September 15, 2025 • 54 mins
In this Junior Edition of The Great British Mickey Waffle, we’re swapping pixie dust for pancakes as we head to Waffle House for the very first time – and we’ve got company! We had the pleasure of being joined by Nice Guy Zac Brown, who shares in the laughs, the food, and the Florida fun. 🇬🇧🍳
From golden waffles and crispy bacon to a few surprises we didn’t see coming, we give our honest reactions to one of America’s most iconic diners. We’ll chat about the atmosphere, the food, and how it compares to our usual UK breakfasts.
It’s not just about the food though – together with Zac, we dive into what life’s really like as UK Cast Members on the Disney College Program. From exploring Orlando on our days off to the cultural differences that have kept us smiling, it’s a peek behind the scenes at our Florida adventure.
Grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s talk Disney, diner breakfasts, and living the dream across the pond.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are back with episode 3 of
our Great British Mickey Waffle Takeover.
Once more we'll be diving into the adventures and tribulations
of our DCP summer in 2024. I'm Josh and in this episode we
are set for our first guest of the series to help myself and
Mug relive the cultural experiences of last summer with
(00:20):
trips to the Waffle House, Bass Pro Baseball, Portillo's City
Walk, Winter Garden. That we certainly have a lot to
discuss. So without further ado, hold on
to those hats and glasses. This will be one mile drive now,
my wheels in motion, my windows open.
The wind blowing in my. Head I'm driving down the.
(00:45):
Highway gonna do this my way. I can.
Feel it in the air. Here I go.
So as always, to do this I need my right hand man to help me get
through and remember just exactly what we did last summer.
(01:07):
Anyway, enough of that banter. Good evening Morgan.
Good evening. Good evening.
Our listeners will have picked up on the intro that we do have
a special guest with us tonight.This person for long time
listeners to the Waffle would need no introduction.
He became a brother to myself and morgue last summer and took
great pleasure in introducing usBrits to a little bit of
Floridian culture with which otherwise we would never have
(01:29):
experienced. He also embraced learning about
our British culture as through the more time we spent together
and uncovered many quirks and differences between our lives.
Across the pond and through though the contents of a
Yorkshire pudding may still be up for debate, He has a very
good Flamingo Crossings taxi service, also known as a Zuba.
It's with great delight to welcome our great friend, an all
(01:51):
all round nice guy, SAT Brown. Thank you.
Thank you guys. This is it's just an honor and a
privilege to be here with you both.
It's nice to be reunited finally, isn't it?
Definitely. It's a have a little hangout.
Yeah. But we get the pleasure tonight
of reliving some of those brilliant memories that we have
(02:13):
from our summer. And I think we will certainly
fill out our our episode with quite a few of them, if not
maybe not quite all of them. So we'll start off with our
first week of our experience andmy first ever time of meeting
Zach, actually. And I'd heard everything about
(02:34):
Zach and how amazing he was, andI'd not.
I'd just forget that he'd never met Zach before.
I'd never met Zach. Oh no.
I always forget that. Yeah, and Morgan, obviously.
You'd met him before. Was it the previous summer?
I have had the privilege of meeting Zach before last summer,
absolutely. Yeah.
I'm so grateful you said the privilege of meeting him on the
(02:56):
catastrophic trauma inducing experience.
That's we'll be nice to each other just for the next hour or
so. So our first experience of the
summer was Zach taking us to theWaffle House.
(03:17):
It's. Got to be done, but I will
leave. And we must ask the question,
Susan Zach, why the Waffle Houseis our first cultural
experience. Well, it's funny you said that.
I had to think. I was like, what was the first
thing that we did? And I love that as we just
refresh my memory of what. Oh, yes, I would repeat that.
That is, that is the first stop on American tour.
(03:38):
If you're bringing internationals and you want them
to very quickly get a feel for the country.
And you know, there's no better way to connect with someone than
than sharing a meal with them and finding out what some of
their, you know, their, their country's foods are.
So you have to go to a Waffle House.
And in my opinion, the dingier the better the place where you
(04:00):
go. And it's you know, it's going to
be cheap. You know, the food is going to
be exceedingly average. And if a fight breaks out, you
know, that's just the status quo.
Not with you, obviously, with people who are at the counter.
But it's it was one of those things I just knew that I had to
take my friends from across the pond to the quintessential
(04:22):
Americana experience. I think we we learned that very
quickly, didn't we? It was, yeah.
I mean, you said the food was average.
I, I debate the other way around, to be honest.
I thought it was really, we were, we were really quite good.
That's what I'd place it above. Like Denny's, probably.
Oh, easily above Denny's. Easily I.
Think it depends on what you're going for.
But I think if you can, if you can get past the grease and the
(04:44):
grime on the table and you sit down, I think brilliant, yeah.
Exactly. That's the charm.
That's the. Same with the UK Wetherspoons
Josh, if I get past the squeaking on the floor as as
your shoes stick to the you're. Probably not far off.
It's the it's the chain pancake version of a waffle version of
Wetherspoons, isn't it really? So, yeah, looking back, you
(05:08):
know, you would you go back to Waffle House, like, if you had
the opportunity? Oh.
Absolutely, 100%. Fantastic.
Yeah, I've heard, I've heard stories that Waffle House needs
to be attacked at like 3:00 AM. Oh.
Yeah, for the for the ultimate experience, which I feel like
might be the next step. I had I have a buddy of mine
that there for for I want to think it was about a year.
(05:31):
He had a running note in his phone that him and like two
other buddies shared. And their goal was to eat at
Waffle House for all 24 hours onon the on the clock.
Like, so, you know, say, like ona random Tuesday, they'd be
like, what have we done? They'd be like, oh, we haven't
done at 2:00 PM OK, cool. It's we got to go at 2:00 PM.
And then maybe like a month later, they'll be like, you
(05:52):
know, we haven't done the 4:00 AM.
And they were trying to cross off.
It was the most ridiculous thing.
But I was like, this is, you know, to quote Lizzie McGuire,
this is what dreams are made of.Live in the dream, that is.
Yeah, calorific hard filled dreams.
I think it is actually one of them.
(06:13):
It's probably one of them rare places that actually at
different points of the day you'll get a very different
experience. Oh yeah.
Each other. I think when we we got quite a
tame introduction in comparison to what these places can turn
out to be. I mean, you almost kind of want
to go when they're packed out, like just to get that full
experience. It's like being in like a, you
(06:34):
know, a, a really busy pub whereit's like there's the energy of
all the people, like the sounds of the clinking coffee mugs and
spoons and, and all the things. It really kind of adds to that
experience. This is the most wax poetic that
I've ever gone on about Waffle House, but it really is that
that experience that you're looking for.
If you're there like noon on a Tuesday and there's like three
(06:56):
other people in there, it just feels wrong.
It's really weird. It's like seeing your teacher
outside of school and you're like, you don't belong here.
That's not how this works. And so it's it's very much like
that you want to go late at night with a whole bunch of
people like it's just so much fun.
So. It's probably one of those if
you took a microphone along at different times of the day and
you sort of recorded like a likean atmosphere, soundscape or.
(07:17):
Something. You'd get totally different ones
for for each hour. Isn't it?
It's, it sounds mental, but I, I, I have to say from before we
went, I was told by the cast members at creations because I
mentioned to them, oh, me and meand my British mate are being
taken out by our American friendwho he, he said for, for our
(07:42):
program we had to do, we had to do a cultural experience every
month and write a small couple sentences on it and then submit
it to the US government to show that we're actually there for
our people, like doing part whatour visa says.
And when I said to them, oh, ourcultural experience this month
is going to be going to Waffle House, they all looked at me and
went, Oh, you're not going to like it.
(08:04):
So they were like, Oh, you poor soul.
And actually, I beg to differ. I I'm so proud that someone,
another human being reported to my government that I took them
to waffle. I've never thought of it that
way. That the lights me great.
That is on some file somewhere in our country's capital that
(08:27):
this guy took these guys to waffle.
Brilliant. This bang on, though, it was
totally adaptive, wasn't it? We had to adapt to the culture,
yeah. And we had to swear to say what
we'd learned, we'd had to talk about.
We learned about the food and learn about the atmosphere in a,
in a diner in our house. Important federal information.
(08:51):
This. That's right.
OK, so we'll we'll just move on slightly through the tour of Zac
Brown's Floridian cultural enhancing experience.
I want to meet bass pro That's the next stop on my list.
I had never been to a bass pro Yes.
(09:24):
That's. Great.
And you know what, Zach, I very nearly messaged you a few
months. I meant to message you a few
months ago actually, because I was, we were out at like an
outdoor pub in the student area of Liverpool and there was this
guy sitting across the way from me with his Bass Pro Hat on.
And it was one of their moments where I wanted to have my Bass
Pro Hat on. Because one time when I have had
(09:46):
it on and someone's from the opposite direction with theirs
on, it's a very mutual respect that you both have with each
other. Literally a little nod that
actually you share the experience, you've been to the
experience of it and former BassPro Shops or not as traumatic.
As. I was going to say the the
trauma of Bass Pro was the pork rinds.
They're the the trauma that willremain with me forever.
(10:08):
They will. I didn't try those.
I don't think I've had pork rinds since where I've not
thought about sharing them with you.
And it just, again, just delights me because it was the
complete opposite experience from you guys at Waffle House
where you're like, this is revolting, I can't do this.
Why are you eating these things?Yeah, I just Bass Pro is one of
the things that again, it's quintessential America.
(10:30):
They're all over the country andthey vary in size and the and
the deck, the decor, you know, some of them, like the one that
we have here has, you know, a laser shooting arcade, which is
really cool. And you know, it's just, it's.
Scary, to be honest. However big the like the fish
tanks of the aquariums and it's just so cool that you you could.
(10:51):
That's why it's like so like thethe the whole I wasn't really.
So I didn't go with you guys. I went with my friend Chris a
bit later on down the line. I was, I think it was some shift
when you guys went, but we went to the same one and the gun bit
the shooting gallery who didn't do it.
I sort of looked at it and went,no, thank you, Not for me.
(11:15):
But I was one of those moments like cultural where I went, oh
God, that's a lot of guns. But you can get past the aisle
in a Walmart and it'd be like, OK, you expect to see it, but
like actually seeing them on display in a bass pro shops, it
was something completely different.
But the scene, the aquarium was,was awesome like that.
And it's now my goal. And I'm going to extend the
challenge to you 2 as well. At some point we've got to get
(11:38):
my mum to come into one of thoseshops.
Has she still not been? She's not been and I'm telling
her that she's got to go. I need, I need evidence that mum
has been into a Bass Pro Shops. Well, has she been to a Waffle
House? No, I've been trying to get into
one of those as well. Here's your challenge for the
song. You've got to get all of the
(12:00):
wafflers, wafflers senior into into a Waffle House.
It's got to be done. Get a bigger soup.
On the way home you need to makeit a super stretch.
Yeah. No, I think that was, I think
that was the biggest thing for us was that the, the things that
(12:24):
are obviously available in just an outdoor like shop in this
country, anything in an outdoor shop is, I mean, they're pretty
small shops to begin with and you can buy tents, you know,
like your outdoor camping. Yeah.
Whereas anything you could ever think of that it's an outdoor
form of sport activity, you nameit, it was in there.
(12:49):
It makes you want to go camping because it's all the cool stuff
where you're like, oh, this is awesome.
Like I want to I want to use this.
But it's all set up for you. So they all put out like the
tents and show you how you coulduse a tent in a certain
environment. And you're like, oh, I could
imagine myself in that. And.
