On Sunday, Feb. 22, University of Central Florida students spent the evening at the annual Universal Knights. Every Spring semester, UCF’s Student Government Association rents out Universal’s Islands of Adventure park solely for UCF students. Here’s a recap of what happened and how our Knights spent their night at the park.
The park was open to students starting at 4 p.m., though some arrived shortly after 3 p.m. to use a free parking voucher sent via Outlook to those who received a ticket. Though the park opened for students at 4 p.m., it was still open to the public, and there was a significant number of other visitors, causing wait times to be 150-240 minutes for rollercoasters such as Jurassic Park’s VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.
Later on in the night, park workers were stationed in various areas with “special event” signs and checked students’ wristbands. Visitors who did not have a special event wristband were asked to leave at 8 p.m.
“My group got in line for Hagrid’s a little before nine o’clock, thinking that most of the day visitors had left,” Antonella Herrera Hernández said. “However, when the park employees announced that they were still present and the line was three hours long, we ended up leaving so we could prioritize VelociCoaster.”
Antonella Herrera Hernández, a junior technical communication major, was in line at VelociCoaster for an hour and a half when an announcement repeated multiple times that there would be a brief delay.
“After repeating that announcement, we were then told that it was now an extended delay. An employee came out and told us that it was unlikely that we’d get to go on,” Herrera Hernández said. “We waited around 30 minutes before giving up and leaving the line.”
The day started with temperatures of mid-70s and a sunny sky, but suddenly, a major temperature drop to the low 40s and gusts of wind hit. Due to the harsh winds, some rides, like VelociCoaster, were affected and shut down between the hours of 11:20 p.m. and 12 a.m.
Overall, Herrera Hernández explains how unfortunate it was that she wasn’t able to get a lot of the rides completed, but still, “the day was fun—it was free Universal.”
Sophomore computer engineering major Shade Rahman had a similar situation with his group of friends, experiencing “treacherous lines.” With that being said, he was still able to accomplish six rides.
“Hagrid’s got delayed, but we were actually able to get in line the moment the delay was over, letting us get in super deep into the line,” Rahman said. “We started by going on the Hulk, which was a 30-minute wait, and then we went on [The Amazing Adventures of] Spider-Man and walked over to Harry Potter [and the] Forbidden Journey, which is my favorite ride, and I had so much fun on that.”
Rahman and his friend group diverted from VelociCoaster to the Skull Island: Reign of Kong attraction. They finished off together at Seussland with The Cat in the Hat as their final ride.
“Other than the rides, we also went around the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and did the different spell simulations with my friend’s wand and also got some Butterbeer, which of course was a must,” Rahman said.
Jennifer Sleem, a junior electronic broadcast journalism major, shares her “magical” experience with a “mix of nostalgia and excitement.”
“I mostly walked around the park with friends, took photos, explored different areas like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and some of the themed shops like Honeydukes,” Sleem said. “I also went on a few rides and just enjoyed the vibe of being at Islands [of Adventure] at night. It was honestly my favorite part because everything looks more cinematic after dark.”
Anushka Desai, a senior legal studies major, had an alarming encounter in one of the most popular rides at Islands of Adventure: Hagrid’s Motorbikes.
“We waited in line for an hour and a half before the fire alarm went off,” Desai said. “The employees around us were saying it was either that someone pulled the fire alarm or someone may have smoked in line. We did see a huge rush of security to the ride while we were exiting.”
Nonetheless, the cold temperatures didn’t stop Samantha Renda, a sophomore integrated business major, from going on the water attraction, Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls.
“Our clothes were soaked, and we didn’t plan on it, so we only had the clothes we were wearing,” Renda said. “One of my friends was so uncomfortable that he spent $125 at a store for new clothes.”
With that being said, the long wait in line for ticket distribution was definitely a foreshadowing of the lengthy attraction lines that were to come ahead. Still, it seemed totally worth it.