Snow White Grotto is an attraction at

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

, which originally opened on April 9, 1961,

Tokyo Disneyland (local nickname ''TDL'') is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to be ...

at the

Tokyo Disney Resort The (local nickname ''TDR'') is a theme park and vacation resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, just east of Tokyo. The resort is fully owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company under a licence from The Walt Disney Company, who constru ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in 1983, and at

Hong Kong Disneyland Hong Kong Disneyland () (local nickname ''HKDL''; also known as HK Disneyland) is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and it is owned and managed by Hong Ko ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

in 2005. It is a

wishing well A wishing well is a term from European folklore to describe wells where it was thought that any spoken wish would be granted. The idea that a wish would be granted came from the notion that water housed deities or had been placed there as a ...

located at the east of

Sleeping Beauty Castle Sleeping Beauty Castle is a fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic ...

for Disneyland and west of

Castle of Magical Dreams Castle of Magical Dreams is the new centerpiece castle that replaced Sleeping Beauty Castle at Hong Kong Disneyland on 21 November 2020, as part of the park's 15th anniversary celebration. The castle was redesigned to pay tribute to the 12 Disn ...

for Hong Kong Disneyland and

Cinderella Castle Cinderella Castle is Cinderella (Disney character), Cinderella's home fairy tale castle and the icon at the center of two Disney theme parks: the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort. Both serve as ...

for Tokyo Disneyland. Guests can throw a coin and make a wish in front of the grotto. When

was under construction, the error in which Snow White was taller than the Dwarfs was corrected. However it was later decided to replicate the Disneyland version in which Snow White is the same height as the Dwarfs.

Overview

Snow White Grotto is located on the east side of the

and

. The grotto includes statues of

Snow White "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...

, the seven dwarfs, and a few woodland creatures. Snow White is standing at the top of a

cascading waterfall ''Cascading Waterfall'' is a public art work by American artist John Joseph Earley, located in Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. ''Cascading Waterfall'' was originally surveyed as part of the Smithsonian's Save Outdoor Sculpture! survey in 199 ...

. There is a bridge and a walkway in front of the waterfall as well as a

, the proceeds of which go to local children's charities. The statues were donated anonymously and

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

was determined to incorporate them into the

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

. The only problem was that whoever made the statues made Snow White the same size as the dwarves, which she is not. Walt Disney Imagineer

John Hench John Hench (June 29, 1908 – February 5, 2004) was an American artist, designer and director at The Walt Disney Company. For 65 years, he helped design and develop various Disney attractions and theme parks. Early life Hench was born on June 2 ...

used the optical trick of forced perspective to make the statues work. He put Snow White at the top of the waterfall with a Disney-made small deer and put the dwarfs close to ground-level, making Snow White to appear further away, and thus smaller. One rumor as to the origin of the statues is that they were "a gift from an Italian sculptor that had never seen the

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, but owned a set of soaps in the form of the princess and the dwarfs. Unfortunately, Snow White was the same size as the dwarfs in the soap set, so the sculptor made her that way." The song "I'm Wishing" was also re-recorded and added to the grotto inside the wishing well in 1991 by

Adriana Caselotti Adriana Elena Loreta Caselotti (May 6, 1916 – January 18, 1997) was an American actress and singer. Caselotti was the voice of the title character of the first Walt Disney animated feature, ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'', for which she w ...

, who was the original voice of

from the 1937 film.

References

{{Hong Kong Disneyland Disneyland Tokyo Disneyland Hong Kong Disneyland

Grotto A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high ti ...

Fantasyland Grottoes