, which I happen to collect and post on this website, the ride kept the name "Snow White's Adventures" from at least 1984 until sometime between June and December in 1998.  I've spotted occasional errors in the guidemaps, but I would hate to believe that the official name change did occur sometime in 1994 and the guidemaps have simply had the wrong attraction name for four years.

The ironic thing with the name change is that the current ride is less scary than the previous version, but the new version includes "Scary" in the title.  The current description for the ride is a lot more simple.

"Snow White's Scary Adventures" is a classic ride that needs to be enjoyed by everybody.  True, it may not be as scary or amusing as the original version, but it's still a simple but effective dark ride and an important part of today's Fantasyland.  The wait times during the middle of the day can go beyond thirty minutes, but the ride is often ignored at night.  The shortest wait times are often before "Wishes!" starts.  Part of Fantasyland is chained off because of the firework launch points around the castle and this ride looks like it might be closed, but it's still open for business and often with less than a five minute wait.

Note - Each picture can be opened in one of two styles - regular (4:3 ratio) and widescreen (16:10 ratio). You may download and share these pictures, but please, do not modify or alter them in any way!

The above Magic Kingdom guidebook and guidemap pictures are (c) The Walt Disney Company.

The regular 4:3 pictures all have a resolution of 1600x1200 (960x1280 for vertical pictures), unless it's otherwise noted.  They can also easily fit monitor resolutions of 1280x960 or even 2133x1600 without needing any special modifications.  Just select the image and have Windows stretch and fit it to the other 4:3 resolution.

The widescreen 16:10 pictures all have a resolution of 1440x900, unless it's otherwise noted.  They can also easily fit a resolution of 2560x1600 without needing any special modifications.  Just select the image and have Windows stretch and fit it to the other 16:10 resolution.

Warning - There will be some slight variations between the regular and widescreen pictures!

To help save bandwidth for the other visitors, please open each picture only once. If you like it, save it to your hard drive. You can also right click on the link and select "save as" instead of manually loading each picture.

- Magic Kingdom - Fantasyland - "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - 01 - regular, widescreen

- "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - 02 - regular

- "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - sign - 01 - regular, widescreen

- "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - warning sign - 01 - regular

- "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - loading station - mural - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 01 - regular, widescreen

- loading station - mural - Wicked Witch - 01 - regular, widescreen

- loading station - mural - evil Queen and Huntsman - 01 - regular, widescreen

- "Snow White's Scary Adventures" - ride - wishing well - 01 - regular, widescreen

- ride - Snow White and the evil Queen - 01 - regular, widescreen

- ride - Magic Mirror - 01 - regular, widescreen

- ride - Snow White and the Prince - 01 - regular, widescreen

- ride - happily ever after - 01 - regular, widescreen

- ride - Dopey waving good-bye - 01 - regular, widescreen