So they, they offer you trips aswell.
They, they offer you trips usingtheir equipment.
Like when I was there with Chris, someone came up to come
(13:10):
up to us and tried to sell us a trip to, to some desert
somewhere for, it was for his birthday.
And they were like, Oh, well, wecan, we could give you this trip
for this price and it'd be the two of you out in the desert.
I had a camping gear on a hunting trip.
And maybe just they're like, no thank you though.
This is our our pass. No, I'm OK, save it to the
(13:35):
aquarium. Being trying.
To the basketball is enough roughing.
In for Morgan. So we'll then move on to a It
was less of a cultural experience.
It was something that we did altogether.
I think maybe we'll touch on whywe went there first.
So we attempted to go and see a baseball game twice.
(13:55):
Twice. Twice.
Twice. Attempted.
It's the goody word here. First time around didn't go so
well. We, well, we, me and myself and
Zach, we attempted to go, didn'twe?
And I think. The first one was all three of
us, and that was when. It was the first three of us,
yeah, And it got Thunder and lightning off.
(14:16):
So to try and make the most of that evening, we went down to
Citywalk to go and see the at the epic universe like mini
model scale thing in the shop. I mean, I don't know if you both
remember about how wet we got from walking from.
Oh yeah, that was, yeah, quite the torrential range, which
probably proved that actually the baseball game being called
(14:38):
off was for the correct reasons,really.
We couldn't have been any more wet had we had jumped into the
fountain in front of the Universal Park like it was we
were just soaked. It's one of those Chandler Bing
moments. It's like, could you be any more
wet? Yeah, I think, I think there's
other thing that makes me laugh was how we tried to like dodge
(14:58):
all the puddles to begin with, and then it just got to a point
where the water was like ankle deep anyway.
So like, what's the point? Yeah.
It just didn't matter. Yeah, it was.
But anyway, you wanted to touch on this Epic Universe model
because actually that was mine and Morgue's first reel of
experience of anything, you know, completely away from our
(15:20):
Disney bubble that we were in atthe time.
To actually go and see how the other half live, so to speak,
was very interesting, I would say.
And we we certainly were being fed information through our
work. And I had had chats with, you
know, senior people up in the Disney company about their
feelings towards Epic Universe. And we were obviously being
(15:43):
given a narrative. And then we went down to go and
visit this model and actually just from the scale of that was
just literally breathtaking. And I think at that point we
both realized though, they're onto something quite special here,
and this is something they couldbe taking quite seriously.
I mean, seeing how it's gone, I mean, I've not seen any of the
(16:04):
like the actual park itself. I'm still keeping that, like
keeping away from all that. But seeing the reception to the
character performers online and the park itself universe of sort
of cracks what Disney have, whatDisney had cracked a couple of
years ago in terms of interactions, in terms of
theming, in terms of the rides, It seems that Universal have
(16:25):
sort of hit it on the head in a way that Disney hadn't done
before. And that was really interesting
to see, especially working like as cast members.
It was one of those where we went, oh, wow.
OK, Yeah, that's that's something to really think about
and look at and look forward to.It's wild to think like we were
standing there looking at this, you know, scale model in the
(16:47):
middle of the store, you know, their little preview center or
whatever and how long ago that feels like you're saying, you
know, to see the reception and the people, you know, enjoying
this. And, and I I have yet to go.
It's just been so flippin hot. I'm planning on going on
November when I have some familydown, but seeing the impact
while in the Disney parks since the opening, I mean, the waits
(17:09):
for attractions, even in the summertime, there's sometimes
that I've gone that I'm like, wow, this is nice.
Like I just feel like we, we wineither way, you know, so it's,
it's either going to it's going to force Disney to be better.
It's it's divvying up some of the crowd share.
You know, I'm like, OK, cool, like less lines and they're this
is hilarious. As we're sitting here talking,
this photo pops up on my Alexa device over here and it's a
(17:33):
picture of the three of us sitting at Waffle House.
That's funny, but so? Listening to us.
Yes. And now she's going, I'm not
sure what you're talking about talk, but how it's really cool
to see the the the progress fromthis little interactive model to
the reality and what actually showed up.
And it was like, OK, cool. I think, I think what's from I
(17:57):
because I have, I haven't watched like people walking
through the park. So I've seen lots of pictures
and when I look back at what we saw in person on the smaller
scale, you know, you think some of the Disney concept art and
things like that that come out and you're looking at the real
thing. Like Tiana's strikes to me more
than anything. You look at Tiana's in person
versus the concept art and you're like, what?
(18:18):
Where's that kind of gone wrong?Whereas the Universal 1,
whatever we saw on that mini scale model from what I can see
is exactly what you've got now in person, which I thought is
why that was so breathtaking because actually the the detail.
Has been made for lumpy care. Well, the details that were put
into that though were just incredible.
And to be able to like scan AQR code on where a certain ride was
(18:42):
going to be and for then you getto watch a like a virtual ride
along of that ride. Yeah, yeah.
Stuff that was never seen before.
And actually, as you are right, Zach, it can only up the game
of, you know, Disney and surrounding, you know, theme
parks because I think they they really did blow the competition
(19:02):
out the water in this in this case.
Yeah, I'm really excited to see it for myself.
Like, like, like you're saying, Morgan, I'm trying to avoid as
many spoilers as possible. I mean, you know, Instagram is
inundated with it right now. Everybody's posting pictures of
the, of the big tower, the, the portals themselves, you know,
little things that I'm like, it's almost like I see it pop up
and I, I, I click away as quickly as I can or just scroll.
(19:24):
I just want. To.
Especially Dark Dark Universe isthe the thing I'm looking
forward to the most. So because a friend of mine
worked on the main attraction there.
And so I'm like really proud to like go and see that.
And I'm like, I don't, I don't experience it.
I don't want to see anything else.
I think, yeah. I mean, I'm, I was going to say
I'm in the same boat with Nintendo and stuff that's and
(19:46):
the house between your dragon, Isle of Burke.
But those two big franchises that I I love and I'm source.
I I just want to keep away from it all because in the day going
back to me amazing as well. When I went back, when I went
back to Disney after COVID. We had Galaxy's Edge open.
We had like so much stuff was open that wasn't there before,
(20:08):
and that's a huge thing. Before I forget, I'm just going
to jump back about it. We talked about baseball and
thunderstorms. I think I wrote about that for
my cultural experience as well, talking about how we tried to go
to a baseball baseball game. I've got a Thunder document that
you'd have went to the universe preview instead.
That's my cultural experience. That's like I was blooded the
(20:31):
government with useless information.
Well, for the next transition onfrom this, I think we turned a
negative into a massive positivethat night because out of a
baseball game being cancelled, we went to go down to City Walk.
And on our way back from City Walk became probably the
greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
And I literally sit around here on a daily basis and wish that I
(20:54):
could just go into town and haveone of these portillos.
That place I was like. Well, we do.
Very, very, very special place in my heart.
I could see the confusion on your face.
And I had that. Yeah, yeah.
I was like, where did we go? I'm trying to remember that, you
know? This is one of the places that
needs it needs a feature of its own because actually Portillo's.
(21:14):
Oh, just. Yeah, it's just, it was.
Great. How many times did you have
Portillo's while you're here after I took you?
I mean, you took us probably, I'd say a month into our
program. So we only had like a month and
a half left. I think I must have gone.
Four of five times at least. But we got it.
We got it ubered over to us as well.
We did, yeah. That's not even ubered over.
(21:35):
That was ubered over. Yeah, that's why I'm like food
for that one sweet. Just for the chocolate cake
really, isn't it? I mean.
I think I was going to say between us, I think we had
Portillo's probably around 10 times or something like that.
Yeah, just for the hot dog and Ieven just a cake shake.
I mean that yourself is a is a cultural experience.
(21:56):
Collectively your your room probably ate 2 cakes worth of.
Of yeah, easily. Probably.
Yeah, and it's a long time to buy a the giant cake instead of
just a little cake slice was, yeah, very strong.
I, I, I think it would have beengone, that'd say the evening
though and we wouldn't be on work for next.
Very, very easily, Very easily they were there's.
(22:18):
Nothing like Portillo's like on a wet summer night when you've
been rained out, you're tired, you're just like, you need some
food. But going in and just having,
you know, a Chicago dog or chilicheese Coney, whatever.
I've never had a bad meal there,you know, and it's, it's nothing
special. But again, it's just kind of
(22:39):
classic American fare and it hasto be done.
I mean that that time you took us that first night, I, that was
my first time out of Portillo's.That was my first time really
having a proper American like hot dog that wasn't theme of
food like, and that it was, it was actually like, I don't know
(23:00):
what I expected going into. I was sort of asking me like
fast food sort of McDonald's style or it's going to be it's
like Chick-fil-A or something like that.
And I was really no, no, no, no.But like Chick-fil-A, don't get
me wrong, Chick-fil-A is good. Oh no, but Portillo's is on a
different level, 100%. But Portillo Portillo's almost
(23:21):
reminded me of Five Guys in a way.
The way Five Guys is here in it's fresh.
It feel, it doesn't feel like it's been taken out of a
freezer. It feels like this will be made
fresh. And then even just like having a
hot dog like that in the UK, you'd get maybe you'd get it
with like chili on top or you, you'd get like, onions on it,
(23:41):
but nothing like an American hotdog.
And that it, it was it just it. Yeah, made me speechless.
Honestly I miss it. Weird to say about a hot dog,
but. Well, it's got enough sodium to
kill a baby horse. I mean, so you, you have to make
sure that you're, you're stayinghydrated after you leave these
places. Just means I'm stronger than a
(24:02):
baby horse. That's right.
That's good. It's a good positive spin.
That's the proper way of lookingat it.
But then they also do a cake shake, which was.
Which has enough sugar to kill asmoking.
Which, well, in effect, it was aslap of cake inside of a
milkshake. And so it was.
It was. About yeah, it was probably like
(24:23):
a sort of a normal sized chocolate cake cut into tenths
and then 110th of that cake is put inside the milkshake for you
to consume as you're as you're. Drinking.
And it's honestly, I don't even know where to start with that
It's. I think, I think it was round
this table that we had at Portilla's as Zach used the
(24:46):
terminology, and it's always stuck with me that when America
was formed, they had to do that panicking America.
Whatever America had to come up with had to just be bigger.
It had to have more sugar in it and it had to be better.
And by making it bigger and moresugary, it became better.
I don't remember saying it, but I stand by it.
(25:10):
Well, they were very wise words that kind of said.
Yeah, it's Portillo's is just, it's good.
It's just really good. And again, sort of like Waffle
House, I feel like it's it's better the later you go and it's
going to set an heavier for whatever reef.
But there's two times I want Portillo's late at night when
you're just kind of thinking of like what, what do we want to
(25:31):
get? Or like, you know, Sunday
afternoon after coming from the lake, you've been swimming and
playing and, you know, you're just tired and sunburned
slightly and you're like, what do we need?
You're like, just get a couple dogs from Portillo's and a cake
shake for later. That's a good time.
Perfection. I mean, the other thing with
Portillo's is that we at the very end of the summer, so that
(25:56):
I think it was it, was it a night with night before we left
or was it, I can't remember whenit was, but it was, it was
before we went to night before, before you went.
Home. Yeah, we went to, we went to
Miller's Ale House, didn't we, for dinner.
And then one of us spotted therewas a portillos about 2-2
(26:18):
storefronts down and we ended uphiking US 3 and Joe ended up
hiking down. And and John, I think John.
