Once permitted through the baggage check (they look in your bags before you go to the main gates) the family headed to a window for our official Disney vacation check in. This took about 20 minutes so I walked off to explore stuff just outside the park and found this waterfall.
It was next to the stroller stations. I now have a fear of strollers thanks to the hundreds present at all the theme parks. And I keep having dreams about waiting in line for stuff. Once we got our tickets for the duration of the vacation we entered the park. This is the famous Tree of Life from The Lion King.
I'll have more photos of it later but it really is magnificent with tons of detailed carvings of animals. It's not real of course but I had to touch it to make sure. Our first goal was to take the Kilimanjaro Safari. It's best to do this as early in the day as possible because you ride around on a bus/jeep with no air conditioning. This is an upside down tree that you can see while heading for the ride.
This was the jeep/bus we rode on.I took lots of pictures on the Safari but most didn't turn out.
Hippos in the water
Giraffe. There were three including a young one. It started running toward our jeep and everyone was yelling to get a picture/video footage.
Animals, forgot their official names, with HUGE horns
Elephant
Lion and lionessAfter the ride portion was over we walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail.
This is my head inside a hippo skull
GorillaMichanne and I wanted to ride the Expedition Everest roller coaster but it was temporarily closed so we continued on to DinoLand. We rode the primeval whirl which is similar to a fair ride--too much spinning. We convinced our parents to ride the Dinosaur jeep ride which I thought was really fun.
Mom sharing her oatmeal cookie with a persistent duck
Pluto and Goofy
Dinosaur ride entrance
Here's a picture of the family while on the ride. You'll notice the smiles on my face and Micanne's and my parents eyes are closed. We broke for lunch at the very expensive and overly stimulating Rainforest Cafe. 
I had coconut shrimp and dry mahi mahi. The claim chowder was excellent though. About every 20 minutes or so the restaurant reenacts a rain forest setting with thunder and crazy animal behavior. After lunch we walked through the Tree of Life Gardens.
After walking through the garden Michanne and I checked on the status of the Expedition Everest ride. It was going but the wait was 50 minutes. We decided to wait in line. The ride was awesome! It kind of plays on the whole mystery and legend of the Yeti (Abominable Snowman) and goes forwards and backwards (in the dark!) and had some pretty steep drops.
I had my eyes closed for most of this ride too. At some point during the afternoon we saw the It's Tough to be a Bug 3D show. It was pretty lame. Speaking of lame, we rode the train to Rafiki's planet watch which was a total waste of time. We did and saw pretty much anything we could or wanted to so decided to take the long trek back to the bus station. We went back to the resort to rest and clean up before dinner. We thought visiting Downtown Disney would be fun and we could pick a place to eat. Ralph chose T-Rex Cafe, a prehistoric family adventure. This place was even crazier than the Rainforest Cafe.
The lights changed, the creatures moved, it was so loud and again, over stimilating. I had a huge plate of nachos. We walked over to a couple of the neighboring stores after dinner including the Lego Imagination Center and a never ending gift shop.
Transformer lego man
Lock Ness monster lego
Dog legosWe had about all we could stand for one day so once again we waited for the bus to take us back to the resort. I enjoyed the Safari and Expedition Everest ride the best. We would have ridden the roller coaster again but the wait was 40 minutes. Now I wish we would have done it anyway.
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