This is from someone who hasn't gone yet, but it has surpassed or met my expectations in every way.
- The look of the land is great, just like I expected it to be. The depth effects for the distant rockwork and waterfalls look incredible in photos; it could be the best version of that I've seen. That beats my expectations, so far.
- The rides are about what I expected them to be. FoP always seemed like it was billed as a huge E-ticket, and NRJ was labeled as a C-ticket way back in those leaked blueprints. We knew NRJ was going to be short for a long time now, but what's there seems to be pretty solid. I wouldn't mind a few more animal figures in NRJ, but the ride still seems to be quality. Most seem very impressed with FoP.
- The food and beverage is either at or slightly above my expectations. I think they did a really good job of making good, familiar food seem strange. It's also a type of QSR that I don't think the resort had on May 26th, so it fits in that real world way, too. The Night Blossom is pretty much exactly what I expected for their "butterbeer", and kudos to them for making a "glow seed" instead of the standard glow cube for their glowing drinks. Not really into alcohol, so no opinion there.
- The merchandise surprised me, both in the amount of stuff and that people seem to be eating it up. They have a bona fide hit with the little banshees, which I don't really think anyone saw coming. The create-your-own-avatar figurine is probably the best use of that tech yet. The real question, of course, will be what that store looks like in 5-10 years, but the merchandise team obviously worked their butts off for a movie that didn't generate a ton of merchandise even while being the biggest grossing film of all time. Weird, but true, that they may have actually underbuilt the retail space in the land when we all thought they wouldn't sell much of anything.
- To be fair, I've only watched about 30 seconds of the drum show, but it seems "meh" to me. I wasn't expecting any live entertainment, though.
Edit: I forgot... the biggest way that it exceeded expectations was how well it seems to fit into DAK. I always liked the movie, so I thought, "I'm sure the rides will be good, and it will look good, but it won't really belong in Animal Kingdom." The way they use Pandora as a lens through which we can look at the Earth really, really impressed me... I didn't see it coming. I don't remember who it was, but someone here thought it was sort of like WDI parodying itself by having people learn so much about this fictitious culture. Granted, learning to speak Na'vi probably won't have much practical value, but you will understand Earth better after visiting Pandora. There are lots of little touches. I highly recommend everyone read the Joe Rohde Instagram thread.
