Complete Guide to All Characters at Animal Kingdom (with our favorite tips!)
While Animal Kingdom does not have the most character meets of any park, they do have some of the most unique character costumes.
In the post below, we have a list of every character you can see at Animal Kingdom. To make it easier to plan out your day, we’ve broken them down by land.
Note: You’ll notice that we don’t list the meeting times below. That’s because those times can frequently change. Instead, we have an entire post on how to use My Disney Experience to locate characters and find their current meeting times. Make sure you take a few minutes reviewing that if you’re new to the process!Interested in meeting other characters on your next trip? Be sure to check out our Ultimate Guide to Characters at Walt Disney World for info on other characters.
DinoLand U.S.A.
DinoLand U.S.A. is home to a fun celebration called Donald’s Dino-Bash and is where you can find some of your favorite characters prepared for a prehistoric party.
Discovery Island is where you can find the main mice – Mickey and Minnie Mouse. You can also see some favorites from Up, as well as Moana.
Mickey Mouse
Meeting Location: Adventurers Outpost – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Meet & Greet
Costume: Adventure
Photopass Available? Yes (automated)
Autographs: Yes
Lightning Lane available: Yes, included with Genie+
Tip: Mickey and Minnie meet together at this location.
Minnie Mouse
Meeting Location: Adventurers Outpost – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Meet & Greet
Costume: Adventure
Photopass Available? Yes (automated)
Autographs: Yes
Lightning Lane available: Yes, included with Genie+
Tip: Mickey and Minnie meet together at this location.
Russell
Meeting Location: Wilderness Explorers Club House – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Meet & Greet
Costume: Wilderness Explorer
Photopass Available? Yes
Autographs: Yes
Lightning Lane available: No
Tip: Dug used to meet at this location but you can now find him roaming Discovery Island.
Talking Dug
Meeting Location: Various – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Sighting (he roams around Discovery Island)
Costume: None
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: No
Lightning Lane available: No
Tip: This experience happens intermittently throughout the day.
Kevin
Meeting Location: Various – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Sighting (she roams around Discovery Island)
Costume: None
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: No
Lightning Lane available: No
Tip: This experience happens intermittently throughout the day. You can also find appearance times in the My Disney Experience app.
Moana
Meeting Location: Character Landing – Discovery Island – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Meet & Greet
Costume: Dress from the movie Moana
Photopass Available? Yes
Autographs: Yes
Lightning Lane available: No
Pocahontas
Meeting Location: The Oasis – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Meet & Greet
Costume: Traditional
Photopass Available? Yes
Autographs: Yes
Lightning Lane available: No
Rafiki’s Planet Watch
Rafiki’s Planet Watch occasionally has characters you can meet, especially during busy times of the year. In addition to the characters, this is also where you can find The Animation Experience and the Conservation Station.
Character meals are a popular way to meet lots of characters without waiting in long lines.
Animal Kingdom has 1 character meal: Tusker House.
Reservations for this dining experience can be hard-to-get, so make sure to check out our tips for snagging difficult reservations if you think you’d like to check one out on your next trip.
Mickey Mouse
Meeting Location: Tusker House – Africa – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Character Dining
Costume: Safari
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: Yes
Available Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Tip: The character meal at Tusker House often includes Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Goofy.
Donald Duck
Meeting Location: Tusker House – Africa – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Character Dining
Costume: Safari
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: Yes
Available Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Tip: The character meal at Tusker House often includes Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Goofy.
Daisy Duck
Meeting Location: Tusker House – Africa – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Character Dining
Costume: Safari
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: Yes
Available Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Tip: The character meal at Tusker House often includes Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Goofy.
Goofy
Meeting Location: Tusker House – Africa – Animal Kingdom
Type of character experience: Character Dining
Costume: Safari
Photopass Available? No
Autographs: Yes
Available Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Tip: The character meal at Tusker House often includes Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Goofy.
Tips for meeting characters in the parks
Character meet and greets can be extremely popular. For characters who have set appearance times (for example 9:00 am, 12:00 pm, 3:30 pm) we recommend lining up no later than about 15 minutes BEFORE the scheduled appearance time. Otherwise, you may miss out, since they will cut off the line as soon as the number of people waiting is the maximum the character can meet in the scheduled appearance timeframe.
Some of the meet and greets will have PhotoPass Photographers or automated camera boxes to capture the moment. Cast Members (including PhotoPass Photographers) can also take pictures with your camera or phone, too. If you think you’ll be capturing lots of pictures, consider purchasing Memory Maker which will enable you to download all photographs for one price.
Most of the character meet and greets can be found in the My Disney Experience App. If you need help with how to do that, we have an entire post with screenshots that will walk you through it.
Some character meets are available with Genie+. While we don’t recommend making them your first selection of the day, if meeting one of the characters available is a priority for you, it can be a good use of Genie+ for later in the day.
Autographs make a fun and inexpensive souvenir. You can purchase autograph books in the parks, or if you are crafty, you can make an autograph book yourself.
Flotillas were kind of like a mini parade but in a boat on the water. They typically had 1 boat and some characters and/or Cast Members on board and traveled around the park by way of the Discovery Island Lagoon.
However, in May 2024 Disney ended the last of the remaining flotillas at Animal Kingdom. We were sad to see them go because they were such a pleasant surprise to see around the park.