Since welcoming the first guests over its drawbridge in 1955, Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland has become an internationally recognized symbol of Disney magic and one of the most photographed icons in the world.
Fifty years later, its pink and blue parapets and towers have risen once again at Hong Kong Disneyland in a beautiful re-creation of the California original -- a first for the talented artisans of Walt Disney Imagineering and a fitting tribute to Walt Disney's first theme park.
As the centerpiece of Hong Kong Disneyland, Sleeping Beauty Castle stands majestically at the gateway to Fantasyland with the green hills of Lantau Island providing a picture-perfect backdrop.
Bringing Stories to Life
Central to all Disney theme parks is storytelling, the idea that guests are immersed in a wide variety of exciting adventures as they explore each park's lands and attractions. It's a philosophy that sets Disney parks apart and often is called "the Disney difference," a key ingredient that drives the creation of every element guests see, from a simple wastebasket to a towering roller coaster.
Sleeping Beauty Castle at Hong Kong Disneyland serves as a crucial piece of the Hong Kong Disneyland story, transporting guests to another world -- one filled with magic and wonder.
Sleeping Beauty Castle heralds the start of a day like no other. From the moment they first glimpse its fairy tale turrets and towers from the Town Square area of Main Street, U.S.A., guests are off on a magical journey in which they are the central characters in stories of nostalgia, adventure, fantasy and far-off places.
As the park's symbolic center, the castle anchors a circular area known as the Plaza, where each of the park's themed lands radiate outward like the spokes of a wheel, a design pioneered by Walt Disney with the construction of Disneyland.
Each night, Sleeping Beauty Castle serves as the stage for a breathtaking fireworks display that splashes its walls and towers with vivid colors as pyrotechnics explode in the sky above, drawing a dazzling end to each day's adventures at Hong Kong Disneyland.
From Idea to Icon
One of the first visualizations of what would become an international icon sprang to life from the pencil of Herb Ryman, a brilliantly talented illustrator Walt summoned to create a sketch of the proposed "Disneyland" over a weekend in September 1953.
It was Ryman's intricately rendered pencil-on-tissue sketch, in fact, that Walt's older brother and lifelong business partner, Roy O. Disney, used to convince the initial group of Disneyland investors to fund Walt's ambitious dream.
As the Imagineers began to refine Walt's ideas for Disneyland into tangible plans, Ryman drew inspiration from many European palaces in crafting the castle's final look, most notably Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, although its influence was slightly obscured by reversing the top half of Sleeping Beauty Castle's design.
Its name was chosen as a nod to Disney's animated feature film "Sleeping Beauty," which was then in production and premiered in 1959, four years after Disneyland's debut.
Walt Disney unveiled Ryman's castle design in the October 1954 debut of a weekly television show, "Disneyland," that provided glimpses of the park's progress, tantalizing eager viewers with an image of the fantasy fortress at the start of each week's episode.
In telling the theme park's story of fairy tales and fantastic adventures, the castle's placement as the entrance to Fantasyland makes perfect sense.
"Castle is 'fantasy' in any language," Walt once said.
Making Magic on a Grand Scale
Drawing on the skills they had honed as motion-picture set designers, Walt's original Imagineers created Disneyland's castle to appear taller than its actual height with an architectural trick known as "forced perspective." The faux stones that make up its walls and battlements are in scaled sizes, from larger ones at the foundation to small ones at the top-most points, creating a subtle illusion of additional height.
A Welcoming "Wienie"
As veteran Imagineer John Hench explains in his book "Designing Disney," the castle serves an important function that elevates Disney theme parks with their attention to detail:
Walt observed that people move toward things that are inviting, and he coined the term "wienie" to refer to such things (Walt had a lifelong love of hot dogs). Imagineers have found that people respond to a wienie at the end of a corridor because it beckons them to continue further in their journey.
To explain the intimate scale of Sleeping Beauty Castle compared to real castles in Europe, Walt Disney remarked that throughout history tyrants often built huge, towering fortresses to intimidate enemies and peasants. Disneyland's castle, he noted, was built on a smaller scale, with warmer colors, to serve as a welcoming symbol of fantasy and fun.
"We have proved that the age-old kind of entertainment based on the classic fairy tale recognizes no young, no old."
-- Walt Disney
Height: 23.4 meters (77 feet) from the moat to the tallest tower
Guests may remain in their wheelchair/ECV to experience the attraction.
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