'We had plans and then we changed them' I-HOP, US and IOA ~ Orlando and NYC

DisneyDaffodil · 19 Jul 17, 04:05 PM

Index

All of us were awake by 7am today. Today we had planned to have breakfast at I-HOP and Georgia and Emily particularly wanted to go here and have pancakes. We all met in the hotel lobby at 8:30 and booked a Lyft to I-HOP on I-Drive. Justin was in a better mood this morning and I think the sleep had been good for all of us.
Our Lyft driver was there within a few minutes but it took us twenty minutes to get to I-HOP as we had put in the wrong address for our nearest I-HOP and ended up having a scenic tour of I-Drive

Yet again, another example of our lack of navigational skills. We all saw the funny side of it when we eventually got to I-HOP (but we had all been slightly concerned on the journey

)

All I know about this I-HOP was that it was attached to a hotel and the food was really tasty. Rob and Emily had the breakfast sampler, Georgia had the red velvet pancakes, Justin had the chocolate chip pancakes and I had the cupcake pancakes. Rob and I drank coffee, Justin and Emily had coke and Georgia had the tastiest hot chocolate ever (or so she says)

The servers in I-HOP were really friendly, even though it was incredibly busy. Although I don't remember the exact cost of the food, it was reasonable and we left a generous tip, as we had received good service.
All full, we ordered a Lyft back to Universal Studios. Lyft and Uber are a great, inexpensive way to get to Universal, especially as it drops you very close to City Walk. We were at Universal before 10:30 and were excited to have a long day at the park.
Thankfully the weather was much better today, as you can see from the photos.

We had no clear plans for Universal, unlike Disney where we had FP and ADRs to guide us. This gave us the chance to wander around the parks and do whatever we wanted with no time limits.
We headed into US first. We saw that Shrek 4D only had a 20 minute wait and we decided this wasn't long to wait. This became our first attraction in Universal!

Shrek 4D was great fun, as we all love the Shrek movies. We wandered away from Shrek towards the Transformers meet and greet. Rob got very excited when he saw Megatron (as he did throughout the whole holiday when he saw any transformer

)

We continued to walk through the park until we stumbled upon the Blues Brothers on their stage near The Mummy ride. Georgia had no idea who the Blues Brothers were but Rob and I enjoyed the few moments of rest, listening to them perform and Georgia enjoyed the shade, as it was already getting hot.
After stopping for a while, we continued to walk around the park until we got to Diagon Alley. Emily, Georgia and I are big Harry Potter fans and were really looking forward to this part of the park (Justin and Rob not so much). As we walked through the wall, we were greeted by the dragon breathing fire, which was a great way to enter.

We looked around some of the shops in Diagon Alley such as Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Magical Menagerie. However, Diagon Alley was very busy (as we found throughout the whole trip). For this reason, we preferred Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley.

Then we went to Springfield, where we were excited to do the Simpsons ride. Rob sat this one out as he does suffer with motion sickness and we'd heard this ride was pretty bad for it. We are all big Simpsons fans and thought this ride was brilliant. It was so funny and very exciting. It was definitely my favourite ride of the holiday and everyone felt it was one of their favourites too.
After leaving the ride, we all realised we were hungry so we went into the Springfield food court. Justin and Emily went to Krusty Burger and had the double Krusty Burger and curly fries. The three of us went to Cletus' Chicken Shack. Georgia and I had the chicken arms with celery, blue cheese dressing and tater tots. Rob had the chicken thumbs with tater tots. We bought a Lard Lad donut for all of us to share and Rob and I had a Duff beer each.

The food here was tasty and filling. We spent a while looking around Springfield after our meal and taking photos.

We went back to Men in Black where we joined the short queue and we all went on the ride. This was great fun and Rob got the top score of 112,000 (he always does the best on this sort of ride) and I had the worst score of 21,000 (as usual too).
We walked back through Springfield towards the ET ride. It only had a five minute queue so we all went on this. This ride was a little boring and childish but we were glad we'd ridden it.
We then headed back to the entrance of the park, with no real plans. We saw that the Horror Make-Up show was starting in a few minutes so decided to watch this. We knew nothing about this but it was really funny. Justin seemed to particularly enjoy this and we were all laughing loads. We were all pleased we weren't picked though!

We then watched Terminator 3D. Rob really loves the films so he enjoyed this but we felt it needed updating and didn't enjoy it so much. Georgia has never seen the Terminator films so had no idea what was going on.
We then decided to rest and have a beer in the park area overlooking the lake.

We also saw some of the characters while we were sat down (Spongebob and Dora which were Georgia's childhood heroes).