Was John with us as well? Yeah.
We ended up hiking through bushes.
I think that was the main Rd. toget to the pawn tillers just for
a cake shake and it was worth it.
(26:39):
I would do it again. After having a massive meal.
Yeah, it wasn't like we were hungry either, but it was just
the fact that it was there. You're like, I cannot get it.
It's not like Millers don't do nice desserts themselves.
We just had it in our headset. We just wanted the pawn tillers
cake. Yeah, we had, we had to show Joe
the way and I think Joe would agree that it it's 10 out of 10.
(27:00):
Very much so. Yeah.
Very much so. So I think we'll move on from
Portillo's and we'll get to a night now where I think Morg
will agree this is probably our favorite night of the whole
experience. And it was spent off property
and it was spent beyond and behind Big Thunder Mountain.
And Zach had picked us up and wewent for a tour around downtown
(27:23):
Winter Garden, and then we went back to the Browns household for
a roast dinner. So I think it's very much worth
discussing downtown Winter Garden and we'll get to our
roast dinner experience beyond that.
But that was very much a highlight of my summer because I
mean, downtown Winter Garden is never a place that is out of
reach for, you know, any tourists visiting, you know,
(27:46):
Disney and Florida and but actually somewhere that you
probably don't think of going to.
And just, I mean, it's definitely going to be the first
place I want to go back to when we go next time because it's
exactly, it's like it is a quintessential American, you
know, feeling that you get from a place that's so very, it's
(28:07):
really difficult to describe like an old fashioned American.
Classic small town. Yeah, beautiful place, but it
felt, but it felt so much like we were from my experiences up
in like Saint Augustine and things like that, which like a
few hours away from Orlando to have this 20 minutes away from
basically the gates of Magic Kingdom, It just, it just didn't
(28:30):
feel like you're in Orlando. And actually you were in a very
central part of it. And yeah, it was a very
beautiful place. Well, it's interesting that you
say that, you know, it's what what we or most people who are
not from Orlando, I think have come to think is what what is
Orlando is I drive. You know, it is by universal.
(28:50):
It is all these places. But the longer that I've lived
here and interacted with people that have been here since before
Disney landed and it grew up here, you know, Winter Garden is
what what Orlando feels like. You know, it is these are these
little small, originally rural areas.
(29:11):
They were farmland. They were citrus Groves.
They were cow pastures and horsepastures.
And you know, where I'm sitting now, it used to be all orange
Groves. And it's the reason that it's
called Winter Garden was, it wasa place where during the winter
months they could grow healthy crops and people would be able
to get fresh citrus, whether that be oranges or grapefruits,
(29:32):
things like that. And there's a railroad right
through downtown 'cause it was away of getting it in and out of
here to the other places. And so it is, it's kind of
quintessential Florida where, you know, there's cobblestone
streets and there's, you know, Spanish Moss hanging in the
trees and, you know, little jazzbands playing in the, you know,
(29:53):
little middle of the, of the Main Street.
There's Plant St. There's a little gazebo and
they'll set up and just play music and a little movie
theater, which is really is it? It takes you to a much simpler
and safer and joyous time. Absolutely.
And I think especially for Josh and I, I think been so immersed
in the Disney bubble UPS that point and and sort of we lived
(30:16):
and breathed Disney, which was totally unrealistic.
But because we lived a Flamingo,that's what happened.
It was really such a nice changeto leave that bubble, to leave
that area. And even earlier on as well,
driving through downtown, I think it's downtown Orlando.
We went. We went to see the baseball.
(30:37):
Yeah, it's. Taking you through a lot of like
back neighborhoods just to give you this is where, this is where
the people live. And it was.
It was so nice just to see like actual places where people live,
not not just the tourist stuff. I mean, you did the food trucks
as well, which were amazing. Well, I've.
Forgotten about that? Yeah.
I just literally it just sparkedin my head now as you were
(31:00):
talking about down. I was like food trucks.
I mean all of this. It was so, as you say, as you
say that it's so quintessentially American and
sort of just so untouched reallyby the tourist curse, I suppose
(31:20):
in that actually it's so nice togo there and just disconnect.
You'll feel like you actually somewhere where people live.
It's not this pristine, perfect place.
Like, don't get me wrong, celebration is lovely, but it's
it's very much everything has got to be perfect.
It feels a little bit like one division when you step in and it
and it's all very pristine. And yeah, TV set, whereas
(31:46):
actually this wasn't this would you could see where things had
changed over time. You could see where people had
lived and, and the effects that change in, in infrastructure
around Orlando and Winter Gardenhas affected it.
And I think that was really niceto it was, it was so culturally
different to anything I'd ever done in America.
But actually it was really nice to, to do.
(32:06):
Well, I've been up there a few times to, to Orlando and it was
it was something completely different.
And I'd do it, absolutely. I'd say this is a.
Oh, sorry, that. Hi, Josh.
I think this is the thing for all our get like guests
listening today is that actuallythis is something that anybody
with a hire car or anything can go and do.
And I don't want to send the masses of tourists upon downtown
(32:28):
winter Garden. However, I think actually the
place is just such, so worth a visit because actually just at
the back of it's basically just at the back of Big Thunder
Mountain in reality to where it is on a map.
And actually, yeah, it it's so within touch of Disney World and
yet you couldn't be further awayfrom Disney World once you.
(32:49):
It's a different type of immersion, isn't it, that you
get within that it. Yeah, absolutely.
Years. And actually it just, it feels
like a very self-sustaining little town that, you know, the
people rely on each other to getthrough life.
And yeah, there was something quite beautiful about that.
And if you think because, like you said, it is so close that,
you know, if I leave, you know, like a a friend's gathering in
(33:13):
downtown winter garden around 9 O clock and I turn S to head
home, I can clearly see the fireworks over the treetop.
And it's it's the coolest thing just driving, you know, down 535
and looking down. There's like and there's, you
know, there's just fireworks. It's like this beacon drawing
you to to the bubble. It's wild if.
(33:36):
You are a current cause from an hour listening to this either on
your CEP or you're doing the cultural representative program
year long or even in the future.If you're listening to this in
preparation for your program, Ifyou're looking for a plate like
a place to go outside of the Disney bubble, that's not far
away, just to have some sense ofnormality, really sense of non
(33:59):
Disney horse, Disney's lovely. But if you're looking for
somewhere that's just where people live, and people have a
lot like daily life, that isn't to do with Epcot or the OR
Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios.
It's somewhere so lovely and so enchanted by, in a way,
enchanting because it's not Disney and because it's
(34:22):
somewhere that people just live.Yeah, highly recommend it.
And I will say on our next visitthat the first paint is on me in
the bar in downtown Winter Garden because I was obviously a
month before turning 21 and so Iwas the one that stopped U.S.
Open being able to have a paint there and.
Yeah. Anyone can for sure.
Anyone listening to this is currently out there who's not
(34:45):
quite turned 21, but they're like a bear.
Don't enter this pub because actually the smell that you get
from the bears, incredible. And if you haven't had a beer
for so long, yeah, it's. But yeah, that's definitely on
the hit list to do next time. But anyway.
So from downtown Winter Garden we headed around to the Zac
(35:06):
Brown household and had the pleasure of meeting your mum and
dad who just loved it. You know, we were one of their
own. And yeah, we had such a lovely
evening. I missed them by the way, I
really do. They said to tell you both
hello, so it's just know that they're here in spirit.
(35:27):
Definitely. It, it was great having you guys
over, you know, and I think it'skind of funny because Americans
like other people in different countries.
You know, there's such a diversity to Americans, whether
you're from, you know, New England and New York and you got
the guys from the Midwest, you got, you know, people from Texas
and California and Portland and all these different things.
You know, there's so many different, you know, types of
(35:49):
people. And you know, the fact that you
got these, you know, Midwestern,which is again, just good old
homeboys and you know, from fromOhio and you know, but but
rooted in Florida, you know, it's like you got that's a
pretty nice little slice of of American culture with with my
folks. Absolutely.
I mean, Even so, I'm going to move past the dinner.
(36:13):
I'm even going out after after the dinner and going out and
seeing the crocodiles and the alligators, even in the lake,
not the crocodiles, the alligators in the lake outside.
It's just felt so amazed like it.
It was so lovely. I think at a time where, you
know, we were obviously missing home because we'd been away for,
(36:33):
you know, nearly two, well probably it was nearly two
months by that time that we it. Was two months it really.
Felt like it was like a home away from home, like, you know,
when you walk into a home and you get the smells of like, home
cooking and the welcome of family members basically.
And it was, yeah. It was just such a beautiful
night. And we, your mum made us a roast
(36:57):
dinner, which is probably the most British of ideas, you know.
It was brilliant. And you, it was so brilliant as
well. It was a fantastic roast dinner.
And we took back the remains of the roast dinner to have the
next day, didn't we? I had it.
I had it the next day. And it was greatly appreciated.
And it's funny that you say thatit's such a British thing to do
(37:18):
because for me I'm like, oh, that's, that's an American
Sunday meal, you know, roasted potatoes, corn, you know,
carrots, peas, you know, whatever.
So it's just, it's funny that it's like those those things
that we do overlap with culturally.
Oh, absolutely. It's the one thing that didn't
quite overlap, and we sort of. There's your.
Second way. Yorkshire.
(37:40):
So go check out the Zac Brown Show for the other conversation
we had on this topic. But.
But I will include pictures in the show notes which put on to
the offers arms. Oh, did you get pictures of it?
That's good. Sending it back to people home.
Go look at this. Sad.
You know what though? This bite is looked, it tasted
(38:02):
good. So whatever it was tasted
amazing. I would say an American pudding
was quite nice. Had a girl mom yeah it just
bless her heart, she she tried she goes I.
Just you know what? Something that that's a Taste of
Home. I was like, OK, And then she
pulls this thing out of the ovenand I went, but what it what is
(38:24):
it? And she was like, it's not me,
it's your pudding. I went.
Are you sure? But we appreciated the effort so
much. That's to begin.
But to begin with, we appreciated the effort so much
that we just didn't say anything.
And we're like, oh, this is yeah, thank you so much.
And the new turn around was like, on a side note, it's like,
is that what they're supposed tolook like?
And we like we're. Like no, no, that's.
(38:46):
A cultural experience for you. You got to experience the
British sword. No, it's fine.
It's great. I can't wait for the days now
that you. Make your way across to the UK
and you get to have a proper Yorkshire pudding.
Send a picture back to mom and be like this.
This is what this. Is what it's supposed to be.
But I remember from that evening, we after the dinner, we
(39:08):
sat around and we got chatting. And I think the thing that
struck me so much was that actually we found so many
similarities in different things, if that makes sense.
So I remember having conversations with your dad
about, you know, because obviously I'm going through my
final year of university this last year and I was doing mine
on like Western centric sports and how they react with Saudi
(39:31):
Arabian investment. And so to find out your dad's
take on these things, but from an American view with American
sports side of things. So there were things like that
that just kept popping up through the night that are
actually have remained with me ever since.
Because, yeah, at that moment intime, it didn't matter what part
of the world each of us came from, but we had a shared
(39:54):
interest in the same greater 'cause just through different
things. And that was something that you
don't ever really get to experience otherwise, Yeah.
It was a lot of fun. I mean, because again, I think
the way to connect with people that you know well or you don't
know very well is sharing a mealand inviting them into your
(40:14):
home. Because once you just kind of
like get relaxed and you kind oflet those you know, your
shoulders drop and let your guard down, just kind of relax
into the moment. You really just it, it is as
long as you're curious, I would say you're curious.
