In the second of a monthly series of comparisons between the two Disneylands' closest to my heart (California and Paris), I will be looking at the rides based on Snow White.

In California, the ride is called Snow White's Scary Adventures whereas in Paris, it is called Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains which translates literally as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. For the benefit of this article, I will abbreviate the former ride to SW and the latter to BN.

Both are dark rides, based in Fantasyland, which have existed in some form since the opening of their respective park. In each you travel around the show building in a Dwarf's mine car. These vehicles have a dwarf's name on the front, in the appropriate language, which has made some people believe the transportation is supposed to be a bed.

The mine cars in France are bigger, having three rows of riders, compared to SW's two. In many other ways such as ride length, the audio-less sections and the exterior curtains periodically opening to reveal the Queen, the two rides are thought to be generally carbon copies.

One "mistake" that links the two is that the outside of the attraction and the queue area including the "Secret Chamber", implies that the ride will start inside the Queen's castle (as it indeed does in Florida and Japan) whereas it actually starts inside the Dwarves' cottage.

In terms of chronology, the "Secret Chamber" section of the pre-show of both features lighting and sound effects which imply that the Queen has already transformed into the witch, whereas this does not actually occur until half way through the ride.

Both "Secret Chambers" feature a book of spells behind faux-iron bars. Although both mention the poison apple (in their respective language), the BN version also references "L'antidote premier baiser d'amore" which translates roughly as "The antidote love's first kiss".

I should also mention that BN's Chamber does not feature the griffins that appear in SW. Creatures of a similar design, however, can be found in the Seance scene of Disneyland Paris' Phantom Manor.

The mural behind the load/unload positions for BN is similar to the pre-1983 refurb design for SW. This image features all the characters from the films. Something that has always bugged me is that they feature the Queen in her "original" state and also as the "peddler". Seeing as Disney put a lot of effort into not having two Mickeys visible next to each other, I feel this contradicts one of the company's principal aims. However, both versions of the Queen appear on the front cover for the majority of posters and most releases for the movie. In the original film, the Queen/Witch had different animators and were seen as different characters, although both were voiced by Lucille La Verne

The recent changes to the lighting of California's transformation scene have not yet made it to Europe, which seems crude in comparison. Also, in this room, SW features the raven sitting on a beautiful throne, whereas in BN, the familiar is perched on a spell book.

However, a greater amount of real estate means that BN has a better "reveal" of this section, as you have gone over a drawbridge, before the double doors part.

Towards the end of both rides is the "cottage door" scene, in which the Hag is seen to be offering an apple. Both versions have had this replaced by a hologram although in BN, for about six months, the entire arm of the witch (including the apple effect) had fallen off and was lying on the floor, in the eye line of guests.

In the following scene, the order of the dwarves is identical in both versions, from Dopey on the far left to Doc on the far right nearest the Hag as she tries to lever an object onto our mine car. In Paris, this object is some form of boulder, whereas in California there have been arguments put forward saying this object is an oversized emerald.

BN does not have as good a lightning effect here, making it less clear what has happened and to whom.

However, this is compensated for in the final scene, which proves our heroes survived. This features waving figures of Snow White (on a horse), her Prince and Dopey, ears-a-wriggling, standing amongst various woodland creatures on a bridge. This addition may be the reason for the aforementioned addition to the book of spells.

Although visually more interesting than SW's open book stating "And they all lived happily ever after", these animatronics look out of place. They appear to pout rather than smile, and our eponymous heroine seems to have grown her hair by at least six inches since we saw her in the ride's opening.

I will end by mentioning one of my favourite BN details. In the foliage outside the attraction, there is a pickaxe. This may refer to the chap who the Queen sends to kill Snow White, but -seeing as in the 1937 Disney movie this character is a Huntsman with a dagger, rather than a Woodman with an axe- I would like to think that this prop is supposed to belong to one of the dwarves, dropped in their rush to rescue our heroine although I always was an idealist.