We then waited 20 minutes for the Hogwart's Express to travel from US to IOA.

Justin was yet again starving (there's a reoccurring theme to this holiday

), so we rushed out of Hogsmeade to Suess Landing where he and Emily bought corndogs. They had never tried these before and weren't very keen on them but it satisfied his hunger.
We then went to Marvel Superhero Island. We are all big superhero and Marvel fans (especially Georgia) and were excited to do the Spiderman ride. We loved the theming of Superhero Island and spent lots of time here during the holiday.
We queued twenty minutes for Spiderman, including Rob, which I was surprised by as I thought this ride might have been too much for him. He really liked it though, as we all did. This was again, one of the best rides of the holiday.

After Spiderman, we saw there was only a five minute wait for Dr. Doom's Fearfall so we left Rob at the bottom to brave the heights of this ride. This was a great ride and really scary. We were really surprised by how the ride started!

We all went to the Fantastic Four Cafe then where Georgia and I shared a slice of pizza, a caesar salad and breadstick. Although we shared this meal, there was plenty for both of us and it was delicious.

By this time, we were starting to feel really tired and our feet were aching. Justin and Emily decided to stay in the park and do more rides but we left the park, saying we'd meet them the next morning. Rob still hadn't eaten so we stopped in City Walk for him to get some food. We went to Hot Dog Hall of Fame where he ordered a Milwaukee.

Rob thought this was really tasty and Georgia and I (who don't usually like hot dogs) thought so too. It was starting to rain as we left the park and we were exhausted. Our feet were suffering too. It seemed a much longer walk back to the hotel than it was. The three of us were asleep by 10pm but had had a brilliant day.

Step Count: 17,000

**dixonsontour** · 19 Jul 17, 08:54 PM

Wow what a busy day, lots done. Love ihop, I've got my eye on those cupcake pancakes

DisneyDaffodil · 19 Jul 17, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by dixonsontour

Wow what a busy day, lots done. Love ihop, I've got my eye on those cupcake pancakes

We did have quite a few rests throughout the day as the weather was so hot, but looking back we realise how much we packed into each day.

The cupcake pancakes were so light and delicious, I can highly recommend them 😀

Floridaagogo · 19 Jul 17, 10:38 PM

Chicken thumbs and arms just sounds sooooo wrong😀😀

mrsdjh · 19 Jul 17, 10:59 PM

Glad all was ok after sleep!

We ended up at a different Target to the one we thought we were going to last year. I was also concerned on the drive! I loved the Ihop pancakes too.

Sounds like you had a good day wandering and just getting on rides and the queues don't sound too long.

**Fuellady** · 19 Jul 17, 11:33 PM

Glad everything was fine in the morning

Those pancakes look so good, we haven't been to IHOP in years, hopefully it will make the list this year!

Lovely day at US, you did so much and yet it doesn't seem as if you had to cram it all in.

DisneyDaffodil · 19 Jul 17, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by mrsdjh

Glad all was ok after sleep!

We ended up at a different Target to the one we thought we were going to last year. I was also concerned on the drive! I loved the Ihop pancakes too.

Sounds like you had a good day wandering and just getting on rides and the queues don't sound too long.

Queues were good. We were concerned as it was the end of June so US school holidays but we rarely queued longer than 20 minutes, sometimes a lot less than that.

Justin and Emily have never flown long haul before and I think we were all over tired the first evening. We were all in better spirits by the next day.

DisneyDaffodil · 19 Jul 17, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by Floridaagogo

Chicken thumbs and arms just sounds sooooo wrong😀😀

Seemed really odd when we ordered them 😀. The arms were really good with celery and dip, tater tots were nice change from fries too

DisneyDaffodil · 19 Jul 17, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by Fuellady

Glad everything was fine in the morning

Those pancakes look so good, we haven't been to IHOP in years, hopefully it will make the list this year!

Lovely day at US, you did so much and yet it doesn't seem as if you had to cram it all in.

We strolled around, wasn't rushed at all. Had quite a few food and drink rests but still did loads. Our feet ached so much at the end of the evening though. Our hotel was a 10 minute walk away but it seemed so much further going back to it 😀

fuelman · 20 Sep 17, 11:22 PM

Wow that doughnut looks the business.

19 Jul 17, 10:59 PM	#5
	19 Jul 17, 10:59 PM mrsdjh Imagineer
mrsdjh Imagineer Join Date: Jun 13	Glad all was ok after sleep! We ended up at a different Target to the one we thought we were going to last year. I was also concerned on the drive! I loved the Ihop pancakes too. Sounds like you had a good day wandering and just getting on rides and the queues don't sound too long.