Grad Bash is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is considered the last hurrah before all the seniors go off to college. One night with all your friends at one of the most popular amusement parks around: Universal Studios.

Ok, I am going to start off by saying that my Grad Bash experience wasn’t exactly the best, but I would’ve been upset if I didn’t go. I know that sounds really contradictive, but it is something I will always remember.

The busses finally arrive at the park and everyone is excited. We are all practically running to the entrance. We see this large crowd of people and we think “as soon as we turn this corner, we’ll be in the park.” We could not have been more wrong. There were probably like 200 people waiting in line to get into the park. It was kind of gross. 200 people in an extremely confined area, all hot, sweaty and smelly. We waited in line for about 30 minutes, just to get into the park. That should have been the first sign.

Finally, we end up getting in and a big group of us went straight to the “Velocicoaster” ride. I’m not lying when I say it is the best ride ever. The wait time said 90 minutes. I thought to myself, “It’s worth it. If we’re only going to ride one ride tonight, 90 minutes isn’t that bad.” So, we got in line and it felt like it was never-ending. That’s because it was. The line went on and on. We got to a point and asked one of the workers how much further from the front. He told us 30 minutes until the ride. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. We were all starting to get hungry and wanted to leave. By the time we got off the ride, it had been two and a half hours. The smart thing to do would’ve been to get food and eat it in line, but we didn’t think of that.

After waiting two and a half hours, we started to search for food. It felt like my stomach was eating itself. Almost every place we looked had a long line and we didn’t want to wait any longer. The park had to have been busier than normal. There were SO many people there. We found a place that didn’t have an awfully long line and we devoured our food. It felt like a reset button. Finally felt better.

We walked back over to the other park and went into Harry Potter World. We headed straight for the Butterbeer. Luckily, the line for it was not long at all, which was great because we were done waiting. Let me tell you, the frozen Butterbeer was so good and is a must-try. I don’t exactly know how to describe it. It has a caramel and butterscotch taste. Whatever it is, it tasted really good. That was definitely the only good thing that happened all night.

Things started to look up. We didn’t think it could get worse than it already had been. Once again… we were wrong. We were told to meet at the busses at 1:30. So, around 1:15 we head towards the exit. My legs and feet hurt so bad from standing and walking around everywhere. I was tired because I never stay up this late and I was ready to go. We get to the gate and there was just a big group of people waiting. I walk up to someone who looks like they’re guarding the gate. She says that no one is allowed to leave until 2. We were expecting to be on the bus, driving at 2. So we wait and they did not open it until 2 on the dot. It was so annoying. The busses were late and the bus was not on the road until 3:30 IN THE MORNING. The bus didn’t even get back to Tampa until 5. That had to have been the highlight of the night.