HawkTalk
Beyond NY Christian Grotewold

What Happens In Orlando… Goes on HakwTalk Pt. 2

Meeting a Theta Chi brother.
Meeting a Theta Chi brother.

After our phenomenal first day at Orlando, we continued our vacations by going to Universal Studios, which is right next to Island of Adventure. For this day, my fraternity brother and I decided to wear our letters, and to our surprise a grown man who is also part of Theta Chi recognized us at the hotel! It was a great feeling to talk to a brother from a different state.

After this great encounter, we arrived at the park and headed straight to all the rides. To our surprise, there were not that many very interesting attractions there; the only ones that were worth a second ride were the Rock N’ Roll and Mummy rollercoaster. While we were walking around the park, we noticed that a huge area of Universal was under construction, and they had taken away the Jaws attraction. For me, it was a relief since sharks are one of my deadliest fears in life; I was traumatized by that very game when I was two years old. We did walk past the hanging shark though, and I decided to face my fear… so I put my head inside the shark’s mouth. I was shaking so badly, but at least it’s one step into overcoming my fear.

Trying to overcome my fear of sharks.
Trying to overcome my fear of sharks.

The next day we went to Sea World, and it rained. We thought our day was going to be ruined, but on the contrary, we were able to ride all the attractions without having to wait in line for them. One particular rollercoaster made our faces hurt — The Kraken. We decided to ride in the front row of the roller coaster, but since it was raining and we were riding at full speed, it felt like the rain was cutting our faces. When we got off the ride and saw our picture, we had to buy it — it was that funny. The day cleared up and we were able to watch the dolphin and sea lion shows up close without worrying that the rain would make us uncomfortable. It had been years since I last went to Sea World, and I loved every moment of it.

Two days later we were supposed to go to Wet N’ Wild, but the day was very cold. We were on our way to the water park when we decided that it was just not the right weather for that park, so we decided to go back to Island of Adventure. It was a Thursday, so we thought the park was going to be empty… we were wrong. The park was packed and the waiting lines were up to 100 minutes of waiting. Our day was not looking very good at all, so we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter just for a Butterbeer and then went to Universal Studios. This park was less crowded and we were able to get on our favorite rides several times. Once we got bored we decided to go watch a movie at the AMC in the park. When the movie was over we still had some time to kill before our shuttle back to the hotel, so we decided to head back to Island of Adventure for one final Butterbeer. Our bad day turned out to be a pretty fun and relaxing one.

Our Kraken faces.
Our Kraken faces.

I am not even going to describe how horrible the bus ride back to New York was. I am just happy to be back at Wagner safe and sound. Our spring break was an amazing one; we enjoyed our days to the maximum despite our poor choice of going there by bus. This was one of my favorite experiences and I would definitely plan another trip with my friends... but next time we are definitely taking a plane.