You're genuinely just like wanting to know about the other
person. You'll, you'll quickly find
those similarities. And I think you, we, we take the
(40:34):
light in the differences, you know, be like, oh, wow, I don't,
I don't see it that way. Or we don't eat it that way, or
we don't go and do that thing and tell me about how you do
Christmas. Or it's such a joy when you're
connecting with other people that way.
So it was fun having you guys inthat night and just, you know,
welcoming my British brothers into the house.
Yeah, I think, I think for us aswell, it was such a nice
(40:58):
reprieve from everything like tobe in an act, like to be in, we
could go out to glossary trains or whatever, but actually to be
in a household, have home cooking, have like some bees, be
in a House of the way it feels lived in and.
But it was such an evening and just like pressure off though as
well. We didn't have to lose anybody.
(41:19):
We didn't have to do any of that.
It was very much we could just be ourselves, could make
ourselves at home. You know, My, my wish, not a
regret. What's the word is my biggest
sadness of last summer was that the hurricane we did have only
lasted a day. And thankfully it did, because
obviously it wasn't a horrid, horrible hurricane.
(41:40):
But Zakat sold us the idea of a hurricane party in the house and
yeah, we'd look, we'd got ourselves quite excited for a
brown stay over, didn't we? But I.
Mean I was at the. Same time.
It would have been a a great weekend.
I mean, that's that is the one thing that I was like, man, that
would have just that would have been the hat trick.
You know, we did Portillo's Waffle House.
(42:01):
And if, if we'd had the third, which would have been a
hurricane party, that would havejust been that would.
Have been my place for the US government.
We experienced a hurricane tick.And we live.
OK, every time I go back, just every time I go back, they look
at me again. Yeah, disappointment, but some
proudness maybe. To top that whole evening off
(42:23):
though, we popped into Publix onthe way home because a Publix
for me and Miles to get to was very difficult to get to.
And this actually came up on my memories the other day.
I think it was a year ago, or itwas just one of them suggested
right around you. And it popped up and it said
that it was like it was a picture of the British Isle that
(42:44):
we'd found. And all of a sudden, these
things that me and Morgan had been missing for so long.
I remember buying a bottle of Robinson's squash, just orange
squash. And I mean, it's gone pretty
much instantly anyway. But we were quite happily paying
$5 for something that in this country, you can buy for a
pound. But we saw Heinz beans.
We saw shortbread, We saw everything that we'd, you know,
(43:07):
craved and missed from back home.
Yeah. Absolutely.
In public, yeah. So again, anybody listen to this
who are currently out there for a prolonged period of time and
you miss your British comforts and Publix have a very good
range of British Foods. For a premium.
For a premium, Yeah. So our last real, I mean this
(43:30):
was more of a cultural experience for Zac, maybe more
than more than us. However, I would like to touch
on Zac's Zuba services. I was.
Like I have no idea where we're going with these.
Leads I haven't sent you the script nervously because I'm
quite enjoying the fact that I've I've seen.
Very little of the script. So I'm I'm sort of like what's
(43:50):
going? On I'm along for the ride.
So Zach Zoo, but I mean it was brilliant anytime that we were
stuck or in a pickle or anythinglike that, we just had to give
Zach a ring and he was there every time to come with
collectors. And I mean, my fondest memory of
the lot of you know, Zach comingto pick me up was when we tried
(44:12):
for the baseball the second night and I'd had a particularly
rough day at work previous day and had managed to get myself a
sick day and we tried for the baseball again, ended up being
rained off. We then went to Chick-fil-A,
which was my first ever experienced Chick-fil-A.
It was brilliant. And because again of Zach's
super services, he then we went to Magic Kingdom for the last
(44:34):
hour of the park being open and we walked in.
We was happy ever after on. And we then by the time we got
to our first ride, which is Pirates of the Caribbean, we had
about 45 minutes and we did Pirates of the Caribbean, Big
Thunder Mountain and Haunted Mansion before then sauntering
down Main Street to leave the park for the day.
And it was that flexibility really that Zak Zuba services
(44:56):
that Zak Zuba services offered us.
It really did enhance our experiences.
But there was 1 moment in time that the Zuba actually saved me
a morgue from a potential emergency and it was on the
nightmare. Myself and Morgan had gone to
Olive Garden and on our way to on our it was the.
(45:19):
Uber journey from hell on the way there I.
Forgot about this. Yeah, I mean, we can laugh at it
now. At the time, Oh yeah, it was a
very scary experience. Yeah, I was getting multiple
texts from multiple people that evening.
Well, I'd sent, Oh no, I'm just trying to figure out, remember
how it played out. So we booked an Uber from
(45:40):
Flamingo W to Olive Garden and it should have been 5 minute
drive, 55 to 8 minute drive. Yeah.
And I paid, I'd pay something like $8 for it.
And we, he picked us up and initial, initial thoughts about
the car. It smelt like he he was doing
(46:00):
something that you shouldn't be doing.
He looks like he was on something and he drove like he
was on something. In hindsight, he almost
certainly was on something and. Yes.
Oh, he absolutely was. I mean, about the time we
swerved across lanes, we swerved.
I actually don't know how we missed.
He missed that central reservation that he'd swerved.
(46:22):
Yes, and say that he got close to it quite a few times and
then? I mean, that's most of your most
of your drivers on the 192, but anyway.
Oh, but not not on that. He was going probably about 30
above the speed limit. Yeah.
But then, but then there was a moment when he then slowed down
and he'd be going 30 below the speed limit in the back going on
(46:44):
the motorway like and. Then and Josh was texting me
from the back going are we goingthe right way?
What's going on? Like I'm concerned here.
So I was looking at my, my, I was looking at the E map tracker
and I see we've seen we've gone past the exit that we needed to
take and we're going the opposite direction now, at which
point I text mum saying that here's here's the Uber map.
(47:07):
I know you're probably asleep, but just track me on this.
And then I was like, you know, he's not asleep, Zach.
So I but I think we're in the same time zone.
So I said Zach, the the trackingthing on Uber going look, here's
the lowdown of what's happening currently on the Uber ride from
hell on in a tiny like 4 door, 4door hatchback.
(47:32):
I remember Zach's response beingthat's a strange route to take.
I'll keep an eye yes, and I meanthe worst.
I think the worst bit about thatthough was then the fact that he
then missed the next exit to then just pull AU turn and he
kept going down the one and two and this and I think.
At this point you're wondering if I jump out, is there enough
(47:54):
room to tuck and roll or will I hit a bus bench?
Or will I hit a centralization? Yeah.
But it was at the point where I was almost going, let's let's
cancel this ride and he can stop.
He can stop. It I was more than willing just
to stand at the side of the 192 for Zach to home pickers at that
point because. I was as well, but he but he got
(48:15):
us there and then tried to charge me an extra $15.00 more
for the longer journey, at whichpoint I complained to Uber
itself and went, yeah, not sure what's happening.
He's just driving 15 minutes thewrong direction.
Yeah, I'm not that's. Right.
And he's getting zero stars fromme.
Yeah. So my memory of that night is it
(48:37):
it was later. It wasn't late late, but I think
it was funny because I I remember going, I think I'm
going to go to bed early tonight.
And I just kind of like got to the point where I was just about
settled in and my phone goes offand it's Morgan going, Hi.
I don't think we have a reason to panic, but basically, like, I
just need somebody to know, like, be aware of what's going
(49:00):
on. And I went, do you need me to
come get you? And you're like, maybe I'll let
you know. I went.
OK. So then shortly thereafter, I
get another message from Claire,I believe, going, have you heard
from the boys? I said, yes, I'm talking with
Morgan. And she's like, OK, great, thank
you. And then I think John messaged
(49:20):
me as well and was like, hey, like, thanks for thanks for what
you're doing or something. I was like, just, you know, just
guide the chair like in spider man.
So I'm like, OK. And so then finally, I think
Morgan, you sent me like the link, like your it's where I
could like watch your trip and I'm watching, I'm like this,
this is sketchy. Like we the way I know where
(49:42):
they are and where they're intending to go.
And it just doesn't make sense. And so, you know, I came to the
point where I was like, just letme know where I need to come get
you. And I was like, I can be there
at less than 20. Let me put on some pants.
I'll be there in a second. And getting there.
And having been with you guys all summer, you know, and
knowing your temperament and whatever, I finally picked you
(50:03):
up, it was like you were done. Like, I could just see it.
It was like, we're tired, we're frustrated, we're hungry.
Like it was all the emotions. And I was like, OK, like it's
fine now. Yeah, that was very.
Wild. Yeah, we managed to get our
breadsticks from Olive Garden. We did.
We came. We came back with the
breadsticks. We did.
(50:24):
Complete. Everything that we set out to
achieve. Because were you coming back
from dinner or going to dinner? We're going to dinner.
Went to dinner and we had dinnerand then we.
And then we were stuck. In Uber services for the for the
trip back because neither Josh or I were willing to put our
lives in the hands of Uber drivers at that point again.
(50:44):
Yeah. Although the very next morning I
had a very lovely Uber driver who gave who gave me full
service to Epcot and said do youneed to park map?
I've got some here. At which point I was like, no, I
think I'm OK I'm a cast member. And he was like.
Appreciate it though, I was. Like I appreciate the sentiment.
He's like, oh, cool. We had a full conversation about
(51:04):
it, but it was it was probably the best Uber driver of the
trip. But yeah, I'm just off.
It was mental, mental 24. I'm not even that 12 hours
really. I think we can gather from this
to Zach, we would give your services 10 out of 10 or 5 lbs
out of five, whatever Uber or Zuba would like to be phrased
by. 5 Yorkshire puddings out of five. 5 Yorkshire puddings out
(51:27):
of five. That's funny.
So, Zach, would you like to telleverybody where they can find
your podcast so they can? Yeah.
So you've got everything that you're up to.
Well, can't talk about everything I'm up to, but if, if
you care to listen, you can check out the Zac Brown show.
(51:48):
It's on Spotify, it's on Apple podcast, really wherever you
like to listen to it. I mean, who knows, maybe you're
picking it up from your neighborwho's playing it through their
window that that might be interesting.
But you could follow on Instagram and Facebook at the
Zac Brown show. And I post kind of like a little
clips from the show and sometimes sneak peeks depending
(52:08):
on what's going on. I've got something really
secretive cooking that's coming and I'm pretty excited about it.
And that's hopefully starting production on something new here
in the very near. Future and exclusive.
Yeah, we go offline. That's the first GB Mickey Offal
Junior exclusive that we can we've.
Got to try and get an exclusive from every guest we have on
(52:29):
Josh. And I must also tell our
listeners that if you haven't already, then be sure to check
out the podcast from February, which is episode #31 of the Zac
Brown Show, where you can listento even more Charles and
Tribulations of Man and Mods experiences with Zac last
summer, which we recorded a while back, which is, yeah, very
(52:51):
fun. And actually, I think it was
from that podcast that me and more realized that actually we
have a lot still to talk about. And absolutely it's not.
More to talk about, although we've not discussed.
Absolutely, and I think there'llbe more podcasts in the future.
It was the unofficial pilot to Great British Make You Waffle
Junior. Absolutely, absolutely.
(53:12):
So yeah. So thank you as always Zach for
joining us once again. And from myself and Morgue, we
appreciate everything you did for last summer and I have no
doubt that we will 100% be getting you on again as a guest
real soon. It was my pleasure, boys.
