During our recent trip to Disney World,  we arrived to Orlando before lunchtime on the first day, but since our tickets to the parks started Tuesday, we had almost a whole day to explore other areas besides the theme parks. We had a quick snack at our resort, then we hopped on a bus to check out Disney Springs.

I knew that Disney Springs had been “rebranded” from its former life as Downtown Disney, but that’s honestly about as much as I knew about it, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived! Disney Springs was a beautiful outdoor area with tons of shopping and dining options. The weather on the day we arrived was absolute perfection — sunny and about 72 degrees, so we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around from shop to shop and taking in all of the sights.

There was a fun little train for Turner to ride, and he enjoyed seeing the hot air balloon all day.

We stopped in the “Disney Design a Tee” shirt shop and had fun coming up with our own shirt designs, but we ultimately didn’t want to wait for it to print, so we passed on actually buying one. Turner really enjoyed going into the Lego Store and seeing the life-size characters made of Legos. It was really cool!

We had lunch reservations at the T-Rex restaurant. The service and the food were good, but the atmosphere is what that restaurant is really all about! There were a lot of life-like dinosaurs and other creatures all around the restaurant. We sat in the ice cave area, and the walls changed colors every few minutes. It was a fun experience, but I’m glad that we had prepaid for the Disney Dining Plan, because the meal was quite pricy for lunch (over $100). Had we not been on the dining plan, I would have been disappointed in the price.

Aaron and I are going on a Disney cruise in March for our 10 year wedding anniversary (sans Turner!!), and we are flying in to Orlando the night before we leave. We’ve already discussed taking an Uber over to Disney Springs for a night out before our cruise, as it is definitely a good date-night spot, but also has a lot of fun things for the kids. If you visit Disney World and have time, I would definitely recommend checking out Disney Springs!