The Lone Palm Airport Bar at Universal CityWalk Orlando is currently closed for refurbishment and surrounded by construction walls.
Lone Palm Airport Bar Closed
Lone Palm Airport Bar is a quick-service bar and dining location across from Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. Usually, guests dine under the wings of Jimmy Buffett’s actual plane, the Hemisphere Dancer. However, the plane was removed last summer for refurbishment. The new construction work is likely an extension of that project, preparing the bar for the plane’s return.
The straw has been removed from the bar’s roof. The neon signs are still in place.
A windsock was removed but its frame remains, as do other decorations above the bar.
Scrim is around the back of the bar, where the plane used to sit.
We noticed some black tarp stuck to a roof support.
Past the construction walls, we could see that all the seating has been removed and the pavement has been torn up.
When the Hemisphere Dancer was removed, Margaritaville said in a statement that it would return in 2025. The Lone Palm Airport Bar webpage says it is “being refurbished under the care of Buffett’s personal team for the next several months” and will return “once completed.”
The plane is a Grumman HU-16 Albatross seaplane first manufactured in 1955. After it was used by the U.S. Navy, Buffett purchased and restored it in 1995, renaming it the Hemisphere Dancer. Buffett’s adventures in the plane include the incident recounted in the song “Jamaica Mistaica.” On January 16, 1996, Jamaican police shot at the plane because they thought it was smuggling drugs. Buffett, his wife, two children, U2’s lead singer Bono, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell were all on board but no one was hurt.
The Hemisphere Dancer is also featured in Buffett’s autobiography, “A Pirate Looks at Fifty,” a memoir about Buffett and his family flying around the Caribbean, Central, and South America for his 50th birthday.
Jimmy Buffett passed away in 2023 at the age of 76.
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