When we left off last time, day one at the theme parks had gone horribly awry.

Wednesday

After another late night, I was the only one who got up early on Wednesday.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and check out the imposition that was the free breakfast, where I ran into Tom and Meredith, along with their respective families.  After breakfast, it was back to the room and preparations for a day at Universal Studios for exciting Harry Potter action.

Jeff, Val, and I headed out to the car for the under-12 mile drive to Universal.  As you can probably guess, we never made it.  We were less than 3 miles away when we were forced to stop at a 7-11, where we stayed for the next 2 hours.  Eventually, we decided to call an audible and drove across the street to the Whole Foods, where Val stocked up on some homeopathic remedies in the hopes they would calm her down.  From there, it was back to the hotel, where we left Val in the room and Jeff and I went back to the ESPN Club for lunch.

Seeing as we spent a combined $900 for the Universal tickets, Val convinced Jeff to go back without her, so the two of us again ventured out to see all the wonders of Harry Potter and his ilk.

We arrived late in the afternoon, around 4:00, and made our way inside.  We started at Islands of Adventure, heading straight back to Hogsmeade, the original piece of Harry Potter land.  We took a quick look around and then jumped on the Hogwarts Express, which travels between the two parks.  After the train pulled in to the other park, we looked around there quickly, spending most of our time waiting for the dragon atop the Gringotts Bank to spit fire.  With that done, it was time to bid farewell to Universal.  That $900 provided nearly 2 hours worth of entertainment.  3 if you include the drive there and back.

When we got back to the hotel, Val was asleep, so, rather than join Tom and Meredith down at the final planned event of the week and enjoying free food and drinks, Jeff and I returned to the hotel bar.  Eventually, as the night wore on, we were joined by others for another night of drinking and what passes for debauchery at Disney World.  The night ended back in the hotel room when a drunken Jeff fought against gravity and lost, falling over between the air mattress and our luggage.

Thursday

Our initial plans for the final day at Disney were to go to the Magic Kingdom before heading out on another road trip up the coast.  As with all of our other plans for the trip, they fell apart and were quickly changed.  I again partook in the free breakfast and nearly got Jeff to join me, but he was unwilling to use his conference badge to gain entrance to the breakfast.  After breakfast, it was decided that Jeff would drive back solo and Val and I would fly home that afternoon.  We booked a surprisingly affordable last-minute flight and then the three of us went back to Hollywood Studios for a shopping excursion.

Following a final meal at the ESPN Club, we loaded up the truck and headed to the airport.  Jeff dropped Val and I off and then headed off, taking our luggage, and, unfortunately, our coats, with him.  Val and I went in, checked in for the flight, and everything was good to go, until we found out that, to get to our gate, there would be a short tram ride.  She took it like a champ, and we settled in at the gate, waiting for the hopefully uneventful flight home.

As luck would have it, our flight was delayed waiting for the plane to arrive.  Once we got on the plane, we were delayed again on the tarmac as the first storms of the week arrived.  This did not go over well with Val, who broke the seatbelt light edict multiple times to run to the bathroom.  Before takeoff, Val endeared herself to the lady sitting on the other side of her by asking for her vomit bag, just in case.  Once we got in the air, there were no incidents, but I could tell that she was uncomfortable the whole time.

When we landed, she darted off the plane and we headed out into the cold, snowy night without our coats.  We hugged goodbye and went our separate ways, finding our rides home and ending this exciting and eventful trip.