Opening hour is our favorite time to be in Disneyland Park. We love the crisp morning air (admittedly extra crisp in the winter) and seeing the park all fresh-faced and shining at the beginning of the day. And of course, we love the lower crowds! The last operating hour of the day also has its charms, but there is just something special and hopeful about the first hour of the day. We already told you that we prefer to head to Fantasyland directly from rope drop, but what ride do we do first in Fantasyland? We are going to cover that and our reasons behind it in this article about what ride we do first in Disneyland, and we are going to help you pick your own best first ride.
Before we begin, you may want to review How We Get to Disneyland In Time for Opening (aka Rope Drop) to make your own plans for getting to the park for that opening hour. For information on park opening, you can also read What Time Does Disneyland Open?
The Ride We Do First at Disneyland Park
So what do we ride first at Disneyland Park in California? Well, it is not always the same ride, but our most frequent first ride at Disneyland Park is Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. We enter Fantasyland after rope-drop and head for this little gem just beside Sleeping Beauty Castle. Within minutes, we are whisked into a fairytale. Here are five reasons why we like to ride Snow White’s Enchanted Wish first at Disneyland Park.
Because This is a Quick Ride with No Pre-Show
We like to start with Snow White’s Enchanted Wish in particular for the same reasons we like to start in Fantasyland in general.
First, it is a quick ride with no pre-show (unless you count the charming place-setting happening in the queue and even in the window of the ride building.) This ride loads continuously, so the queue moves fairly quickly, and its is not an overwhelmingly popular first ride, so that queue is not usually long to begin. We can ride Snow White’s Enchanted Wish upon entering the park and still have plenty of minutes left in the opening hour to enjoy other attractions with low-wait times.
Second, those other attractions are just steps away! This area of Fantasyland (in the castle courtyard) is densely populated with attractions. We can move onto our second ride… third, fourth and so on without needing to waste precious early-morning minutes commuting between attractions.
Finally—like its immediate neighbors in Fantasyland—Snow White’s Enchanted Wish does not use Lightning Lanes. So our best chance for a low wait time is early in the morning. This is especially true, because Fantasyland frequently closes during the evening for nighttime entertainment offerings.
For a more in-depth look at why we like to start our day in Fantasyland, see What to Do First at Disneyland Park.
Because This is an Opening Day Disneyland Attraction
We are suckers for Disneyland history, and we think there is something special about Disneyland’s opening-day attractions. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish was one of the rides that opened with Disneyland on July 17, 1955!
Now, the ride at the time was called Snow White’s Adventures, and it has had two name changes and some re-imaginings in the seventy years since it opened. But still, how cool is it to start your day with a ride that was there when it all began? A first-day ride at Disney’s first theme park can be your first ride of the day!
Because This Ride Represents Another Big Disney First
Speaking of firsts, we love that Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is based on the first full-length animated feature made, not just by The Walt Disney Company, but by anyone.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves debuted in 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood, California after three years of hard work by Walt Disney and a team of over 750 artists. In those years, media outlets had taken to calling the effort “Walt’s Folly” and predicted failure for the studio (and even ill-effects for viewers). Today we know that the film went on to be a massive success for Walt and his company, plus Snow White and the Seven Dwarves opened a new era of film-making.
In many ways, the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves made Disneyland possible, and it’s fun to commemorate that first animated movie with our first ride at Disneyland Park.
More than that, I like remembering how something extraordinary came out of an idea so derided by others. Walt Disney believed in his own “wish” enough to keep at it for years despite discouragement and mockery. Out of all of that determination and dreaming came something beautiful. For me, there is more than one “enchanted wish” in this ride, and I like to start my day filled with that hope.
Because You Cannot Find It at Walt Disney World in Florida
Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is one of a kind. There are similar but not identical rides at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. (The other two are definitely scarier!) Snow White’s Scary Adventures once existed at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Florida, but it closed over a decade ago.
So, if you are a Walt Disney World pro hoping for a nostalgic re-ride or just a Snow White lover in the United States, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is a nice way to start your Disneyland day. It gives you a taste of what makes Disneyland unique as the original Disney theme park, and the location and show-building put you in the heart of this special park.
Because The Ride is Enchanting!
Finally, we like to ride Snow White’s Enchanted Wish first, because we just really like it. It mixes old school Imagineering ingenuity with new technology for a sweet but visually stunning dark ride. There’s classic music, detailed figures and some fun lighting effects. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is a direct neighbor to Sleeping Beauty Castle, but the ride’s building hold its own against that icon with beautiful… dare we say enchanting detail. On top of that, the dwarves’ cottage visible from the queue is pretty incredibly done. We like gazing it as our excitement builds for the first ride of the day (for the brief few minutes we are in the queue anyway).
Plus—and maybe this should have been its own point—this ride has no height minimum. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish can be experienced by all ages. Even better, the most recent re-do so drastically reduced the scare-factor that it should also be enjoyable for all ages. We like that our entire party can ride our first ride at Disneyland together when we ride Snow White’s Enchanted Wish!
That said, be sure to check for accessibility information specific to your party. Those using wheelchairs or ECVs will need to transfer into the ride vehicles, but a transfer access vehicle is available at Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. Also available are handheld captioning and audio description services. For more on this, see the attraction page here.
How to Choose Your First Disneyland Ride
So, that is five reason why we like to start our Disneyland Park days with Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.
Maybe those five reasons all resonate with you and you also plan to start your day with “the fairest of them all.” On the other hand, maybe this article helped you think about what you are looking for in a first ride, and Snow White’s Enchanted Wish does not fulfill your requirements. In service of that, we are including a final list reiterating things that are important to us when choosing our first Disneyland Park ride. Included with each entry are suggestions for other rides that might fit those requirements.
We encourage you to review our list and then come up with one of your own. In any case, here are five things we look for in a first ride at Disneyland Park.
- A quick attraction that leaves plenty of time to ride other attractions during Disneyland Park’s opening hour.
- Many other rides that fit this description are found in the area of Fantasyland close to Sleeping Beauty Castle. Just be aware that Peter Pan’s Flight will probably still have a long wait unless you are at the head of the rope-drop rush.
- An attraction near other attractions, which allows for short transit time during Disneyland’s opening hour.
- Again, see other Fantasyland attractions and our article What to Do First at Disneyland Park.
- An attraction our entire group can ride together.
- When considering which attractions will be accessible to your entire group. Take a look at Disneyland Park’s height requirements and accessibility information. You can also take a look at our post, 5 Wonderful Attractions for All-Ages at Disneyland Park
- An attraction that appeals to what makes Disneyland special to us.
- This one is going to be personal to you.
- An attraction we like!
- Again, this is going to be personal to you! It is probably worth mentioning here that Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is not our favorite ride at Disneyland Park. It is not even in the top five. However, it is a ride we like to do on every visit, and it is a great way to start our day!
So that’s our list. To come up with your own, have some conversations with your travel group. You may find this article helpful: Ask These Questions Before You Visit Disneyland.
Thank you for reading our post on why we like to make Snow White’s Enchanted Wish our first ride at Disneyland Park.
Do not forget to check-out those related articles we mentioned above, including: (1) How We Get to Disneyland In Time for Opening (aka Rope Drop), (2) What Time Does Disneyland Open?, (3) What to Do First at Disneyland Park and (4) Featuring Fantasyland at Disneyland Park: Highlights, Tips & FAQs. For general but comprehensive help planning your Disneyland visit, see Step-by-Step Disneyland Prep, and please consider subscribing to our newsletter below. Thanks again for reading!
