"Careful," warns Joy, our guide during the penguin keeper experience at London Zoo, "It's like going into a creche full of two-year-olds."
As she slid back the bolt on the wooden gate at Penguin Beach, we realised she wasn't wrong - a cluster of knee-high, curious Humboldts were eagerly peering over a wooden board to see what was going on.
"Stick to the gravel and don't step backwards, they'll be behind you," explains Joy as we stepped over the board and into the enclosure, armed with wellies and brooms.
We were soon followed by a group of birds - one kept nibbling at the string ties on my Parka, another was clearly besotted with Joy and eager for a stroke under the chin.
During the 90-minute experience, we all got to touch his velvety feathers, and helped to clean penguin poo off the sides of the pool.
We also blew ribbons of bubbles and watched gleefully as the toddler-like birds waddled back and forth at surprising speed chasing the shiny orbs.
And we learned some fascinating facts. Did you know it's impossible to sex a penguin without sending off a feather for a DNA test?
It's the reason why many of the zoo's colony have ended up with boys' names when they are girls - and vice versa. Around 10 are born at ZSL each year and some have ended up with exotic monikers.
"We had a bit of a run on Game of Thrones names a few years back," says Joy, who tells us each penguin has their own personality.
Some like to follow but not be touched, some like a stroke, some love swimming in front of the Zoo's visitors, and some are bullies, like Pablo Escobar - who is off to Marwell Zoo on a breeding programme to meet a new girlfriend.
Humboldts hail from Chile and Peru and have a "catastrophic moult" once a year when their old feathers drop off and new ones come in, we learned, but at the moment they are in full feather.
After the beach we donned rubber gloves in the Keepers' hut and weighed out fish for their lunch. The colony eats around 30 kilos of tiny sprats from Billingsgate fish market three times a day.
Each bird can be identified by coloured beads on a wing bracelet, and keepers assess their condition daily on a scoring system to flag up any that are not thriving.
Toting clipboards and charts, we headed out to the viewing area to make our own condition checks - there are three birds today on a watch for keepers to make sure they get enough fish.
Then we were back on the decking at Penguin Beach to feed them through tubes that look like sawn off drainpipes. Joy explains that because of bird flu and the proximity to Regent's Park, we must try to shoot the fish down the pipe to emerge underwater.
The penguins dart around in the water, but are more interested in the pipes than the fish. But it turns out we haven't managed to fox the local bird population. There's the swish of huge grey wings, and a heron lands on the edge of the pool eagerly eyeing the silvery fish.
It's been a magical, once-in-a-lifetime experience for me and my teens to get up close to the penguins at London Zoo.
The £115 ticket price includes entrance to see the rest of the 20,000 animals at the attraction, including the two newest arrivals, baby lowland gorillas born a month apart and clinging tightly to their respective mums.
We also paid a visit to our favourite show-off Jimmy the gibbon, saw two young tigers play-fighting, pygmy hippos having a bath, and giraffes munching hay in The Giraffe House, which is still in use nearly 200 years after it was first built.
Buy tickets for London Zoo and the Penguin Experience at londonzoo.org
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