Walt Disney World has revealed that Country Bear Jamboree has seen its guest satisfaction (GSAT) score soar since the reimagined “Musical” version of the stage show debuted last summer in Magic Kingdom. This shares details about the higher attraction approval rating, along with commentary about GSATs and why this improvement is surprising, whereas others are not. Plus, my belated Country Bear Musical Jamboree review.
Starting with that last point, it’s often unsurprising that certain offerings that are unpopular with fans are popular with the general public. The one that sticks out most prominently in my mind is Disney Enchantment. From the day it debuted, I made no secret that I was not a fan of the Disney Enchantment fireworks. I was openly rooting for the fireworks to flop, with the hope that lower guest satisfaction scores that would result in the return of Happily Ever After.
The odds were against that happening, as there’s a high floor for Magic Kingdom fireworks and low desire within Disney to admit defeat. All Magic Kingdom fireworks shows the same core qualities, with pyro exploding over Cinderella Castle to conclude a long, memory-filled day at Walt Disney World. The music is pulled from sentimental moments in memorable movies. These fireworks tug at the heartstrings, eliciting strong emotions and filling guests with happiness at the end of the evening.
Suffice to say, there’s a minimum baseline for any Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular, and even an arguably “bad” one is still “good” in the grand scheme of things. Guest satisfaction scores for Disney Enchantment reflected this, and it still ranked highly among all Magic Kingdom experiences. And yet, it was replaced because it underperformed for its category. I don’t know if it was the lowest-rated Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular ever, but it was below Happily Ever After, which is #1.
Some fans aren’t going to like hearing this, but it’s my understanding that it’s a similar story with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. That reimagined ride has received mixed reviews from fans, and that’s putting it charitably. This includes our own lengthy Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Ride Review: Failure, Flawed or Fantastic? Or if you’d prefer a comparison to its predecessor, there’s We Rode Splash Mountain & Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in a Week. Here’s How Both Win. (Spoiler: Splash Mountain wins more.)
From what I’ve heard, regular guests are unbothered by all of the faults fans have found. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is one of the top-rated rides not just in Magic Kingdom, but in all of Walt Disney World. While I’d love some more detail and specificity about this to understand how downtime and reliability factor (or don’t), I’m nevertheless unsurprised.
A big part of the core appeal of that log flume ride is and has always been its excellent ride profile, with outdoor and indoor scenes, all culminating in that climactic drop at the end. Adorable animals and Audio Animatronics also factor into the mix with both incarnations of the attraction. Disney diehards can quibble over the artistic and storytelling merits of each, but regular guests are largely zooming out and looking at the bigger picture. They rated Splash Mountain highly, so they rate Tiana’s Bayou Adventure highly.
To be clear, I’m not endorsing this–just reporting it. Generally speaking, this thought process concerns me. It’s the type of sentiment that allows Disney to decrease detail or justify degrading thematic integrity under the guise of guest preferences or the excuse that normal visitors won’t notice. While true in the vacuum of an individual attraction or two, I do think casual guests do notice in aggregate, even if subconsciously.
Or at least, so I’d like to think. But this isn’t really about Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at all–it’s about precedent. When it comes to that specific ride reimagining, persuasive cases can be made both for and against it versus its predecessor. But I digress.
Speaking of Frontierland reimaginings, Disney shared an update on Country Bear Musical Jamboree’s guest satisfaction ranking during a recent event I attended. The wide-ranging presentation was mostly oriented around the “Disney Bubble,” but touched upon a variety of different topics–including ride reimaginings.
During that, Jason Kirk, Senior Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World, shared his team uses a mixture of on-the-ground interactions with guests and data to make decisions. He explained how this drives programming decisions, balancing near-term and long-term additions while also assessing what to refresh. “We have to try to make the best decision for all our guests,” Kirk said.
This segued into ride reimaginings, and the announcement that Magic Kingdom will be overhauling and enhancing its version of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin later this year. “This is us going back and saying, ‘You know what? This experience needs some love. It’s the OG,” said Michael Hundgen, Portfolio Executive Creative Producer. “This is a great update to a classic attraction at Magic Kingdom.”
Hundgen used Country Bear Musical Jamboree as an illustrative example. He said that there were “lots of opinions about what to do” with the show, hinting at the rumored proposals for the attraction from the Chapek era. “Fans love the bears, we love the bears,” Hundgen added. He explained that Imagineering wanted to make the show fresh and relevant, while also showing love to the Country Bears.
The presentation revealed that Walt Disney World and Imagineering consider the reimagined stage show a “big success.” Guest Satisfaction surveys rank Country Bear Musical Jamboree as the #6 overall attraction in Magic Kingdom. The original Country Bear Jamboree was ranked #27.
This is both surprising and unsurprising.