Thank you. So thank you everyone for
joining us and once again, you can find us on all podcasting
(53:32):
platforms of your choice, whether that be YouTube,
Spotify, Apple. You can also find us on our
website, The Great British Mickey Waffle Online.
And for everyone who is visitingthe mouse this summer, including
all residents of your normal GB Mickey Waffle show and maybe a
top secret trip in there for a member of our show too.
(53:54):
We hope you all have a great time sharing memories.
Until next time, keep on moving all the way to the end of the
row and we'll see you real soon.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are back with episode 3 of
our Great British Mickey Waffle Takeover.
Once more we'll be diving into the adventures and tribulations
of our DCP summer in 2024. I'm Josh and in this episode we
are set for our first guest of the series to help myself and
Mug relive the cultural experiences of last summer with
(00:20):
trips to the Waffle House, Bass Pro Baseball, Portillo's City
Walk, Winter Garden. That we certainly have a lot to
discuss. So without further ado, hold on
to those hats and glasses. This will be one mile drive now,
my wheels in motion, my windows open.
The wind blowing in my. Head I'm driving down the.
(00:45):
Highway gonna do this my way. I can.
Feel it in the air. Here I go.
So as always, to do this I need my right hand man to help me get
through and remember just exactly what we did last summer.
(01:07):
Anyway, enough of that banter. Good evening Morgan.
Good evening. Good evening.
Our listeners will have picked up on the intro that we do have
a special guest with us tonight.This person for long time
listeners to the Waffle would need no introduction.
He became a brother to myself and morgue last summer and took
great pleasure in introducing usBrits to a little bit of
Floridian culture with which otherwise we would never have
(01:29):
experienced. He also embraced learning about
our British culture as through the more time we spent together
and uncovered many quirks and differences between our lives.
Across the pond and through though the contents of a
Yorkshire pudding may still be up for debate, He has a very
good Flamingo Crossings taxi service, also known as a Zuba.
It's with great delight to welcome our great friend, an all
(01:51):
all round nice guy, SAT Brown. Thank you.
Thank you guys. This is it's just an honor and a
privilege to be here with you both.
It's nice to be reunited finally, isn't it?
Definitely. It's a have a little hangout.
Yeah. But we get the pleasure tonight
of reliving some of those brilliant memories that we have
(02:13):
from our summer. And I think we will certainly
fill out our our episode with quite a few of them, if not
maybe not quite all of them. So we'll start off with our
first week of our experience andmy first ever time of meeting
Zach, actually. And I'd heard everything about
(02:34):
Zach and how amazing he was, andI'd not.
I'd just forget that he'd never met Zach before.
I'd never met Zach. Oh no.
I always forget that. Yeah, and Morgan, obviously.
You'd met him before. Was it the previous summer?
I have had the privilege of meeting Zach before last summer,
absolutely. Yeah.
I'm so grateful you said the privilege of meeting him on the
(02:56):
catastrophic trauma inducing experience.
That's we'll be nice to each other just for the next hour or
so. So our first experience of the
summer was Zach taking us to theWaffle House.
(03:17):
It's. Got to be done, but I will
leave. And we must ask the question,
Susan Zach, why the Waffle Houseis our first cultural
experience. Well, it's funny you said that.
I had to think. I was like, what was the first
thing that we did? And I love that as we just
refresh my memory of what. Oh, yes, I would repeat that.
That is, that is the first stop on American tour.
(03:38):
If you're bringing internationals and you want them
to very quickly get a feel for the country.
And you know, there's no better way to connect with someone than
than sharing a meal with them and finding out what some of
their, you know, their, their country's foods are.
So you have to go to a Waffle House.
And in my opinion, the dingier the better the place where you
(04:00):
go. And it's you know, it's going to
be cheap. You know, the food is going to
be exceedingly average. And if a fight breaks out, you
know, that's just the status quo.
Not with you, obviously, with people who are at the counter.
But it's it was one of those things I just knew that I had to
take my friends from across the pond to the quintessential
(04:22):
Americana experience. I think we we learned that very
quickly, didn't we? It was, yeah.
I mean, you said the food was average.
I, I debate the other way around, to be honest.
I thought it was really, we were, we were really quite good.
That's what I'd place it above. Like Denny's, probably.
Oh, easily above Denny's. Easily I.
Think it depends on what you're going for.
But I think if you can, if you can get past the grease and the
(04:44):
grime on the table and you sit down, I think brilliant, yeah.
Exactly. That's the charm.
That's the. Same with the UK Wetherspoons
Josh, if I get past the squeaking on the floor as as
your shoes stick to the you're. Probably not far off.
It's the it's the chain pancake version of a waffle version of
Wetherspoons, isn't it really? So, yeah, looking back, you
(05:08):
know, you would you go back to Waffle House, like, if you had
the opportunity? Oh.
Absolutely, 100%. Fantastic.
Yeah, I've heard, I've heard stories that Waffle House needs
to be attacked at like 3:00 AM. Oh.
Yeah, for the for the ultimate experience, which I feel like
might be the next step. I had I have a buddy of mine
that there for for I want to think it was about a year.
(05:31):
He had a running note in his phone that him and like two
other buddies shared. And their goal was to eat at
Waffle House for all 24 hours onon the on the clock.
Like, so, you know, say, like ona random Tuesday, they'd be
like, what have we done? They'd be like, oh, we haven't
done at 2:00 PM OK, cool. It's we got to go at 2:00 PM.
And then maybe like a month later, they'll be like, you
(05:52):
know, we haven't done the 4:00 AM.
And they were trying to cross off.
It was the most ridiculous thing.
But I was like, this is, you know, to quote Lizzie McGuire,
this is what dreams are made of.Live in the dream, that is.
Yeah, calorific hard filled dreams.
I think it is actually one of them.
(06:13):
It's probably one of them rare places that actually at
different points of the day you'll get a very different
experience. Oh yeah.
Each other. I think when we we got quite a
tame introduction in comparison to what these places can turn
out to be. I mean, you almost kind of want
to go when they're packed out, like just to get that full
experience. It's like being in like a, you
(06:34):
know, a, a really busy pub whereit's like there's the energy of
all the people, like the sounds of the clinking coffee mugs and
spoons and, and all the things. It really kind of adds to that
experience. This is the most wax poetic that
I've ever gone on about Waffle House, but it really is that
that experience that you're looking for.
If you're there like noon on a Tuesday and there's like three
(06:56):
other people in there, it just feels wrong.
It's really weird. It's like seeing your teacher
outside of school and you're like, you don't belong here.
That's not how this works. And so it's it's very much like
that you want to go late at night with a whole bunch of
people like it's just so much fun.
So. It's probably one of those if
you took a microphone along at different times of the day and
you sort of recorded like a likean atmosphere, soundscape or.
(07:17):
Something. You'd get totally different ones
for for each hour. Isn't it?
It's, it sounds mental, but I, I, I have to say from before we
went, I was told by the cast members at creations because I
mentioned to them, oh, me and meand my British mate are being
taken out by our American friendwho he, he said for, for our
(07:42):
program we had to do, we had to do a cultural experience every
month and write a small couple sentences on it and then submit
it to the US government to show that we're actually there for
our people, like doing part whatour visa says.
And when I said to them, oh, ourcultural experience this month
is going to be going to Waffle House, they all looked at me and
went, Oh, you're not going to like it.
(08:04):
So they were like, Oh, you poor soul.
And actually, I beg to differ. I I'm so proud that someone,
another human being reported to my government that I took them
to waffle. I've never thought of it that
way. That the lights me great.
That is on some file somewhere in our country's capital that
(08:27):
this guy took these guys to waffle.
Brilliant. This bang on, though, it was
totally adaptive, wasn't it? We had to adapt to the culture,
yeah. And we had to swear to say what
we'd learned, we'd had to talk about.
We learned about the food and learn about the atmosphere in a,
in a diner in our house. Important federal information.
(08:51):
This. That's right.
OK, so we'll we'll just move on slightly through the tour of Zac
Brown's Floridian cultural enhancing experience.
I want to meet bass pro That's the next stop on my list.
I had never been to a bass pro Yes.
(09:24):
That's. Great.
And you know what, Zach, I very nearly messaged you a few
months. I meant to message you a few
months ago actually, because I was, we were out at like an
outdoor pub in the student area of Liverpool and there was this
guy sitting across the way from me with his Bass Pro Hat on.
And it was one of their moments where I wanted to have my Bass
Pro Hat on. Because one time when I have had
(09:46):
it on and someone's from the opposite direction with theirs
on, it's a very mutual respect that you both have with each
other. Literally a little nod that
actually you share the experience, you've been to the
experience of it and former BassPro Shops or not as traumatic.
As. I was going to say the the
trauma of Bass Pro was the pork rinds.
They're the the trauma that willremain with me forever.
(10:08):
They will. I didn't try those.
I don't think I've had pork rinds since where I've not
thought about sharing them with you.
And it just, again, just delights me because it was the
complete opposite experience from you guys at Waffle House
where you're like, this is revolting, I can't do this.
Why are you eating these things?Yeah, I just Bass Pro is one of
the things that again, it's quintessential America.
(10:30):
They're all over the country andthey vary in size and the and
the deck, the decor, you know, some of them, like the one that
we have here has, you know, a laser shooting arcade, which is
really cool. And you know, it's just, it's.
Scary, to be honest. However big the like the fish
tanks of the aquariums and it's just so cool that you you could.
(10:51):
That's why it's like so like thethe the whole I wasn't really.
So I didn't go with you guys. I went with my friend Chris a
bit later on down the line. I was, I think it was some shift
when you guys went, but we went to the same one and the gun bit
the shooting gallery who didn't do it.
I sort of looked at it and went,no, thank you, Not for me.
(11:15):
But I was one of those moments like cultural where I went, oh
God, that's a lot of guns. But you can get past the aisle
in a Walmart and it'd be like, OK, you expect to see it, but
like actually seeing them on display in a bass pro shops, it
was something completely different.
But the scene, the aquarium was,was awesome like that.
And it's now my goal. And I'm going to extend the
challenge to you 2 as well. At some point we've got to get
(11:38):
my mum to come into one of thoseshops.
Has she still not been? She's not been and I'm telling
her that she's got to go. I need, I need evidence that mum
has been into a Bass Pro Shops. Well, has she been to a Waffle
House? No, I've been trying to get into
one of those as well. Here's your challenge for the
song. You've got to get all of the
(12:00):
wafflers, wafflers senior into into a Waffle House.
It's got to be done. Get a bigger soup.
On the way home you need to makeit a super stretch.
Yeah. No, I think that was, I think
that was the biggest thing for us was that the, the things that
(12:24):
are obviously available in just an outdoor like shop in this
country, anything in an outdoor shop is, I mean, they're pretty
small shops to begin with and you can buy tents, you know,
like your outdoor camping. Yeah.
Whereas anything you could ever think of that it's an outdoor
form of sport activity, you nameit, it was in there.
(12:49):
It makes you want to go camping because it's all the cool stuff
where you're like, oh, this is awesome.
Like I want to I want to use this.
But it's all set up for you. So they all put out like the
tents and show you how you coulduse a tent in a certain
environment. And you're like, oh, I could
imagine myself in that. And.
So they, they offer you trips aswell.
They, they offer you trips usingtheir equipment.
Like when I was there with Chris, someone came up to come
(13:10):
up to us and tried to sell us a trip to, to some desert
somewhere for, it was for his birthday.
And they were like, Oh, well, wecan, we could give you this trip
for this price and it'd be the two of you out in the desert.
I had a camping gear on a hunting trip.
And maybe just they're like, no thank you though.
