Snow White Grotto facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Snow White Grotto |
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| Attraction type | Wishing well | ||||||||
| Theme | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | ||||||||
| Music | I'm Wishing/One Song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | ||||||||
The Snow White Grotto is a special attraction found in three Disney parks around the world. It's a beautiful wishing well where you can toss a coin and make a wish! You can find it at Disneyland in California, Tokyo Disneyland in Japan, and Hong Kong Disneyland.
The grotto first opened at Disneyland on April 9, 1961. Later, it came to Tokyo Disneyland in 1983 and Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005. It's usually located near the famous castles in these parks, like Sleeping Beauty Castle or Cinderella Castle.
What is the Snow White Grotto?
The Snow White Grotto is a charming spot featuring statues of Snow White, the seven dwarfs, and some cute woodland animals. Snow White stands at the top of a lovely waterfall that cascades down.
There's a bridge and a walkway in front of the waterfall. This is where you'll find the wishing well. All the money collected from the wishing well goes to help local children's charities, which is a really cool thing!
The Magic of Forced Perspective
The statues for the grotto were a gift to Walt Disney. However, there was a small problem: the Snow White statue was the same size as the dwarf statues! In the movie, Snow White is much taller than the dwarfs.
To fix this, a clever Disney Imagineer named John Hench used a trick called forced perspective. This trick makes things look further away and smaller than they actually are.
He placed the Snow White statue at the very top of the waterfall. He also added a small deer made by Disney next to her. The dwarf statues were placed closer to the ground. This clever arrangement makes Snow White appear to be much further away, and therefore smaller, just like she should be compared to the dwarfs!
The Story Behind the Statues
There's a fun rumor about where these unique statues came from. Some say they were a gift from an Italian sculptor. This sculptor had never seen the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs movie. Instead, he owned a set of soaps shaped like the princess and the dwarfs. In that soap set, Snow White was the same size as the dwarfs, so the sculptor made his statues that way too!
In 1991, the song "I'm Wishing" was added to the grotto. This song is from the original 1937 Snow White film. The voice you hear singing it is Adriana Caselotti, who was the original voice of Snow White herself!