As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, it’s no shock that the original Country Bear Jamboree ranked so low. It was a stage show (strike one) from the 1970s (strike two) without any connections to recognizable intellectual property (strike three). It also featured sharp wit and wry humor that most guests either wouldn’t appreciate or might find offensive (strikes four-plus).
I loved Country Bear Jamboree, but recognize that not everyone is me. No amount of awareness or advocacy for the OG Country Bears is going to persaud people of my perspective. Even though I don’t like the idea of dumbing things down for modern sensibilities, I’m also a realist. I recognize you have to meet the audience where they are, at least to some extent. It’s a delicate balance–and the same reason why I came to accept that Maelstrom, Universe of Energy, and even Great Movie Ride were on borrowed time at the end of their runs. No sense tilting at windmills.
The surprising part is that Country Bear Musical Jamboree now ranks #6. It’s still a stage show, which I would’ve assumed is like the exact opposite of a Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular–something with a low ceiling as opposed to a high floor. If you told me Country Bear Jamboree ranked #27 and asked me to guess the ranking of the redone Country Bear Musical Jamboree, I probably would’ve gone with #22, and been surprised if it were top 20.
For it to be top 10 is downright shocking. This puts it in the same league as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, TRON Lightcycle Run, Haunted Mansion, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Pirates of the Caribbean. (I assume those rankings aren’t counting entertainment, as there’s no way Country Bear Musical Jamboree is #6 if we’re throwing Happily Ever After, Festival of Fantasy, etc. into the mix.)
When it comes to the spike in guest satisfaction for a ride reimagining, the only thing that immediately comes to mind would be Maelstrom to Frozen Ever After. Even that wasn’t quite as pronounced to the best of my knowledge. (The spike for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was, but that’s not a reimagining that reused the same ride system–it’s totally different, and less surprising.)
Surprised as I might be, this is positive from my perspective.
Even though I personally would not rank Country Bear Musical Jamboree 21 spots above the OG Country Bear Jamboree (or even a single spot), I’m not lamenting the poor taste of my fellow guests. This means a few things, all of which are good news. The first is that the Country Bears are “safe” for another couple of decades. I figured this was the case with the reimagining, but feared that if it were quickly deemed a failure, they might plug the plug sooner.
The second is that this increases the likelihood of seasonal overlays in the future. I still think Halloween and Christmas Country Bear Musical Jamborees are unlikely, but this at least moves the needle a bit. It also presents a challenge: finding seasonal Disney IP that fits (because that’ll be the lesson Disney learned from this).
Finally, it proves longer and Audio Animatronics-centric attractions still hold immense appeal. I’ve been saying this for years–and that it’s a fool’s errand to chase technology and trends, especially via screens, because everyone has those in their pockets.
Not only that, but consumer technology refreshes faster than Disney, so there’s a danger of everything looking dated much sooner. A “blue ocean” strategy, of sorts, in aiming for attractions that cannot or are not replicated anywhere else is the optimal approach.
Country Bear Musical Jamboree is proof of concept on this, definitively demonstrating that a slower-paced and longer show driven by Audio Animatronics and without any thrills or gimmicks can be a hit with guests. Not just a success, but a resounding one.
On a semi-related note, several readers have asked for my review of Country Bear Musical Jamboree after I neglected to write one last summer. That was on purpose, as I have complicated and conflicting feelings about this reimagining. I’ve joked about writing “Tom’s Totally Biased Country Bear Musical Jamboree Review” to share them.
This feels like as good of a place as any for that. I’ll start with the objectively positive, which is that Grizzly Hall looks and sounds great. The attention put into the displays in the waiting area is excellent, the kind of loving tribute to the bears that has existed for years at Tokyo Disneyland. (Okay, not quite that good.)
Then there are the bears themselves. They also look and sound great–and I don’t mean the music. The rebuilt Audio Animatronics are fluid and don’t make a ton of noise while moving. The coats look fresh and fantastic. From the perspective of show quality alone, Country Bear Musical Jamboree is head and shoulders above the OG Country Bear Jamboree.
Of course, it didn’t have to be that way–the old show could’ve received TLC over the years, it just didn’t. Nothing was stopping Disney from greenlighting a restoration of the attraction, but realistically, millions of dollars aren’t spent like that on legacy attractions without a marketable return. The bottom line, though, is that the show looks and sounds better than it has at any time in my adult life. Again, this is Tokyo Disneyland-esque, but in this case, Country Bear Musical Jamboree outperforms its Japanese counterpart.
Trying to main my objectivity, I’m more mixed on the show itself. It’s very difficult to set aside my personal preferences in humor and music, both of which skew strongly in favor of the OG Country Bear Jamboree. At the same time, the truncated show lost a lot of its luster over a decade ago.