This is our our pass. No, I'm OK, save it to the
(13:35):
aquarium. Being trying.
To the basketball is enough roughing.
In for Morgan. So we'll then move on to a It
was less of a cultural experience.
It was something that we did altogether.
I think maybe we'll touch on whywe went there first.
So we attempted to go and see a baseball game twice.
(13:55):
Twice. Twice.
Twice. Attempted.
It's the goody word here. First time around didn't go so
well. We, well, we, me and myself and
Zach, we attempted to go, didn'twe?
And I think. The first one was all three of
us, and that was when. It was the first three of us,
yeah, And it got Thunder and lightning off.
(14:16):
So to try and make the most of that evening, we went down to
Citywalk to go and see the at the epic universe like mini
model scale thing in the shop. I mean, I don't know if you both
remember about how wet we got from walking from.
Oh yeah, that was, yeah, quite the torrential range, which
probably proved that actually the baseball game being called
(14:38):
off was for the correct reasons,really.
We couldn't have been any more wet had we had jumped into the
fountain in front of the Universal Park like it was we
were just soaked. It's one of those Chandler Bing
moments. It's like, could you be any more
wet? Yeah, I think, I think there's
other thing that makes me laugh was how we tried to like dodge
(14:58):
all the puddles to begin with, and then it just got to a point
where the water was like ankle deep anyway.
So like, what's the point? Yeah.
It just didn't matter. Yeah, it was.
But anyway, you wanted to touch on this Epic Universe model
because actually that was mine and Morgue's first reel of
experience of anything, you know, completely away from our
(15:20):
Disney bubble that we were in atthe time.
To actually go and see how the other half live, so to speak,
was very interesting, I would say.
And we we certainly were being fed information through our
work. And I had had chats with, you
know, senior people up in the Disney company about their
feelings towards Epic Universe. And we were obviously being
(15:43):
given a narrative. And then we went down to go and
visit this model and actually just from the scale of that was
just literally breathtaking. And I think at that point we
both realized though, they're onto something quite special here,
and this is something they couldbe taking quite seriously.
I mean, seeing how it's gone, I mean, I've not seen any of the
(16:04):
like the actual park itself. I'm still keeping that, like
keeping away from all that. But seeing the reception to the
character performers online and the park itself universe of sort
of cracks what Disney have, whatDisney had cracked a couple of
years ago in terms of interactions, in terms of
theming, in terms of the rides, It seems that Universal have
(16:25):
sort of hit it on the head in a way that Disney hadn't done
before. And that was really interesting
to see, especially working like as cast members.
It was one of those where we went, oh, wow.
OK, Yeah, that's that's something to really think about
and look at and look forward to.It's wild to think like we were
standing there looking at this, you know, scale model in the
(16:47):
middle of the store, you know, their little preview center or
whatever and how long ago that feels like you're saying, you
know, to see the reception and the people, you know, enjoying
this. And, and I I have yet to go.
It's just been so flippin hot. I'm planning on going on
November when I have some familydown, but seeing the impact
while in the Disney parks since the opening, I mean, the waits
(17:09):
for attractions, even in the summertime, there's sometimes
that I've gone that I'm like, wow, this is nice.
Like I just feel like we, we wineither way, you know, so it's,
it's either going to it's going to force Disney to be better.
It's it's divvying up some of the crowd share.
You know, I'm like, OK, cool, like less lines and they're this
is hilarious. As we're sitting here talking,
this photo pops up on my Alexa device over here and it's a
(17:33):
picture of the three of us sitting at Waffle House.
That's funny, but so? Listening to us.
Yes. And now she's going, I'm not
sure what you're talking about talk, but how it's really cool
to see the the the progress fromthis little interactive model to
the reality and what actually showed up.
And it was like, OK, cool. I think, I think what's from I
(17:57):
because I have, I haven't watched like people walking
through the park. So I've seen lots of pictures
and when I look back at what we saw in person on the smaller
scale, you know, you think some of the Disney concept art and
things like that that come out and you're looking at the real
thing. Like Tiana's strikes to me more
than anything. You look at Tiana's in person
versus the concept art and you're like, what?
(18:18):
Where's that kind of gone wrong?Whereas the Universal 1,
whatever we saw on that mini scale model from what I can see
is exactly what you've got now in person, which I thought is
why that was so breathtaking because actually the the detail.
Has been made for lumpy care. Well, the details that were put
into that though were just incredible.
And to be able to like scan AQR code on where a certain ride was
(18:42):
going to be and for then you getto watch a like a virtual ride
along of that ride. Yeah, yeah.
Stuff that was never seen before.
And actually, as you are right, Zach, it can only up the game
of, you know, Disney and surrounding, you know, theme
parks because I think they they really did blow the competition
(19:02):
out the water in this in this case.
Yeah, I'm really excited to see it for myself.
Like, like, like you're saying, Morgan, I'm trying to avoid as
many spoilers as possible. I mean, you know, Instagram is
inundated with it right now. Everybody's posting pictures of
the, of the big tower, the, the portals themselves, you know,
little things that I'm like, it's almost like I see it pop up
and I, I, I click away as quickly as I can or just scroll.
(19:24):
I just want. To.
Especially Dark Dark Universe isthe the thing I'm looking
forward to the most. So because a friend of mine
worked on the main attraction there.
And so I'm like really proud to like go and see that.
And I'm like, I don't, I don't experience it.
I don't want to see anything else.
I think, yeah. I mean, I'm, I was going to say
I'm in the same boat with Nintendo and stuff that's and
(19:46):
the house between your dragon, Isle of Burke.
But those two big franchises that I I love and I'm source.
I I just want to keep away from it all because in the day going
back to me amazing as well. When I went back, when I went
back to Disney after COVID. We had Galaxy's Edge open.
We had like so much stuff was open that wasn't there before,
(20:08):
and that's a huge thing. Before I forget, I'm just going
to jump back about it. We talked about baseball and
thunderstorms. I think I wrote about that for
my cultural experience as well, talking about how we tried to go
to a baseball baseball game. I've got a Thunder document that
you'd have went to the universe preview instead.
That's my cultural experience. That's like I was blooded the
(20:31):
government with useless information.
Well, for the next transition onfrom this, I think we turned a
negative into a massive positivethat night because out of a
baseball game being cancelled, we went to go down to City Walk.
And on our way back from City Walk became probably the
greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
And I literally sit around here on a daily basis and wish that I
(20:54):
could just go into town and haveone of these portillos.
That place I was like. Well, we do.
Very, very, very special place in my heart.
I could see the confusion on your face.
And I had that. Yeah, yeah.
I was like, where did we go? I'm trying to remember that, you
know? This is one of the places that
needs it needs a feature of its own because actually Portillo's.
(21:14):
Oh, just. Yeah, it's just, it was.
Great. How many times did you have
Portillo's while you're here after I took you?
I mean, you took us probably, I'd say a month into our
program. So we only had like a month and
a half left. I think I must have gone.
Four of five times at least. But we got it.
We got it ubered over to us as well.
We did, yeah. That's not even ubered over.
(21:35):
That was ubered over. Yeah, that's why I'm like food
for that one sweet. Just for the chocolate cake
really, isn't it? I mean.
I think I was going to say between us, I think we had
Portillo's probably around 10 times or something like that.
Yeah, just for the hot dog and Ieven just a cake shake.
I mean that yourself is a is a cultural experience.
(21:56):
Collectively your your room probably ate 2 cakes worth of.
Of yeah, easily. Probably.
Yeah, and it's a long time to buy a the giant cake instead of
just a little cake slice was, yeah, very strong.
I, I, I think it would have beengone, that'd say the evening
though and we wouldn't be on work for next.
Very, very easily, Very easily they were there's.
(22:18):
Nothing like Portillo's like on a wet summer night when you've
been rained out, you're tired, you're just like, you need some
food. But going in and just having,
you know, a Chicago dog or chilicheese Coney, whatever.
I've never had a bad meal there,you know, and it's, it's nothing
special. But again, it's just kind of
(22:39):
classic American fare and it hasto be done.
I mean that that time you took us that first night, I, that was
my first time out of Portillo's.That was my first time really
having a proper American like hot dog that wasn't theme of
food like, and that it was, it was actually like, I don't know
(23:00):
what I expected going into. I was sort of asking me like
fast food sort of McDonald's style or it's going to be it's
like Chick-fil-A or something like that.
And I was really no, no, no, no.But like Chick-fil-A, don't get
me wrong, Chick-fil-A is good. Oh no, but Portillo's is on a
different level, 100%. But Portillo Portillo's almost
(23:21):
reminded me of Five Guys in a way.
The way Five Guys is here in it's fresh.
It feel, it doesn't feel like it's been taken out of a
freezer. It feels like this will be made
fresh. And then even just like having a
hot dog like that in the UK, you'd get maybe you'd get it
with like chili on top or you, you'd get like, onions on it,
(23:41):
but nothing like an American hotdog.
And that it, it was it just it. Yeah, made me speechless.
Honestly I miss it. Weird to say about a hot dog,
but. Well, it's got enough sodium to
kill a baby horse. I mean, so you, you have to make
sure that you're, you're stayinghydrated after you leave these
places. Just means I'm stronger than a
(24:02):
baby horse. That's right.
That's good. It's a good positive spin.
That's the proper way of lookingat it.
But then they also do a cake shake, which was.
Which has enough sugar to kill asmoking.
Which, well, in effect, it was aslap of cake inside of a
milkshake. And so it was.
It was. About yeah, it was probably like
(24:23):
a sort of a normal sized chocolate cake cut into tenths
and then 110th of that cake is put inside the milkshake for you
to consume as you're as you're. Drinking.
And it's honestly, I don't even know where to start with that
It's. I think, I think it was round
this table that we had at Portilla's as Zach used the
(24:46):
terminology, and it's always stuck with me that when America
was formed, they had to do that panicking America.
Whatever America had to come up with had to just be bigger.
It had to have more sugar in it and it had to be better.
And by making it bigger and moresugary, it became better.
I don't remember saying it, but I stand by it.
(25:10):
Well, they were very wise words that kind of said.
Yeah, it's Portillo's is just, it's good.
It's just really good. And again, sort of like Waffle
House, I feel like it's it's better the later you go and it's
going to set an heavier for whatever reef.
But there's two times I want Portillo's late at night when
you're just kind of thinking of like what, what do we want to
(25:31):
get? Or like, you know, Sunday
afternoon after coming from the lake, you've been swimming and
playing and, you know, you're just tired and sunburned
slightly and you're like, what do we need?
You're like, just get a couple dogs from Portillo's and a cake
shake for later. That's a good time.
Perfection. I mean, the other thing with
Portillo's is that we at the very end of the summer, so that
(25:56):
I think it was it, was it a night with night before we left
or was it, I can't remember whenit was, but it was, it was
before we went to night before, before you went.
Home. Yeah, we went to, we went to
Miller's Ale House, didn't we, for dinner.
And then one of us spotted therewas a portillos about 2-2
(26:18):
storefronts down and we ended uphiking US 3 and Joe ended up
hiking down. And and John, I think John.
Was John with us as well? Yeah.
We ended up hiking through bushes.
I think that was the main Rd. toget to the pawn tillers just for
a cake shake and it was worth it.
(26:39):
I would do it again. After having a massive meal.
Yeah, it wasn't like we were hungry either, but it was just
the fact that it was there. You're like, I cannot get it.
It's not like Millers don't do nice desserts themselves.
