Episode 19: Disney, Elton John & more!

[Music] Hello and welcome to Unlaced with Chocolate Bates. I'm Madison Trock. And I'm Evan Bates and we're Olympic Ice Dancers for Team USA. If you're into sports betting, bet online is the fastest and easiest way to bet all your favorite sports. Head to their new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code Believe50 to receive your bonus. Well, we are back with another episode. It's been about 31 days on the road so far. Exactly 31 days. Oh wow. And we have been super busy. Last week, especially with the start of US stars on ice rehearsals. Yeah, and traveling back from Tokyo, only to dive right into those long rehearsal days plus jet lag. It was a doozy. Mm-hmm. It was excruciating in fact, but well worth it, I would say. I think the show is amazing. Jeff Buttle did a phenomenal job choreographing it as he always does. But I think this year in particular is a very special show. I agree. It's certainly fun and so far we've done two shows in Florida and audiences seem to love it. So last episode we were in Tokyo. We did our last show. We threw our stuff into the bags. Jumph. My end to the bus. Got on the bus. From the ice rink. Race to the airport. Didn't even have time for a shower. Yikes. Yeah, it was little uncomfortable in that regard. And then we got on a flight. Flu to the US. And the next morning we were at the ice rink for 10 hours learning a new, while we kind of knew some of the choreography. Goodness. Joining up with all the US cast members, learning a couple new numbers. I can't imagine learning all the numbers in just three days. There was there was a lot of material to learn. So props to all of our our fellow castmates who didn't know the numbers in advance like we did. Indeed. Incredible. Somehow we pulled it off. You know, the first show in Fort Myers was actually really good. It went super well. In fact, we were all very pleasantly surprised. I think even Jeff was like, wow, that was great guys. We did address rehearsal the morning of the first show. So we kind of had an expectation of hopefully where we would go beyond and we went way beyond it. Maybe because the dress was not great. Oh, it went, it was terrible. We're like, okay, well, here we go. But once we had the audience there, costumes and everything, it was just it was so fun. We have 22 more shows in the US coming to a city near you. So check out stars on ice to see if we're making a stop where you are and come join us. It's an amazing show. So we had the two shows in Florida. The second show was in Orlando. Then we had a few days off and this great guy we know named Nathan Chen. Who's Nathan Chen? Our listeners probably have heard of him. He's just a wonderful human being. Heart of gold. Humble. Thoughtful. We just love him. So he got invited Disney and he brought all his friends with us and we made the cut. So we just want to say thank you to Nathan. Thanks for the Olympics. Yes. So you could bring us all with you. Disney. Yeah. And Nate. So worth it. If you're listening. All that blood, sweat, tears, so worth it. Thank you. Thank you. Your coat tails are long and it's been really fun riding them. So the day at Disney was so fun. We had 13 of us. We had two tour guides. Having a tour guide at Disney is like it's ruined it for us because I don't think we'll ever be able to go back without having the tour guide. I mean we went straight to the front of the line. If we wanted pretzels or churros they would go get them for us while we were riding the ride would get off the exit of the ride. There's our pretzel and our churro waiting for us. I mean it was like it was incredible. They were like do you want any souvenirs that people ordered bucket hats? We jumped out. I'm matching bucket hats. Jumped on the roller coaster, get off the roller coaster. All our bucket hats are waiting for us. I mean it was just VIP treatment and I was necessary for me. I got a little sunburn on my scalp. I saw that. Now, Chi. So thank goodness for the bucket hat because I needed it. Somehow I didn't get sunburn. That was vigilant. Oh my god. I'm so impressed that the sun didn't really kiss your skin at all. Well, the sun here in Florida is so hot. I mean we're not in Florida anymore. So anyways now we're in North Carolina. We traveled after Disney. We did some more stuff at Florida. Yeah, yeah. We should talk about that too. What about Disney? What was your favorite ride? My favorite ride was in Hollywood Studios, The Tower of Terror. I absolutely loved it. It was so fun. Went on it twice. Erasmith was really good too. You didn't go on Erasmith. What was Tower of Terror? Well, I was, so you know, we did the the Avatar 3D ride in the morning, almost immediately. And now I know that I don't like 3D rides because they really like do something to my eyes and brain. I had a headache. It didn't feel great. And then they're like, let's go on Tower of Terror. Let's go on. No, I was later the day. I was like, I'm going to hold your bucket hats. I'll be here waiting for you. Can I get you a pretzel or a churro? I became like the third tour guide. You were great at it. I would tour with you again. But yeah, so after we did Disney, most of the cast departed to Hollywood Studios. What have we done with the Disney talk already? I mean, we got a lot of ground to cover. So, okay, what was your favorite ride at Disney? Space Mountain. Obviously, yeah. Space Mountain was really, I was feeling better by that point. So it was ready to jump on the rides again. But it was, for me, what was the most fun was seeing a couple of our friends who had never been before. Like, well, it was