Wednesday January 24th 2024

The weather yoyo continues. I had to switch to warm weather clothes today. A few days ago the temperature was hardly able to climb toward sixty. Today the temperature peaked in the eighties. It was necessary to wear a short sleeve shirt and shorts instead of long sleeves, long pants and a sweatshirt.

My goal for today was to watch the Country Bears Jamboree one last time at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The last performance of the current show is Friday evening. It will close for an extended refurbishment. The new show will have the bears singing Disney songs in the style of a Nashville Review. The current pun and stereotype filled show will be gone forever.

I got to the Magic Kingdom at 4PM with a plan to stay until after the fireworks. The Flag Retreat ceremony at Town Square started at 5PM so I hung around and waited for the classic Disney experience. It was patriotic as usual. The Disney band played and the Dapper Dans sang as the flag was lowered.

From Town Square I took the railroad to Frontier Land and the Country Bear Jamboree. In the past each show was only about half full even on a busy day like today. As time is running out for the show every performance seemed to be full. Most of the audience was there to see the show one last time. They really got into it. Just about everybody was clapping to the music and some were even singing along. I’m glad I got to watch the current show one last time and I’m looking forward to seeing what the new show is like.

With my primary reason for visiting the Magic Kingdom accomplished I wandered around the park taking in the atmosphere and riding a few rides. I chose to watch the fireworks from the back of the park along the Rivers of America. The crowds at the park today were heavy, so Main Street was packed. The other advantage of watching from the back is the clear access to rides at the end of the fireworks. I was able to basically walk on to the Haunted Mansion as the fireworks were ending.

I left the Magic Kingdom an hour after the fireworks were over. I thought that would be enough time to clear out some of the post fireworks crowds trying to get back to the parking lot. It was probably a little better than right after the fireworks, but it was still a long process getting from the Magic Kingdom back to the Transport and Ticket Center and then to my car at a distant section of the parking lot. It was more than an hour from the Magic Kingdom to my RV home, but it was a good late afternoon and evening at the theme park.