We just had it in our headset. We just wanted the pawn tillers
cake. Yeah, we had, we had to show Joe
the way and I think Joe would agree that it it's 10 out of 10.
(27:00):
Very much so. Yeah.
Very much so. So I think we'll move on from
Portillo's and we'll get to a night now where I think Morg
will agree this is probably our favorite night of the whole
experience. And it was spent off property
and it was spent beyond and behind Big Thunder Mountain.
And Zach had picked us up and wewent for a tour around downtown
(27:23):
Winter Garden, and then we went back to the Browns household for
a roast dinner. So I think it's very much worth
discussing downtown Winter Garden and we'll get to our
roast dinner experience beyond that.
But that was very much a highlight of my summer because I
mean, downtown Winter Garden is never a place that is out of
reach for, you know, any tourists visiting, you know,
(27:46):
Disney and Florida and but actually somewhere that you
probably don't think of going to.
And just, I mean, it's definitely going to be the first
place I want to go back to when we go next time because it's
exactly, it's like it is a quintessential American, you
know, feeling that you get from a place that's so very, it's
(28:07):
really difficult to describe like an old fashioned American.
Classic small town. Yeah, beautiful place, but it
felt, but it felt so much like we were from my experiences up
in like Saint Augustine and things like that, which like a
few hours away from Orlando to have this 20 minutes away from
basically the gates of Magic Kingdom, It just, it just didn't
(28:30):
feel like you're in Orlando. And actually you were in a very
central part of it. And yeah, it was a very
beautiful place. Well, it's interesting that you
say that, you know, it's what what we or most people who are
not from Orlando, I think have come to think is what what is
Orlando is I drive. You know, it is by universal.
(28:50):
It is all these places. But the longer that I've lived
here and interacted with people that have been here since before
Disney landed and it grew up here, you know, Winter Garden is
what what Orlando feels like. You know, it is these are these
little small, originally rural areas.
(29:11):
They were farmland. They were citrus Groves.
They were cow pastures and horsepastures.
And you know, where I'm sitting now, it used to be all orange
Groves. And it's the reason that it's
called Winter Garden was, it wasa place where during the winter
months they could grow healthy crops and people would be able
to get fresh citrus, whether that be oranges or grapefruits,
(29:32):
things like that. And there's a railroad right
through downtown 'cause it was away of getting it in and out of
here to the other places. And so it is, it's kind of
quintessential Florida where, you know, there's cobblestone
streets and there's, you know, Spanish Moss hanging in the
trees and, you know, little jazzbands playing in the, you know,
(29:53):
little middle of the, of the Main Street.
There's Plant St. There's a little gazebo and
they'll set up and just play music and a little movie
theater, which is really is it? It takes you to a much simpler
and safer and joyous time. Absolutely.
And I think especially for Josh and I, I think been so immersed
in the Disney bubble UPS that point and and sort of we lived
(30:16):
and breathed Disney, which was totally unrealistic.
But because we lived a Flamingo,that's what happened.
It was really such a nice changeto leave that bubble, to leave
that area. And even earlier on as well,
driving through downtown, I think it's downtown Orlando.
We went. We went to see the baseball.
(30:37):
Yeah, it's. Taking you through a lot of like
back neighborhoods just to give you this is where, this is where
the people live. And it was.
It was so nice just to see like actual places where people live,
not not just the tourist stuff. I mean, you did the food trucks
as well, which were amazing. Well, I've.
Forgotten about that? Yeah.
I just literally it just sparkedin my head now as you were
(31:00):
talking about down. I was like food trucks.
I mean all of this. It was so, as you say, as you
say that it's so quintessentially American and
sort of just so untouched reallyby the tourist curse, I suppose
(31:20):
in that actually it's so nice togo there and just disconnect.
You'll feel like you actually somewhere where people live.
It's not this pristine, perfect place.
Like, don't get me wrong, celebration is lovely, but it's
it's very much everything has got to be perfect.
It feels a little bit like one division when you step in and it
and it's all very pristine. And yeah, TV set, whereas
(31:46):
actually this wasn't this would you could see where things had
changed over time. You could see where people had
lived and, and the effects that change in, in infrastructure
around Orlando and Winter Gardenhas affected it.
And I think that was really niceto it was, it was so culturally
different to anything I'd ever done in America.
But actually it was really nice to, to do.
(32:06):
Well, I've been up there a few times to, to Orlando and it was
it was something completely different.
And I'd do it, absolutely. I'd say this is a.
Oh, sorry, that. Hi, Josh.
I think this is the thing for all our get like guests
listening today is that actuallythis is something that anybody
with a hire car or anything can go and do.
And I don't want to send the masses of tourists upon downtown
(32:28):
winter Garden. However, I think actually the
place is just such, so worth a visit because actually just at
the back of it's basically just at the back of Big Thunder
Mountain in reality to where it is on a map.
And actually, yeah, it it's so within touch of Disney World and
yet you couldn't be further awayfrom Disney World once you.
(32:49):
It's a different type of immersion, isn't it, that you
get within that it. Yeah, absolutely.
Years. And actually it just, it feels
like a very self-sustaining little town that, you know, the
people rely on each other to getthrough life.
And yeah, there was something quite beautiful about that.
And if you think because, like you said, it is so close that,
you know, if I leave, you know, like a a friend's gathering in
(33:13):
downtown winter garden around 9 O clock and I turn S to head
home, I can clearly see the fireworks over the treetop.
And it's it's the coolest thing just driving, you know, down 535
and looking down. There's like and there's, you
know, there's just fireworks. It's like this beacon drawing
you to to the bubble. It's wild if.
(33:36):
You are a current cause from an hour listening to this either on
your CEP or you're doing the cultural representative program
year long or even in the future.If you're listening to this in
preparation for your program, Ifyou're looking for a plate like
a place to go outside of the Disney bubble, that's not far
away, just to have some sense ofnormality, really sense of non
(33:59):
Disney horse, Disney's lovely. But if you're looking for
somewhere that's just where people live, and people have a
lot like daily life, that isn't to do with Epcot or the OR
Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios.
It's somewhere so lovely and so enchanted by, in a way,
enchanting because it's not Disney and because it's
(34:22):
somewhere that people just live.Yeah, highly recommend it.
And I will say on our next visitthat the first paint is on me in
the bar in downtown Winter Garden because I was obviously a
month before turning 21 and so Iwas the one that stopped U.S.
Open being able to have a paint there and.
Yeah. Anyone can for sure.
Anyone listening to this is currently out there who's not
(34:45):
quite turned 21, but they're like a bear.
Don't enter this pub because actually the smell that you get
from the bears, incredible. And if you haven't had a beer
for so long, yeah, it's. But yeah, that's definitely on
the hit list to do next time. But anyway.
So from downtown Winter Garden we headed around to the Zac
(35:06):
Brown household and had the pleasure of meeting your mum and
dad who just loved it. You know, we were one of their
own. And yeah, we had such a lovely
evening. I missed them by the way, I
really do. They said to tell you both
hello, so it's just know that they're here in spirit.
(35:27):
Definitely. It, it was great having you guys
over, you know, and I think it'skind of funny because Americans
like other people in different countries.
You know, there's such a diversity to Americans, whether
you're from, you know, New England and New York and you got
the guys from the Midwest, you got, you know, people from Texas
and California and Portland and all these different things.
You know, there's so many different, you know, types of
(35:49):
people. And you know, the fact that you
got these, you know, Midwestern,which is again, just good old
homeboys and you know, from fromOhio and you know, but but
rooted in Florida, you know, it's like you got that's a
pretty nice little slice of of American culture with with my
folks. Absolutely.
I mean, Even so, I'm going to move past the dinner.
(36:13):
I'm even going out after after the dinner and going out and
seeing the crocodiles and the alligators, even in the lake,
not the crocodiles, the alligators in the lake outside.
It's just felt so amazed like it.
It was so lovely. I think at a time where, you
know, we were obviously missing home because we'd been away for,
(36:33):
you know, nearly two, well probably it was nearly two
months by that time that we it. Was two months it really.
Felt like it was like a home away from home, like, you know,
when you walk into a home and you get the smells of like, home
cooking and the welcome of family members basically.
And it was, yeah. It was just such a beautiful
night. And we, your mum made us a roast
(36:57):
dinner, which is probably the most British of ideas, you know.
It was brilliant. And you, it was so brilliant as
well. It was a fantastic roast dinner.
And we took back the remains of the roast dinner to have the
next day, didn't we? I had it.
I had it the next day. And it was greatly appreciated.
And it's funny that you say thatit's such a British thing to do
(37:18):
because for me I'm like, oh, that's, that's an American
Sunday meal, you know, roasted potatoes, corn, you know,
carrots, peas, you know, whatever.
So it's just, it's funny that it's like those those things
that we do overlap with culturally.
Oh, absolutely. It's the one thing that didn't
quite overlap, and we sort of. There's your.
Second way. Yorkshire.
(37:40):
So go check out the Zac Brown Show for the other conversation
we had on this topic. But.
But I will include pictures in the show notes which put on to
the offers arms. Oh, did you get pictures of it?
That's good. Sending it back to people home.
Go look at this. Sad.
You know what though? This bite is looked, it tasted
(38:02):
good. So whatever it was tasted
amazing. I would say an American pudding
was quite nice. Had a girl mom yeah it just
bless her heart, she she tried she goes I.
Just you know what? Something that that's a Taste of
Home. I was like, OK, And then she
pulls this thing out of the ovenand I went, but what it what is
(38:24):
it? And she was like, it's not me,
it's your pudding. I went.
Are you sure? But we appreciated the effort so
much. That's to begin.
But to begin with, we appreciated the effort so much
that we just didn't say anything.
And we're like, oh, this is yeah, thank you so much.
And the new turn around was like, on a side note, it's like,
is that what they're supposed tolook like?
And we like we're. Like no, no, that's.
(38:46):
A cultural experience for you. You got to experience the
British sword. No, it's fine.
It's great. I can't wait for the days now
that you. Make your way across to the UK
and you get to have a proper Yorkshire pudding.
Send a picture back to mom and be like this.
This is what this. Is what it's supposed to be.
But I remember from that evening, we after the dinner, we
(39:08):
sat around and we got chatting. And I think the thing that
struck me so much was that actually we found so many
similarities in different things, if that makes sense.
So I remember having conversations with your dad
about, you know, because obviously I'm going through my
final year of university this last year and I was doing mine
on like Western centric sports and how they react with Saudi
(39:31):
Arabian investment. And so to find out your dad's
take on these things, but from an American view with American
sports side of things. So there were things like that
that just kept popping up through the night that are
actually have remained with me ever since.
Because, yeah, at that moment intime, it didn't matter what part
of the world each of us came from, but we had a shared
(39:54):
interest in the same greater 'cause just through different
things. And that was something that you
don't ever really get to experience otherwise, Yeah.
It was a lot of fun. I mean, because again, I think
the way to connect with people that you know well or you don't
know very well is sharing a mealand inviting them into your
(40:14):
home. Because once you just kind of
like get relaxed and you kind oflet those you know, your
shoulders drop and let your guard down, just kind of relax
into the moment. You really just it, it is as
long as you're curious, I would say you're curious.
You're genuinely just like wanting to know about the other
person. You'll, you'll quickly find
those similarities. And I think you, we, we take the
(40:34):
light in the differences, you know, be like, oh, wow, I don't,
I don't see it that way. Or we don't eat it that way, or
we don't go and do that thing and tell me about how you do
Christmas. Or it's such a joy when you're
connecting with other people that way.
