As Disney’s Animal Kingdom continues to push for a share of the holiday pie at Walt Disney World, they have debuted some amazing new offerings on Discovery Island. While we’ll have more thoughts on the park trying to be a Christmas-forward park in the future, we wanted to share one of our favorite new elements – the Merry Menagerie puppets!

Life-size, artisan-sculpted puppets welcome guests to Discovery Island in an all-new and festive offering. Reindeer, polar bears, penguins, and more.

We’re actually big fans of this offering! You probably won’t spend more than 10 or 15 minutes here watching the puppeteers and grabbing photos, but every interaction is personal. The puppeteers are extremely skilled at bringing emotion and character to each puppet. The puppeteers are just as skilled working with each animal as they are with interacting with children, always inviting them in for a photo or to pet the animal. There are two groups of animals that come out between 10am and 5pm, generally separated by about 10-15 minutes between each group as other things take place around the Tree of Life such as Winged Encounters.

This offering is so well executed and a perfect welcome to Disney’s Animal Kingdom during the holiday season.