Nathan's first time in Disney World. Vincent, Alyssa. Alyssa Lou. It was so fun. It was just really. Yeah. I don't know. It was magical. Honestly, it was magical. The only bummer I'd say was in the evening, there was like a torrential downpour, terrible Florida thunderstorm, and the fireworks were cancelled. Yeah. But it was still pretty fun. I would say there was one massive firework that we did see, which was lightning striking, very, very close to where we were. It was incredibly loud. So I would count that as one firework. And then, you know, trying to leave, like that was also a whole debacle. It took forever to leave, because everyone, all of the sudden, was trying to leave at once because of the storm. Ubers were backed up. It took us like almost two hours to leave, right? The monorail was super crowded. Yeah. It was. That was the hardest part. So we got to the park at 730 in the morning, and I think we left at like 9 p.m. That sounds correct. Yeah. So it was a big day. It was a really big day. An exhausting. No, we left at 10 p.m. Because we tried to leave it in 9. That's when the park was closing, then we ended up not being able to leave the park till 10. So you can imagine we were like extremely wiped out. Most of the cast left the next day, but we stayed because we had dinner plans at Palma Breeze. And we also powered through and decided to go to Harry Potter World in the morning. And that was also very fun, but then we had to wait in the lines. We didn't have the special tour. So we had to just wait for it. What was your favorite part of Harry Potter? My favorite part was going on the new Hagrid ride. In the motor cars, I can't remember what it's called, but it was. Hagrid's motorbike, something or other? Yes, that exact something or other. It was incredible. I highly recommend it. It was smooth, it was fast, it was unexpected. You go forward, you go backward, you go, you drop down. It was it was incredible. It was. It was worth the wait, I'd say, but we're kind of jaded like after having skipped all the lines in Disney to have to wait. It was difficult. But it was fun. I mean, we love Harry Potter. Obviously, we bought some souvenirs. We went and tried on our wizard robes. We had Butterbeer. Butterbeer ice cream. We had some more junk food. You name it, we ate it. And then in the evening, we went to Palma Breeze where they invited us to come recreate our first date, which was 13 years ago at the So Sweet of Them. Palma Breeze, they heard us telling our story during the Olympics and they reached out and invited us back. It was incredibly nostalgic to be there. All our memories came flooding back and that was my favorite restaurant when we were living in Michigan and we had the coconut shrimp. This time we had some yummy drinks and it was just a really fun night. It was. It really was. We didn't wear our wizard robes though. We went in normal muggle clothes. Yeah, muggle clothes only. But yeah, and then after that, we headed to Greensboro the next morning and we joined our cast. Yep, there was yesterday. We rejoined our cast for an incredible evening, probably one of the most epic nights of my life. We went to go see Elton John perform live with all our friends from Stars on Ice and I'm still singing Elton John. I think I will be forever singing Elton John because of this night. It wasn't incredible. What was your favorite part? Well, my favorite part of Elton John was just. It was a simple concert in a way because, you know, here's this guy. He just comes out and sits at the piano. But he played for like an hour and 45 minutes. Yeah, I would say, like. He played pretty much straight. He played a lot. He had two costume changes and they weren't very long at all. I was incredibly impressed by just. He's such a professional and his singing was just fantastic. Yeah, he sounded great. There were. In the drum sound, it's like everything sounded so good. The piano sounded so good. There were four drum kits on stage. It was a guitarist, a bassist, and like three percussion players in Elton. And then this massive screen with cool, like, video and like display. And then, you know, we were lucky we got to sit back a little bit in this box, which was great. We had a good view and then we were able to kind of keep to ourselves, which was good. And it was totally sold out. It was totally sold out. Yeah, completely sold out. I mean, it was completely sold out. And it was in the venue where we'll be skating tonight. So like, sharing the stadium 24 hours after Elton, you know, and we're wearing a lot of his, you know, costumes that are inspired by him and skating to his music in our finale. But also, that's the same stadium where we won two national titles. Yeah, we did, didn't we? We did. Amazing memories. Yeah. So just creating more memories. Greensboro is a really special place. It is. Yeah. And just the last like week or so, reflecting back on all the fun stuff we've gotten to do. I'm just so thankful and happy. We have an amazing tour manager, Dave, who's just been hooking us up with all sorts of fun activities on our days off. Thank you, Dave. He's a veteran of the touring industry and he is just taking great care of us. And so all we have to do is skate on the show days and then on the days off, we have some fun activity that we can go to. When our next day off will be in Newark and we're going to go to a hockey game and, you know, he messaged the group and asked who wants to go to a hockey game and the group is great because everybody is sort of like, why not? Like let's just do it for the experience. Everyone wants to have fun together and hang out together. We're