Country Bear Jamboree closing for lengthy refurbishment in August

Its nice to see CBJ getting the love it deserves, but also leaves the question, Could this be a sign at the Holiday Version returning? I doubt it, but its still nice to see Disney giving this attraction some love.

Great to see it getting some more love also great that it will be open for most of my trip

It's not closing until September according to wdw site;


Country Bear Jamboree - Closed For Refurbishment [ Saturday, September 01 - Wednesday, October 17 ]

Good to hear, the sound was so bad when we visited earlier this month. Speaking of bad audio, the Chinese acrobats at the China Pavilion had embarrassing audio issues during their performance. There was a loud crackling noise the entire time and it was really distracting.

Sounds like the perfect amount of time to take down the Vacation Howdown and put up the Holiday Special.

No wait, this isn't 2001.

Series of texts when I read this news...

Me: Sad news for me
Wife: What?!
Me: Country Bear Jamboree will be closed for refurbishment from August 22- October 18th
Wife: What are they doing to it? Making it not suck?


She's evil! We're going 9/29-10/6

I'm happy to hear this news. I know that CBJ is not the most popular attraction with some of our members, but I always enjoy the show.

I would gladly still like to lead a volunteer group to reset the show for the holidays!

I cannot imagine it taking more than 2-4 days with a 5-7 volunteer group. We would just need a single CM directing traffic.

Why the switch doesn't take place is still beyond me. Such a simple thing of set redecorating and program switching. Haunted Mansion Holiday takes only 3 weeks, a simple set redecoration cannot be "that" involved.

I like your wife.

FINALLY!

So glad to see the Country Bears getting some love.

I do hope this refurbishment also updates the movements of the AA's for a more realistic look. I wonder if Garner Holt will have anything to do about this?

It costs money to do and makes none in return. It is no more complicated than that.

I've never been a fan of the normal CBJ show -- it just doesn't do anything for me. But I always thought the Holiday show was delightful and would love to see it come back. (Hey, if it's too much trouble to switch over, then just run the Holiday show and leave it shuttered the rest of the year).

If they brought back holiday CBJ and the Lights of Winter I'd think somebody in TDO was starting to get it.

But that is true of about any single element at WDW - besides the shops and restaurants. Even E-tickets on their own don't make any money. It is the combination of the many things which people love that makes the money - and it seems that this something TDO appears to have forgotten.

Attractions do not make money in the same way that shops and restaurants do, but they do have a P&L statement so to speak that they must justify. The difference is their income are guests and not dollars. Every guest is worth $x. The total guest dollar amount must be greater than the actual dollars spent on the operation and maintenance of the attraction.

In the case of the Xmas layover of CBJ, the money being spent was not resulting in an adequate uptick in attendance to offset the cost.

Frontierland is looking mighty fine these days. All they need to focus on now is Splash.

Great opportunity to bring back the X Mas special AND update it and the regular show. Would like to see random songs.

Really need this:

Disney dropped the whole ticketing of rides when Epcot opened, and ever since all management has had is daily ride counts and guest compliments/complaints.

Meaning that it is virtually impossible to figure out exactly how the Christmas overlay affects overall attendance at MK, we're looking at intangibles here. What is known is that MK is really a bunch of fiefdoms and the decision to close might have been to make one fiefdom look like it was saving money, though at the expense of overall park experience.

With modern computing power/technology, all the Christmas overlay should require is changing some costumes and adding decorations. Period. This should only take a couple weeks, maybe less. In reality, they should have a ton of different shows ready to go at the press of a button as the show was designed to be updated, IMHO.

Tokyo Disneyland has its act together and runs three different shows each year, the original, the vacation, and the Christmas show. Why would it be cost feasible in Tokyo and not MK??

There are guests that look (looked) forward to the Christmas overlay, so not having it decreases guest experience. Unhappy guests come less often, spend less, such as buying less merchandise. If they did the Christmas Show and sold CBJ Christmas sourvenirs and such it would probably help the overall guest experience at MK. Even if you're not a fan, you'll be able to dislike the attraction less if Disney put some care into it.

What if they finally produced that special CBJ Halloween show and offered special merchandise? They'd make millions. Certainly that would pay for such a show, and would offset criticism of this neglected attraction.

What's going to happen next, a Fantasyland manager shutdowns SWSA and replaces it with a meet and greet because it means less rides to maintain once the FLE is complete?

Oh . . . I guess that is going to happen.

My favorite holiday Layover is the Haunted Mansion Holiday in Disneyland. Besides big green plastic trees, WDW doesn't have as much magic as Disneyland when it comes to special holiday events, besides Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Disneyland's Small world also has the awesome holiday overlay, I don't know if they do this in MK. It seems like management in MK is too lazy to do, or even care about, holiday overlays of rides.