What I can say is that several of the Disney songs worked better than I expected, and there’s enough humor and rapport among the bears to convey their charm, personality, and history. It feels cohesive and well-paced. And again, it all feels very lovingly done by Imagineers who clearly “get” the Country Bears as they executed an IP mandate.
My biggest criticism on the substantive side (while trying to be objective) is that there’s too much genre-bending and script-flipping. It’s funny or surprising the first couple of times that the silly bears perform a love song in the style of country music, but feels gimmicky after a bit. I know Disney doesn’t have a ton of country music in its songbook, but I probably would’ve gone with more music from The Lion King, Cars, Fox and the Hound, Tarzan, Home on the Range, or (especially) Coco.
With that said, it’s not as if the song selection is bad by any means. I liked most of the music and accompanying gags (“Supercalifragilisticexpialiocious” and “A Whole New World” being my favorites). It just felt like 1-2 songs too many trying to be clever or surprise audiences. (Cutting the Toy Story music is the easiest answer. Walt Disney World does not need this much Toy Story.)
As for the biased part of the review, we’ve largely been over this before.
There are a couple of new developments, though. The first is in talking to more people with knowledge of the decision-making process that resulted in the Country Bear Musical Jamboree reimagining. This is something I hinted at previously, arguing that it probably wasn’t OG Country Bear Jamboree vs. Country Bear Musical Jamboree, but rather, Country Bear Musical Jamboree vs. no bears at all.
Everything I’ve heard since the announcement suggests that this is 100% accurate. That it took years for Country Bear Musical Jamboree to get the greenlight, and it almost never happened. (One of the rare cases where maybe the COVID closure improved outcomes.) That the show was a hard-fought victory for the passionate creatives who love the Country Bears. That this was the best case scenario of the outcomes that were actually plausible. Fan daydreams about a restored Country Bear Jamboree are nice, but they were just that–daydreams–not anything realistically considered.
This isn’t to say you have to agree with the decision at a high level, because obviously, you do not. But I feel bad for the Imagineers and others on the project who were criticized by fans for “killing” the OG Country Bear Jamboree. Those fans have it exactly backwards–these creatives and leaders went above and beyond to save the Country Bears from a worse fate: extinction.
All of that makes reviewing Country Bear Musical Jamboree difficult for me. I think the show quality is superior and appreciate that the attraction has been modernized; it’ll introduce a whole new generation of guests to the Country Bears, which is a good thing. With background knowledge, I’m pleased with how this saga ended up playing out as opposed to the alternative. But if I just review Country Bear Musical Jamboree on its merits against what it replaced, I do not come away thinking it’s an improvement. At least, not for me, personally.
Then there’s yet another biasing factor. We took our daughter to see Country Bear Musical Jamboree for the first time, and she absolutely loved it. Megatron is pretty much a Country Bear connoisseur, having now seen the original show, Country Bear Vacation, Country Bear Christmas, and Country Bear Musical Jamboree.
She loves each and every single version, but Country Bear Musical Jamboree got the biggest reaction out of her. Honestly, this isn’t all that remarkable. She doesn’t watch movies yet, so it’s not like she recognizes these Disney songs. If anything, she’s heard the music from Vacation Hoedown and Jingle Bell Jamboree the most, as those contain real world music that we’ve listened to at home.
For her, the appeal is the bears, themselves–she loves to point at them, clap, and laugh. Regardless, Country Bear Musical Jamboree is one of Megatron’s favorite Disney attractions in the world…which makes it one of my favorites, too.
I had seen CBMJ several times over the prior months, but I was further won over based on Sarah’s reaction to it. She went into this new show with a little, let’s say, cynicism, about it. Her expectations were not high. Sarah’s favorite versions of the show are the seasonal overlays, and she was skeptical the IP injection could maintain and charm and spirit of the decades-old shows. She walked away pleasantly surprised. She actually wanted to do it a few more times, whereas OG Country Bear Jamboree at Magic Kingdom had fallen to once-per-visit status.
That was more or less my reaction to seeing Country Bear Musical Jamboree for the first time, and I suspect seeing our daughter getting so giddy about the bears heightened Sarah’s own reaction. It certainly did mine, and underscored that we’d be able to enjoy the Country Bears with Megatron for years to come, which almost was not the outcome in Magic Kingdom. From that perspective alone, I give very high–but very biased–marks to Country Bear Musical Jamboree. I’d imagine our opinions will only become more favorable as Megatron recognizes more of the music from the show, and we form family nostalgia for Country Bear Musical Jamboree.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the reimagined Country Bear Musical Jamboree? Surprised that it’s GSAT jumped from #27 to #6 across all of Magic Kingdom? Do you personally prefer the OG Country Bear Jamboree or CBMJ? Do you at least understand the upside of modernizing the attraction, even if you prefer the original? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
