Walkabout The World - A Disney Podcast - Holiday In Disneys Animal Kingdom With Host Jeremy

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Hello Holiday Travelers! Join host Jeremy this week in Disney's Animal Kingdom for a stroll through some of the most festive areas of any of the parks. Hang out with the Merry Menagerie, travel into holiday themed Harambe and even listen to the wonderful band Burudika!   Walkabout the World is now on TikTok! Come follow our visual companion to the audio podcast at Walkabout.the.world.pod on TikTok   Visit us at walkabouttheworld.com - find links to all the things - attraction episodes, Insta accounts of all the hosts, and even how to buy your own Walkabout shirt!     Look us up at @WalkaboutWDW on Instagram and drop us a note to say hi.   You can now also drop us at line at [e-mail]. Say hi, tell us how you found us, and give us some suggestions on things you'd love to hear. Please consider giving us a rating and review wherever you listen - it really helps.   Walkabout The World is a weekly Disney podcast, always recorded on property at Walt Disney World or Disneyland Resort with the simple goal of making you feel like you are in the middle of the magic.

Hello, travelers, welcome back to walk about the world and greetings. Once again from Disney's Animal Kingdom, the hairiest place on earth, where the animals roam free and holiday time. Well, they're actually quite constrained. Anyway, we're here. We're at Animal Kingdom. It's holiday time. This is the home of probably the most unique holiday ambience you can find. anywhere in the Disney parks and resorts, and I utterly love it, and we are here to wallow in the

Christmas goodness together. I'm here at the entrance to the park this time. Normally start inside, but just some great vibes out here, and the amazing Animal Kingdom Christmas tree is in view. I'm just staring. It's got animals and moons and stars, and it's very, handcrafted and metallic looking. Looks as if the items were made by a craftsman from whatever parts you can find. I love it. I'm right next to the Joffreys car

and I can smell delicious coffee. Go for it, drummer. So let's go on a holiday excursion in Animal Kingdom together. Come on. We have reached Discovery Island and the Mary Menagerie is here. By the way, Heather's here too. Hi, Travelers.

She's going to go take some photos because my phone camera is broken. She's going to go take some photos of the menagerie. Who do we have out tonight? Okay, so we have the gentleman playing the violin. He's all dressed up in his menagerie outfit. The menagerie outfits look like soft linen and whites and blues. The two little penguins just about ran over, traveler. So we have the two little penguins roaming around.

We have a larger penguin across the way that I can see. Large crowd gathered here, so I'm trying to peer through and see what else we have. Oh, we have a reindeer. I see him down the way. And the Arctic fox is out. and I think we've got the whole crew The only thing I haven't seen is the seal pup But the big reindeer is so impressive

So if you don't know What the merry menagerie is These are Okay remember to set the stage here For Discovery Island In the lore of animal kingdom This is a village of artisans That has settled here

And so at Christmas time They decorate their village and we'll talk about some of that. But one of the things that they do is they put together a puppet show of sorts, a public puppet show where they puppeteer large animals that have very lifelike expressions. And so you have the artisans, you know, the cast members.

Bile in guys going wild. But you have the cast members out here puppeteering these wonderful puppets and blues and whites, deck with flecks of gold, very lifelike, very cute. And it's unique to this park. We'll talk a little bit more about the park decor, but let me just hush up for a minute, and I want you to plant yourself wherever you are with a nice, cozy drink, or whether you're on your walk or settling down for a good night's sleep, you are standing next to the

Riverside Depot here in... Discovery Island Enjoying the Merry Menagerie There's a better place to be in the holidays, I don't know Heather just got back I saw everything with the seal pup Did you see? Okay, no seal pup today

But just about everything else And they normally have a steel drum guy out here and he just took a break right before we arrived Here comes a food cart Ever present Heather got some great photos of the menagerie We'll share those with you on Instagram at Walkabout WDW. So to talk a little bit about the decor here in Discovery Island,

then I'll hush and we'll explore. But this year, I think they've made a little change because you have the ever-present green garland with the gold and silver worked into the whole thing. But this year there's a lot of white. like brilliant white leaves interwoven throughout it all. So it's silver, gold, green, and white, and it's beautiful. And up on the ledge of all the rooftops, not reindeer. Actually, there is a reindeer.

