Profile picture for user dakota.gardner426

Date of birth

Member for

9 years 9 months

Name

Dakota Gardner

Location

New York

Country

United States

Biography

Dakota has been visiting Walt Disney World since before he can even remember. His favorite things are Space Mountain, Disney's BoardWalk Resort, and those massive Mickey-shaped cookies dipped in chocolate. When he's not waiting in line at Ample Hills Creamery, he lives in New York where he works professionally as an editor for a sports website.

Articles by Dakota Gardner:

4 Ways Classic Disney and Universal Attractions are Deeper Than You Ever Imagined

Films can be art. Photographs can be art. Video games can be art. Even selfies can be art (no, seriously). And, I would argue, theme park attractions can be art – particularly the ones you'd find at Disney parks around the world or Universal's parks in Orlando and Los Angeles. No, maybe they aren't on the same level as the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel, but they're a bit closer than you may think.

7 Imagineers ALL Walt Disney World Fans Should Know

Walt never set foot in the completed Walt Disney World – he passed away long before it opened. And while he absolutely paved the way for the resort, it was his Imagineers that truly made it what it is today. If you're a Disney fan, you should know who these people are.

4 Imagineering Terms all Disney Fans Must Know

Walt Disney and his team invented a whole new language to describe their theme parks. That jargon is still in use today, and to truly understand the ways Imagineering works to build and improve the Disney parks, you must first understand the language they speak to each other.

5 Ways That Walt Disney World (Literally) Stinks

There are some scents at Walt Disney World that will stick with you until the end of time. Here are five of those iconic scents – some of which, Disney engineered into their attractions, and some of which came about through sheer happenstance.

5 Disney Attractions that Owe their Magic to their Music

There are a handful of rides and shows that, in the opinion of this writer, owe much of their success to the musical compositions put to use within them. That’s not to say they’d be poor attractions without their signature tunes, but rather, the music is the most important factor in elevating them from merely good experiences to great ones.

5 Buildings that Inspired Some of Walt Disney World's Most Iconic Hotels and Attractions

Because so many of Disney's attractions and lands are trying to transport you somewhere different-but-still-familiar, they're all designed to echo real types of art and architecture you'd find elsewhere in the world. Some of these buildings were so striking and so evocative, Disney couldn't help but nearly recreate the entire thing.

4 Reasons Why Walt Disney Would Absolutely Love Soarin'

When new attractions pop up at Disney parks around the globe, us Disney fans like to imagine how Walt might feel about them, should he have had the opportunity to experience them. I firmly believe that Walt would absolutely adore Soarin' and Soarin' over California, largely because they have all the hallmarks of the kinds of attractions he designed.

5 Things to Love About Disney's Most HATED Attraction

The original version of Journey into Imagination was one of the greatest rides Walt Disney Imagineering ever produced, and its removal from Epcot was an absolute travesty. As such, whatever Disney replaced it with would be met with scorn and derision from much of the fanbase. And yet, if you try to look at Journey into Imagination with Figment with fresh eyes, forgetting everything you think you know, it's really not that bad...

The 5 Biggest Wastes of Space at Walt Disney World (Literally)

While Disneyland has always been and will always be one of the great theme parks on the planet, its relatively small size will always limit the Imagineers' creativity when designing new and exciting attractions. They often look for ways to improve or replace old attractions in such a way that each one earns its spot in the park – there's no room for a waste of space. This is not the case in Orlando.

5 Reasons Walt Disney World's Transportation System is BETTER Than Most Cities'

Walt Disney World receives upwards of 100,000 visitors on every single day – Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, all of 'em. And, nearly all of those visitors will use some form of Disney transportation during their day.

About Theme Park Tourist

Theme Park Tourist is one of the web’s leading sources of essential information and entertaining articles about theme parks in Orlando and beyond.

We are one of the world’s largest theme park guide sites, hosting detailed guides to more than 80 theme parks around the globe.

Find Out More About Us...

Plan Your Trip

Our theme park guides contain reviews and ratings of rides, restaurants and hotels at more than 80 theme parks worldwide.

You can even print them.

Start Planning Now...