St Augustine isn’t exactly near Disney, but it really isn’t all that far away…

I took advantage of being in Florida and made a day trip to Orlando. My sis, Terry and her fun husband were there on a spur of the moment trip.

It was pretty dang cold out for that part of the country, so we thought we would try something different. Instead of going to a park, we had a sightseeing day.

And we based our wanderings around whatever reservations we could get for meals. If you know much about Disney, you might know about the big hoopla around making reservations for meals 180 days in advance. They book up that quickly, especially character meals.

I’ve discovered that people hoard those reservations and make as many as they can, deciding at the last minute which to keep.

You can usually snag a good one with the 24 hour window there is to get refunds on deposits when cancelling.

We were lucky to get into tea at the Grand Floridian for lunch and dinner at Storybook Woods with Snow White.

Along with the Evil Queen.

Both restaurants are in hotels, not in a park, so no ticket was required. But we still got to see the Magic Kingdom fireworks over Wilderness Lodge when we arrived to dine with Snow and Dopey.

The rest of the day was spent riding the skyline and monorail to sightsee at hotels along the way.

I’d never seen the Grand Floridian before and loved all of the details.

Of course, Disney is all about the details and art. This giant mosaic is at the newest hotel, the Riviera.

Keeping with our laid back attitude, we took a break at the Riviera in the kids’ craft room. Dale got some hot chocolate, we watched a movie on the big screen, and I did the day’s project.

It was a lesson in doing an animation cell, where you paint on the back of the clear plastic, then flip it over when done. This is what the back of mine looked like.

We took the time to watch a bride arrive for her wedding, a teeny girl dressed as a princess get a photo shoot, we meandered through lobbies, gift shops, and looked around Disney Springs.