just like bonding as friends and sharing all of these wonderful experiences that are just, we're just never going to forget and I'm so grateful for all of these new core memories. Also, just Elton John was like about to play Rocket Man and he was like, he just gave Nathan a shout out like from the stage. We were not expecting it at all. He was like, I'm so honored that Nathan chose my music. And I was like, oh my god, he said Dave and Dave. We were all losing it. This song took on a new meaning when I watched the Winter Olympics this year and we were like, ah, yeah. It was so cool. And we're all singing and dancing and it was great. Bought some merch. Oh, yeah. We're wearing my Elton shirt as we speak right now and I probably won't take it off for a very long time. He's just such a legend. I mean, even still, he sounded so good. The show was amazing. It was sold out. All the people. It's out. It's incredible. Yeah. So many of his fans were dressed up. It was a fun crowd. But we should have worn our Elton costumes. Why weren't those unpacked from the bus? We all should have been in full Elton costume. I don't think that would have been good for the costumes. I mean, I'm sure we would have taken care of them. But yeah, probably for the best we saved those for the show. Yes. I really wanted to put mine on at least the glasses. At least, yeah, that's right. At least the glasses. It was so fun. We've had Dave bought some light-up glasses. Oh, I looked over at Dave, partway through the concert, and he was just having the time of his life. Vibing with his star glasses on. It was adorable. I was like, oh, Dave, have you seen Elton John before? He's like 25 times. Lucky, lucky, lucky man. This guy's like been touring for his whole life. I'm an Elton groupie now. I just want to follow him on. If I weren't on Stars and On Ice Tour right now, I would be following Elton on tour. That's how much I enjoyed the show. I would watch it over and over and over. I wonder what his groupies are called? EJs. Johnny's. Elton John. Also, I learned last night. Rocket people. The Rocket people. The Rocket people. I learned last night that his middle name, his name is Elton Hercules John. What an epic name. Good job. Elton Hercules John Bates. We'll name our firstborn. It's cool, just a cool guy. It was really fun to see. Today is our show day in Greensboro. Tonight will be show time. Then we jump on a bus and do. Elton warmed up the arena for us. That's right. There's going to be some magic in the air. People of Greensboro get ready. After our show, we have a 530 mile bus ride, which will take us about 10 hours. It's really that long. Oh my goodness. Wow. 10 hours, Dave writes it all in the emails. All we have to do is just check the info if you really want to know. But anyways, so that'll be about a 10 hour bus ride. We're sleeping on the buses, which is by design, because they're sleeper buses. Love that. I've never been on a sleeper bus before. And it's so fun. It's pretty fun. Yeah. I love the bunks. I've never had a bunk bed, so it's something I've always dreamed of, but I didn't have sibling, so you don't really need bunk beds when it's just one person. But now, get to live this bunk bed dream that I've had since childhood. Really loving that. Spending time with friends. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of time on the bus, because we're busing pretty much throughout the entire tour. I think maybe just one flight out of the whole 24-starts. I love it. I'm here for it. It is tour life. Hopefully, we'll play some fun games or something on the bus to pass the time. Watch movies. And if you're on the East Coast, we are headed your way. So starting this weekend, we have three shows. One in Newark, then Saturday in Hartford, Connecticut, Sunday Providence, Rhode Island. So if you live anywhere near those three areas, come check it out. We will be there, and the show is great. Yeah, we have a lot of stops on the East Coast. I mean, this weekend, we kind of start the East Coast leg, and then we have a few days off. Monday will be in Newark City to attend the Figure Skating in Harlem Gala, which will be our first year, even though we've wanted to go in the past. We've always just had conflicts, but this year we're going to be there with a lot of the U.S. Olympic team. We're extremely excited and honored to be attending. We have been to Figure Skating in Detroit, which was affiliated with Figure Skating in Harlem, led by Merle Davis, but never in Harlem. So very excited for this experience. The organization started about 25 years ago, and it's really beautiful. They bring skating to new parts of the states that don't normally get to experience Figure Skating, and it's just about developing the sport from a young age and making it accessible to everyone. It's a great initiative. It helps girls, young women ages six to 18 just grow and transform their lives, grow into leadership, confidence, and academic achievements by teaching many great life skills through Figure Skating. And it's truly incredible what they've done for the Figure Skating community. Yeah, I can't wait. And we get to dress up, and there's a red carpet where some fancy clothes, and then we'll be back on tour after look where the next couple of stops are, but they're still on the East Coast. So if you are on the East Coast, check out Stars on Nice. We hope to see you there, and thank you for listening to another episode of Unlaced with Chalk & Bates, presented by Bet Online. Make sure you subscribe for future episodes. You can follow us on social media at Chalk Bates. We'll talk to you later. Bye. [MUSIC]