So it was fun having you guys inthat night and just, you know,
welcoming my British brothers into the house.
Yeah, I think, I think for us aswell, it was such a nice
(40:58):
reprieve from everything like tobe in an act, like to be in, we
could go out to glossary trains or whatever, but actually to be
in a household, have home cooking, have like some bees, be
in a House of the way it feels lived in and.
But it was such an evening and just like pressure off though as
well. We didn't have to lose anybody.
(41:19):
We didn't have to do any of that.
It was very much we could just be ourselves, could make
ourselves at home. You know, My, my wish, not a
regret. What's the word is my biggest
sadness of last summer was that the hurricane we did have only
lasted a day. And thankfully it did, because
obviously it wasn't a horrid, horrible hurricane.
(41:40):
But Zakat sold us the idea of a hurricane party in the house and
yeah, we'd look, we'd got ourselves quite excited for a
brown stay over, didn't we? But I.
Mean I was at the. Same time.
It would have been a a great weekend.
I mean, that's that is the one thing that I was like, man, that
would have just that would have been the hat trick.
You know, we did Portillo's Waffle House.
(42:01):
And if, if we'd had the third, which would have been a
hurricane party, that would havejust been that would.
Have been my place for the US government.
We experienced a hurricane tick.And we live.
OK, every time I go back, just every time I go back, they look
at me again. Yeah, disappointment, but some
proudness maybe. To top that whole evening off
(42:23):
though, we popped into Publix onthe way home because a Publix
for me and Miles to get to was very difficult to get to.
And this actually came up on my memories the other day.
I think it was a year ago, or itwas just one of them suggested
right around you. And it popped up and it said
that it was like it was a picture of the British Isle that
(42:44):
we'd found. And all of a sudden, these
things that me and Morgan had been missing for so long.
I remember buying a bottle of Robinson's squash, just orange
squash. And I mean, it's gone pretty
much instantly anyway. But we were quite happily paying
$5 for something that in this country, you can buy for a
pound. But we saw Heinz beans.
We saw shortbread, We saw everything that we'd, you know,
(43:07):
craved and missed from back home.
Yeah. Absolutely.
In public, yeah. So again, anybody listen to this
who are currently out there for a prolonged period of time and
you miss your British comforts and Publix have a very good
range of British Foods. For a premium.
For a premium, Yeah. So our last real, I mean this
(43:30):
was more of a cultural experience for Zac, maybe more
than more than us. However, I would like to touch
on Zac's Zuba services. I was.
Like I have no idea where we're going with these.
Leads I haven't sent you the script nervously because I'm
quite enjoying the fact that I've I've seen.
Very little of the script. So I'm I'm sort of like what's
(43:50):
going? On I'm along for the ride.
So Zach Zoo, but I mean it was brilliant anytime that we were
stuck or in a pickle or anythinglike that, we just had to give
Zach a ring and he was there every time to come with
collectors. And I mean, my fondest memory of
the lot of you know, Zach comingto pick me up was when we tried
(44:12):
for the baseball the second night and I'd had a particularly
rough day at work previous day and had managed to get myself a
sick day and we tried for the baseball again, ended up being
rained off. We then went to Chick-fil-A,
which was my first ever experienced Chick-fil-A.
It was brilliant. And because again of Zach's
super services, he then we went to Magic Kingdom for the last
(44:34):
hour of the park being open and we walked in.
We was happy ever after on. And we then by the time we got
to our first ride, which is Pirates of the Caribbean, we had
about 45 minutes and we did Pirates of the Caribbean, Big
Thunder Mountain and Haunted Mansion before then sauntering
down Main Street to leave the park for the day.
And it was that flexibility really that Zak Zuba services
(44:56):
that Zak Zuba services offered us.
It really did enhance our experiences.
But there was 1 moment in time that the Zuba actually saved me
a morgue from a potential emergency and it was on the
nightmare. Myself and Morgan had gone to
Olive Garden and on our way to on our it was the.
(45:19):
Uber journey from hell on the way there I.
Forgot about this. Yeah, I mean, we can laugh at it
now. At the time, Oh yeah, it was a
very scary experience. Yeah, I was getting multiple
texts from multiple people that evening.
Well, I'd sent, Oh no, I'm just trying to figure out, remember
how it played out. So we booked an Uber from
(45:40):
Flamingo W to Olive Garden and it should have been 5 minute
drive, 55 to 8 minute drive. Yeah.
And I paid, I'd pay something like $8 for it.
And we, he picked us up and initial, initial thoughts about
the car. It smelt like he he was doing
(46:00):
something that you shouldn't be doing.
He looks like he was on something and he drove like he
was on something. In hindsight, he almost
certainly was on something and. Yes.
Oh, he absolutely was. I mean, about the time we
swerved across lanes, we swerved.
I actually don't know how we missed.
He missed that central reservation that he'd swerved.
(46:22):
Yes, and say that he got close to it quite a few times and
then? I mean, that's most of your most
of your drivers on the 192, but anyway.
Oh, but not not on that. He was going probably about 30
above the speed limit. Yeah.
But then, but then there was a moment when he then slowed down
and he'd be going 30 below the speed limit in the back going on
(46:44):
the motorway like and. Then and Josh was texting me
from the back going are we goingthe right way?
What's going on? Like I'm concerned here.
So I was looking at my, my, I was looking at the E map tracker
and I see we've seen we've gone past the exit that we needed to
take and we're going the opposite direction now, at which
point I text mum saying that here's here's the Uber map.
(47:07):
I know you're probably asleep, but just track me on this.
And then I was like, you know, he's not asleep, Zach.
So I but I think we're in the same time zone.
So I said Zach, the the trackingthing on Uber going look, here's
the lowdown of what's happening currently on the Uber ride from
hell on in a tiny like 4 door, 4door hatchback.
(47:32):
I remember Zach's response beingthat's a strange route to take.
I'll keep an eye yes, and I meanthe worst.
I think the worst bit about thatthough was then the fact that he
then missed the next exit to then just pull AU turn and he
kept going down the one and two and this and I think.
At this point you're wondering if I jump out, is there enough
(47:54):
room to tuck and roll or will I hit a bus bench?
Or will I hit a centralization? Yeah.
But it was at the point where I was almost going, let's let's
cancel this ride and he can stop.
He can stop. It I was more than willing just
to stand at the side of the 192 for Zach to home pickers at that
point because. I was as well, but he but he got
(48:15):
us there and then tried to charge me an extra $15.00 more
for the longer journey, at whichpoint I complained to Uber
itself and went, yeah, not sure what's happening.
He's just driving 15 minutes thewrong direction.
Yeah, I'm not that's. Right.
And he's getting zero stars fromme.
Yeah. So my memory of that night is it
(48:37):
it was later. It wasn't late late, but I think
it was funny because I I remember going, I think I'm
going to go to bed early tonight.
And I just kind of like got to the point where I was just about
settled in and my phone goes offand it's Morgan going, Hi.
I don't think we have a reason to panic, but basically, like, I
just need somebody to know, like, be aware of what's going
(49:00):
on. And I went, do you need me to
come get you? And you're like, maybe I'll let
you know. I went.
OK. So then shortly thereafter, I
get another message from Claire,I believe, going, have you heard
from the boys? I said, yes, I'm talking with
Morgan. And she's like, OK, great, thank
you. And then I think John messaged
(49:20):
me as well and was like, hey, like, thanks for thanks for what
you're doing or something. I was like, just, you know, just
guide the chair like in spider man.
So I'm like, OK. And so then finally, I think
Morgan, you sent me like the link, like your it's where I
could like watch your trip and I'm watching, I'm like this,
this is sketchy. Like we the way I know where
(49:42):
they are and where they're intending to go.
And it just doesn't make sense. And so, you know, I came to the
point where I was like, just letme know where I need to come get
you. And I was like, I can be there
at less than 20. Let me put on some pants.
I'll be there in a second. And getting there.
And having been with you guys all summer, you know, and
knowing your temperament and whatever, I finally picked you
(50:03):
up, it was like you were done. Like, I could just see it.
It was like, we're tired, we're frustrated, we're hungry.
Like it was all the emotions. And I was like, OK, like it's
fine now. Yeah, that was very.
Wild. Yeah, we managed to get our
breadsticks from Olive Garden. We did.
We came. We came back with the
breadsticks. We did.
(50:24):
Complete. Everything that we set out to
achieve. Because were you coming back
from dinner or going to dinner? We're going to dinner.
Went to dinner and we had dinnerand then we.
And then we were stuck. In Uber services for the for the
trip back because neither Josh or I were willing to put our
lives in the hands of Uber drivers at that point again.
(50:44):
Yeah. Although the very next morning I
had a very lovely Uber driver who gave who gave me full
service to Epcot and said do youneed to park map?
I've got some here. At which point I was like, no, I
think I'm OK I'm a cast member. And he was like.
Appreciate it though, I was. Like I appreciate the sentiment.
He's like, oh, cool. We had a full conversation about
(51:04):
it, but it was it was probably the best Uber driver of the
trip. But yeah, I'm just off.
It was mental, mental 24. I'm not even that 12 hours
really. I think we can gather from this
to Zach, we would give your services 10 out of 10 or 5 lbs
out of five, whatever Uber or Zuba would like to be phrased
by. 5 Yorkshire puddings out of five. 5 Yorkshire puddings out
(51:27):
of five. That's funny.
So, Zach, would you like to telleverybody where they can find
your podcast so they can? Yeah.
So you've got everything that you're up to.
Well, can't talk about everything I'm up to, but if, if
you care to listen, you can check out the Zac Brown show.
(51:48):
It's on Spotify, it's on Apple podcast, really wherever you
like to listen to it. I mean, who knows, maybe you're
picking it up from your neighborwho's playing it through their
window that that might be interesting.
But you could follow on Instagram and Facebook at the
Zac Brown show. And I post kind of like a little
clips from the show and sometimes sneak peeks depending
(52:08):
on what's going on. I've got something really
secretive cooking that's coming and I'm pretty excited about it.
And that's hopefully starting production on something new here
in the very near. Future and exclusive.
Yeah, we go offline. That's the first GB Mickey Offal
Junior exclusive that we can we've.
Got to try and get an exclusive from every guest we have on
(52:29):
Josh. And I must also tell our
listeners that if you haven't already, then be sure to check
out the podcast from February, which is episode #31 of the Zac
Brown Show, where you can listento even more Charles and
Tribulations of Man and Mods experiences with Zac last
summer, which we recorded a while back, which is, yeah, very
(52:51):
fun. And actually, I think it was
from that podcast that me and more realized that actually we
have a lot still to talk about. And absolutely it's not.
More to talk about, although we've not discussed.
Absolutely, and I think there'llbe more podcasts in the future.
It was the unofficial pilot to Great British Make You Waffle
Junior. Absolutely, absolutely.
(53:12):
So yeah. So thank you as always Zach for
joining us once again. And from myself and Morgue, we
appreciate everything you did for last summer and I have no
doubt that we will 100% be getting you on again as a guest
real soon. It was my pleasure, boys.
Thank you. So thank you everyone for
joining us and once again, you can find us on all podcasting
(53:32):
platforms of your choice, whether that be YouTube,
Spotify, Apple. You can also find us on our
website, The Great British Mickey Waffle Online.
And for everyone who is visitingthe mouse this summer, including
all residents of your normal GB Mickey Waffle show and maybe a
top secret trip in there for a member of our show too.
(53:54):
We hope you all have a great time sharing memories.
Until next time, keep on moving all the way to the end of the
row and we'll see you real soon.
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