Grad Bash at Universal Studios is an event many seniors dream of. Being able to run around the parks at night with friends and going on rides with thousands of fewer people is the epitome of freedom, almost like a reward for surviving four years of high school. However, for the first time, Miami Palmetto Senior High’s Grad Bash took place during the day. While there have been mixed feelings about this, one thing is for sure: every senior was excited for this memorable day.
“I wanted to do the traditional Grad Bash because I liked the authentic idea, but it’s also nice that we get to spend more time with the park, and probably get to go on more rides,” senior Yaar Dotan Fuchs said.
Dubbed “Pawventure,” this year’s senior trip featured significant changes from past years. Since it is linked to the official Grad Bash event, students could purchase Express Passes to better enjoy their time at the parks without waiting in general lines. Popular rides such as Jurassic World VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure have average wait times between 60 and 120 minutes, respectively. This makes it extremely hard for students to get on every ride they want, emphasizing why the added benefit of purchasing Express Passes incentivized many MPSH students when they voted whether the senior trip should be at night or during the day.
“We made [the day trip] an option because I think that lots of schools were starting to go that route. And on top of that, the past few years, the main complaint we’ve had about Grad Bash is the fact that the students were waiting in lines of two and three hours long, and there were rides that were shutting down by 12 because they had to be off by a certain time,” Activities Director Elizabeth Valero said. “They were not getting to ride all the main big ticket rides because there were still two hours left in the night.”
The traditional Grad Bash was an option for the Class of 2026, and they voted on which trip they preferred. The options were sent out to seniors, and after hearing complaints from past classes about various issues, they decided the day trip would be the superior option.
While Valero said she had received mostly positive feedback, some students later regretted their choice before the announcement. The idea of Grad Bash as the beginning of the end is one that nearly every senior knows, but ultimately, the pros of the day trip outweighed the cons for many.
“I think that there’s been the good and the bad. I think that in the end, the students felt a little bit of FOMO; I think that they thought about the idea of Grad Bash later, and they were like, ‘Oh, but that’s a rite of passage, and that’s a thing that everyone does,’” Valero said. “So I get that because it is exciting to get to go to Grad Bash, but I also think that you have to try something, and I think that if we try it this year and we don’t like it, then the next year’s class will have the opportunity to vote and decide on what they want to do too.”
For seniors who attended the trip, one thing they looked forward to was content from the MPSH marketing team. Headed by Dotan Fuchs, the team posted on the MPSH Instagram accounts all day so that all students could see how much they are enjoying the trip. Prior to the event, DotanFuchs explained the marketing strategy to capture the trip’s highlights.
“We’re going to try to do the Instagram takeover, so we’re gonna have a few people from each bus do, like, ‘Oh, this is us trying Butterbeer for the first time. This is us in line for VelociCoaster.’ And then we can send it to marketing people and post it on a story highlight,” Dotan Fuchs said.
Overall, although things have changed for the Class of 2026, they had much to look forward to when it came to Pawventure. Despite its unconventionality, it was a day full of friends, excitement and remembrance as seniors took their last trip to Universal Studios as high schoolers.
