Have you seen the new Disney Springs?

Disney Springs, formerly Downtown Disney, has always been a shopping and entertainment district full of cool shops, yummy places to eat, and fun things to do, such as a bowling alley and a movie theater. It's a great place to hang out on a non park day, or in the evening when you've had your fill of the parks.

When I was there in Dec 2015, they were in the middle of a huge expansion. Some of the improvements had already been completed. I was a huge fan of the bridge that connected one part to the other...eliminating the long walk back to the bus stop. But there were walls up and you couldn't see what they were doing with the expansion.

My next visit was Nov 2016, after it was all completely done, and WOW. Just wow!

The old Downtown Disney was divided into three areas: the Marketplace, Pleasure Island, and the West Side. The dance clubs in Pleasure Island closed years ago and the area only held a few restaurants. It was pretty dead. But they took that entire area and completely transformed it. It is now two distinct areas called The Landing and Town Center.

The old bus stop is gone and now there is a brand new one that is more centrally located. You are dropped off at Town Center, and if you are familiar with the old Downtown Disney, you will definitely see you are not in Kansas anymore! It's absolutely beautiful. Very elegant with high end shops to satisfy every shopaholic.

If you head to the right, you eventually hit the Marketplace and it all starts to look familiar again! All the shops and eateries you know and love are still there :)

The Landing and West Side are filled with amazing eateries. So many to choose from! Which makes it so hard to decide!

Parking has always been a huge problem at Downtown Disney, but not anymore. Disney Springs has  two huge parking garages for those that have a car. They even have digital signs outside telling you how many spots are free! So cool!

Day #6: Disneyland Day #3

It was our last day at the Disneyland resort. And we were ready for it to end and continue on with the rest of our vacation - a weekend in Las Vegas and then a few days in Hollywood and So Cal. We chose to go back to Disneyland for our last day, since there were a few things we hadn't done yet.

As we entered the hub, we realized there was something going on on the bridge into Sleeping Beauty's Castle. There was a person lip syncing to a version of it's a small world being played and there were camera people. So of course we had to be nosey and take a few photos.

I ended up finding out months later that it was a social media thing and this girl was some kind of youtube singer or something. I got to see the official video that came from this little photo shoot, so it was really cool to be like "Hey...I was there! Just on the right of the castle when this was going on!"

We headed to Fantasyland and rode Casey Jr.'s Circus Train and Storybookland Canal Boats. The boat ride was very very cute. I loved all the tiny little kingdoms :)

We did a meet n greet with Tink and her friends :) It was really cute. Way nicer than the Pixie Hollow meet n greet area in the old Toontown at Magic Kingdom.

We rode Splash Mountain again, cause it was hot and we love it :)

We rerode some of the other things we loved, like Pirates and haunted Mansion. We then got some good seats in the shade for the afternoon parade- Mickey's Soundsational Parade. It was really cool! I loved all the dancers and the floats were fun.

After that we were pretty much done. We had experienced pretty much everything we could and like I said earlier, we were ready to move on. We headed to Downtown Disney for some dinner and my daughter was begging us to go to the Build a Bear there. As if we don't have one at home. But it was her money, so we let her. We ended the evening with some more swimming at the hotel. :)

Overall, we had a fabulous time at the Disneyland Resort. There were a few bumps, but we were so so glad we made this trip. Carsland itself was worth the journey. And just like every Disney trip we take, the memories we made and the fun we had as a family was 100% worth every dime. Don't think we'll be in a hurry to go back to DL though. If anything, the trip made us miss WDW and yearn to go back. (We already have a trip planned for September!) But I was very glad to be there and see the original park, even if it doesn't really look like it anymore. :)

Day 1: Pool time and Downtown Disney

We arrived in Sunny California around noon or so, I think. It took a little while to get our luggage and get to the Super Shuttle check in. I have mixed feelings about Super Shuttle. The price was decent, I guess- ran us about $75 I think for the four of us. I looked into private car service, but it was almost double with tip. And since our hotel was right across the street from Disneyland, we decided not to get our rental car until after the DL portion was done. We had to save every penny we could, remember? ;) We were the first ones in the van, but had to make 4-5 other stops around LAX to pick up other passengers. But the saving grace was that we were dropped at our hotel first. We checked in and got right in our suits. The pool was small, but sufficient. It was clean and hardly anyone was there any day we decided to swim. The kids had a blast and we actually had a hard time getting them to leave so we could check out DTD.

Walking into Disneyland is definitely different than WDW. The sign isn't all that big. I imagine you could drive right by and not even realize you had passed The Happiest Place on Earth.

There's quite a walk between the entrance and the plaza where the park entrances are, but it's pretty.  Kids thought the Mickey bench was cool :)

We walked around, checking things out. Some was similar to DTD in Orlando, like World of Disney and the Lego Store. But they had some really cool things there that DTD in WDW doesn't have- like Belle and Beast and a really cool mural behind Woody and Buzz. Plus the Magic Carpet too! Soo cool!

We had dinner at Earl of Sandwich. It's been a real long time since we've eaten at the one in WDW, so I really can't compare them. But it was tasty :)

We walked around some more. Lots of stores. Not as many restaurants. We ended up having dinner there 2 other nights. Once at ESPN Zone, which we've never eaten at in WDW. It was just okay. Pretty pricey though. And we ate at Napolini another day. Pizza and salad. It was pretty good. A decent counter meal.

Our last night we went to DTD one last time. The kids were hell bent on doing Build a Bear and Ridemakrz. (With their own money.)

And we decided to do one of the hand painted signs with our last name. Each letter is a character. VERY cute. But of course, when we got back to the hotel and actually looked at it, our name was spelled wrong :( So hubby ran back. We had no time in the morning to go back. We had to pick up our rental car at 8:30 and get on the road. We were heading to Vegas for the weekend. But they were great and made him a new one right then and there.

So overall, day 1 and DTD in general were nice. Not as much going on there as DTD in WDW, but it was fun. :)