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| This Christmas tree was in front of the Titanic Museum. |
Our first stop in Branson was at the Branson 2 for 1 Tickets location on Hwy. 163 next to the White Oak Station gas station. We wanted to purchase vouchers for the "Awesome '80s" show since I couldn't find any discount tickets for that show. One of the gentlemen behind the counter was Santa Claus' double. This location of 2 for 1 is a lot easier to get in and out of than the location on Hwy. 76.
Our next stop was the condo we reserved. I found a great deal on Airbnb - the owner had just bought the condo and he was running a deal where the first 3 people to rent the condo got 50% off the rate. I was the last person who got the 50% off deal. The condo was located across from the Thousand Hills offices on Wildwood Drive. This condo was a walk-in and it had a walk-in shower in the second bedroom, which my husband used since he has difficulties getting in and out of a tub. We had issues accessing cable TV on the smart TV in the living room (old people problems, I know), but the owner came by and made sure he fixed it. The kitchen had lots of cooking equipment, including a blender and a crockpot. This condo even had a bidet in the master bedroom, but whose crazy idea was it to put mirrored closet doors across from the toilet? The condo we stayed in the Foothills during our summer trip to Branson had the same master bath setup, but the tub was across from the closet doors.
On Saturday morning, our first excursion was to Tanger Outlet Mall. I made some purchases at Bath & Body Works (it's much bigger than our B&BW) and purchased a small backpack at Vera Bradley Outlet with my 25% birthday coupon. We then stopped at the Americana Theater to pick up our tickets for the "Awesome 80s" show that afternoon.
After lunch at the condo, we headed to the Americana for the
2 PM ”Amazing ‘80s” show. I struck up a lovely conversation with a couple in
the lobby, in which we discussed Branson, and this blog and its associated
Facebook page. We then started talking
about the St. Louis Cardinals and baseball.
You’re probably thinking, “Why did they see a non-Christmas show during a Christmas season trip?” The answer to that question is that the show isn’t open during our summer trips to Branson. The show itself was pretty good. We recognized most of the songs, and the choreography and costumes were great, although the female singers were a little flat in places (in pitch, not chest). There was interesting trivia about the songs and the artists on the video screens. We were happy to see this show once, although we would probably not see it again.
Since that day was my birthday, we decided to go to Florentina’s Italian Ristorante for dinner. We had a voucher from OzarksDeals.com. The son offered to pay for the dinner as his birthday gift to me. He mentioned to the waitress that it was my birthday. I ended up with a piece of cheesecake for dessert. As always at Florentina’s, the food and the service were great. If you love Italian food, you can’t go wrong with Florentina’s. I think it’s even better than Olive Garden.
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| Oops, I forgot to take a photo of the cheesecake before I took a bite. |
After dinner, we went back to the condo to rest up and give our stomachs time to digest all that pasta before going to the “Christmas Wonderland” show. This show is in the King’s Castle Theater, which we had not been to since we saw the debut of “Anthems of Rock” there back in 2020. If you enjoy Broadway musicals, you will probably enjoy “Christmas Wonderland.” There were lots of costume changes and the choreography and singing was very good. There was a tall guy with an Irish accent who played Santa and was also in other musical numbers. During intermission, he also filled in at the concession stand. “The Irish Tenors and Celtic Ladies” is also playing at King’s Castle and I’d be willing to bet that our Irish tenor is in that show as well.
On Sunday morning, we watched our church’s worship service which was streaming on Facebook. We then ate lunch at the condo and drove to Promised Land Zoo (“PLZ”). We originally bought our OzarksDeals.com PLZ voucher for our summer Branson trip, but we ran out of time to go during that trip. The voucher was good through December 31, 2023, so we decided to use it on our Christmas Branson trip.
We went to the booth, turned in our vouchers and were given a code to use to access the drive-through part of the tour. Since it was a damp day, there weren’t any animal demonstrations. We went to feed the parakeets and did the walking tour. We then went back to the car to do the drive-through tour.
For some reason, we had a difficult time finding the keypad to enter the code that would open the gate. The son finally spotted it. Perhaps an arrow and a sign pointing out where the keypad is located would be helpful. There is a person in the booth for the “Let There Be Lights” tour that opens the gate – I guess we were thinking that there would be someone in the booth for the drive-through tour.
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| Hello, Mr. Llama, what can I do for you? |
Once we got through the gate, the drive-through tour was very enjoyable, although some of the roads were kind of bumpy. The best part of the tour was when the animals came up to your car. The hill leading out of this part of the park to get to the exit is very steep – you have to floor the gas pedal and speed up the hill to get over it. We drive an SUV so this wasn’t hard for us, but someone with a sedan or a minivan would probably have problems getting up over the hill.
After we left PLZ, we made our way to Andy’s Frozen Custard for a treat. The son and I got the special Andy’s sundae that is a fundraiser for Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s 87 & Running Foundation. After all, Branson has been selected as the Chiefs’ official vacation destination. And after the Rams left St. Louis, we became Chiefs fans.
We went back to the condo for dinner and to rest up before attending the final show of the trip. We had seen Clay Cooper’s regular show but had never seen his Christmas show, so we decided to check it out.
There was a pre-show skit titled “Just Horsin’ Around” produced by and starring Matt Gumm, the all-around talented Branson entertainer. It took place in an Old West saloon and was very funny.
The first half of Clay’s show was all country music. The second half of the show was Christmas music. All the music was great and the dancers were great as well. Clay has a live band backing him in contrast to the other two shows we attended, which used tracks for the accompaniments. Clay is very personable with the audience members and the interactions were one of my favorite parts of the show. If you don’t want to be singled out for any interaction with a show member, however, maybe you should sit closer to the back of the theater.
Monday was our shopping trip day. The Black Friday sale at Bass Pro Shops usually starts on the Monday before Thanksgiving. We were disappointed to discover, however, that the $10 hoodies we always buy didn’t go on sale until Black Friday. Hubby did purchase two nice flannel shirts and the son bought a Henley thermal shirt and a pair of jeans. I purchased a pair of Christmas pajamas with a bass on the shirt and the inscription, “Happy Bassmas.”
We went next door to the souvenir store to look around a bit. It was raining, so we only walked up to the main square to see the Christmas tree. We wanted to go into the store with the Christmas trees for charity, but they didn’t open until 11 AM.
Our next stop was the Grand Village shopping center. We visited Dickens’ Gift Shop, but we didn’t find anything we really wanted. We looked around the toy store. We went into the Christmas store, but it was too crowded for hubby. He has a bad foot/ankle and he was afraid someone was going to step on it. We wanted to eat lunch at Mel’s Hard Luck Diner, so we stood at the front door, along with a lot of other people, until the doors opened at 11 AM.
Lunch at Mel’s was as good as it always was. We decided to order our favorite onion rings as an appetizer rather than an additional side. I ordered a bacon BBQ cheeseburger, and it was huge!
After we left Grand Village, we went to Price Chopper to pick up some pastries for an easy breakfast on Tuesday morning before our drive home. We went back to the condo for supper and started packing up to go home.
We had a great time, but hubby and I discussed it, and we believe this will be our last Christmas season trip to Branson. We’ve seen all the Christmas shows we’ve wanted to see except for Dolly’s Stampede and that’s out of our price range. We would rather spend our vacation budget on one Branson trip per year.
Thanks for reading this very long review! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Diane