One of them is reindeer. But they look like artisan-made glass lanterns with flames inside, and they're shaped like animals. Friendly, like cute characters of animals. squirrel and owl, dove, reindeer, fox. And they're up on the edges of the roofs where the gutters are. And they're beautiful. The Arctic fox is right near us on a little ledge.

And he's amazing. He's currently saying hi to a tiny little traveler. Tree of Life is in view to your left. There's a little bit of an evening dark sky. We're near dusk. So a little bit of darkness behind the tree of life and it looks brilliant. Let's take off and go see what we can see with our ears. Trashcan.

I'm saying hi to the penguin right now. This is the baby one? What about the two little ones? Are they smaller babies? Yeah, you're smaller than this one. Awesome. We were visited by a penguin. The penguins keeper said we had been chosen.

Meet up with you in a second. Of this year, maybe last year or two. I can't remember, but a smart thing that Disney has done is they have released merchandise themed after the Mary Menagerie where we just ducked in a store real quick because we were on the hunt for something. But the cute little penguin that met me, they have him in here. You can buy him as a plush. And they have some really nice looking shirts. Like, what do you call this, Heather? Is this a spirit jersey or not?

That's a spirit jersey. So a couple of spirit jerseys that say Mary Menagerie and gold and blue and white, and they are beautiful. and then they have a blue, white, and gold Mary Menagerie t-shirt that has the reindeer and the Arctic fox on it. Gorgeous stuff. And we were on the lookout for this little item, and Heather, what is this? Can you describe it? Yeah, it's a set of ornaments that look kind of like the puppets for the Mary Menagerie. There is a seal, a bear.

That we didn't get to see today. Yeah, seal, a bear, and a fox. It looks like their arms and legs move, but they light up, too. Dude, we didn't get to see the bear either, didn't we? Nope. Huh. So, like, the arms move on them and they have LEDs? Yes.

It looks like, I don't know what part lights up. And so the puppets, themselves, the puppets are white. Yeah. And they are outlined in gold and decorated with blue. So if you find yourself here at the holidays, pick yourself up some Merry Menagerie goods. The ornaments are headed home with us, by the way. All right, see you in a minute, guys. All right, we are headed through the large wooden gates.

into Africa the village of Harambe and we have music folks oh man we are in for a treat it's Buradika on for so long and back again you know this one Bridika in Harambe Town Square lancer lit dusk approaches and it is a good time So I stopped after to say hi to the band and told them so glad that they're back. They were gone for a long time and having them back is such a treat. So here we are. We are just past the performance area.

We are over here next to Mombasa Marketplace, the white pillared stone building. By the way, this structure is being restored by M. Jafari Architectural Restoration Company. In case you wanted to know, the decor here I always want to take a moment to describe. For folks that aren't here, can't get here, I love the Christmas decor here because this is supposed to be, you know, according to the lore of the land here,

supposed to be a real East African village. And one of the themes here is that the locals are reclaiming their place after occupation for many, many years. Now it's them bringing their village back, adding their touches, and sometimes items are seen. scarce and you have to make do with what you have.

You have to make Christmas decor with what you have. And so here we see wreaths made out of wire and what looks like old lights, pieces of greenery, some fruit. And then some of my favorites is wreaths made out of squares that are decorated with bottle caps of all sorts. So imagine six or eight squares arranged in a circle and they have lights strewn throughout. They're little like metal baskets, but on the outside of the baskets is bottle caps of loads of different types of sodas. It just looks handmade and awesome. What can you find in the

Mombasa marketplace? Well, the sign says novelties and such. Enjoy. To your left is the Kusufiri Bakery and coffee shop. Best food in East Africa, it says. Ahead of us is the entrance to Kilimanjara safaris. Around the corner is where you can go take the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch and all that good stuff. We're going to go take a trip around that way. But before that, I think Heather and I are going to duck into the marketplace here and see what we can see. And so I will see you when we come out. All right, folks, that's it from me.

That's it from Walkabout Law. world this week. Thank you for joining us on a little holiday tour of Disney's and the Kingdom. As always, you can look us up on Instagram and talk about WDW. We are actually on TikTok now. I know, don't laugh. It's taken us a while, but we're there. You can follow us on TikTok as well. And I hope wherever you are, that you are well, that you have a great holiday season. And as always, we end with the hope and the promise that there is a great big beautiful tomorrow out there for each of us. We'll see you in another one of those tomorrow's on a future episode of Walk About the World. Bye, everyone.