New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
The Buttonwood Park Zoo’s third annual Holiday Zoobilee offers visitors the chance to experience the holidays in a wildly unique way. Families will learn how the Zoo’s animals stay active through special holiday themed keeper chats and animal enrichment. Children will be able to deliver their holiday wish list to Santa and decorate a yummy sugar cookie in the Wildlife Education Building. Both the Black Bear Express and Wildlife Carousel rides are included in the Holiday Zoobilee admission and are weather permitting. The Zoo’s annual Bear on the Branch scavenger hunt will provide families with many clues to create their very own Holiday adventure.
In addition to these return favorites, the Zoo has added several new and exciting features to this year’s Holiday Zoobilee. Zoo staff will offer fun activities to assist community families with ways to “green” their holidays. Children will be able to create their own recyclable wrapping paper and experience the touch and feel of the Holidays with sensory stations and fun facts about evergreens. The Zoo will be adorned with an assortment of decorations made from recycled materials. These green ideas are simple to re-create and the Zoo encourages visitors to borrow a few ideas for their own homes.
If a visit with Santa was not enough, guest appearances by Queen Elsa and Princess Anna will be sure to melt the hearts of young children. Both characters will be available for a meet and greet from 12pm-2pm at the Zoo’s Buttonwood Barn.
For the third year, the Buttonwood Park Zoo is proud to partner with local area schools for Holiday Zoobilee. Culinary students from Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School will make sugar cookies for children to decorate at Holiday Zoobilee while the visual design students have designed the Bear on the Branch scavenger hunt clues.
The Zoological Society has offered local area elementary students a ticket for their perfect attendance during the month of November. For the past two years, the Zoo provided each New Bedford Public School elementary student with perfect attendance a free ticket to visit Holiday Zoobilee. The Zoological Society is expanding their November perfect attendance ticket program to include additional local elementary schools this year. “The Zoological Society is proud to partner with local area schools to highlight the accomplishment of these students,” stated Kristen Gray, Director of Society Operations. “With the focus of our mission being education based, it is a perfect match to celebrate the success of our community students and encourage experiences that will create a lifelong interest in learning.”
The Holiday Zoobilee admission prices for Zoo Members are $9/adult and $6/child and the pricing for Non-members is $14/adult; $11/child with all children under 3 being free. The Zoo is open exclusively for Holiday Zoobliee on December 13- 14 & 20-21, 2014 from 11am-4pm and will be closed for regular admission on those days. For more information about Holiday Zoobilee, please visit www.bpzoo.org.
