So I had my preview and just got home.. Here's my quick and dirty run down..
I had the 6-8 time slot, we got there about 4:50 and found the line way back by the animals in the entrance but not all the way back. Fastpasses did say 5pm but we didn't have one for ours (more in a moment). As I was one of the last to get in, I can say that it was approximately 1000 they let in. They used the paper fastpass to flights and standby for the boat ride.. We got to stay until 8:30 so it was the best time slot to have and we had almost 3 1/2 hours there.
Getting in took a moment for me as my fastpass didn't match the time slot I was given but brought a print out, they had 3 guest relations people right there and we joined the few that didn't have one as well. took maybe a minute, we got right in and we get to keep another time slot to go back and we got in at 5:15. most before us had the right now time slot for their fast pass so they all got in line to get in. Ours was 30 minutes later so we just started to look around, after hours type of empty and got some great video and pictures. By the time we finished the outdoor stuff, it was our turn for fastpass. Took abut 50 minutes of waiting to ride. not horrible but they were only using a fraction of the queue.. I'd say about 30 minutes of that was probably going through the different pre-flight show they do which was nice.. it'll get old fast like dinosaur did. All the men seemed to get female avatars and the woman got male. some got the right gender.
So the ride itself. I was the person that almost didn't fit.. First that seat is uncomfortable, it's like sitting on a 4 inch wide board. and not much in the way of a saddle. I had trouble getting locked in but did get in. First problem was my height (6'4, not all legs but a lot) and size 14 sneaker. I couldn't get my knees fully under the "console" at the front and my shoes didn't allow my feet to be forward. eventually we sorted out if I lifted my heel it moved just enough forward to let it lock in place. Now because I couldn't get my knees under the console it put my torso too far back for the other brace to lock in place. eventually we sorted out how what posture I needed and it locked but it just locked. I was almost that person that couldn't fit and volunteered for disney to contact me if they go to fix the seat for taller while being heavier guests. but I got to ride it. It was a nice ride, I had more of a technical what is going on kick then really getting into it and that's just fine. that's the disney I like. the way you sit you really don't see everyone around you. Many would call it aggressive in it's movement, it seems to lower up to 2 feet and raise up to 2 feet from starting point. ends of the row are going to get the most movement which are spots 1,2,7,8, 9,10, 15,16. It's 2 groups of 8 and there is 3 levels. One group goes up, one groups stays and another group goes down a flight. My daughter loved it. it really doesn't move that much but how you sit it feels much worse. My seat didn't feel like it was breathing or anything but that could be because of how I wasn't really in the right spot they designed it for, my daughter said she felt it..
Rivers was nice.. it's short, very well air conditioned. I was very surprised to see it was the pump based rail boat ride. It was bumpy like all other WDW boats but overall really interesting how they did the ride. I would have liked a few more minutes but overall it was nice. especially when the wait was 1 minute to get on..
So the land itself...
It's nice.. It's not the spectacular that everyone is saying. The outdoor areas is much smaller than I expected and makes hollywood studios look huge. It's exactly the standard and way Joe Rohde designs thing and it was great. It was designed to not be seen elsewhere so it was more encompassing than anywhere else in WDW so far, but not more than cars land in
disneyland is. I found the mix of real and fake plants to be very obvious, It was very disney and how well done their artistic department does things like fake rocks and such. I'm not a fan of the movie so maybe it was spot on to the movie but it wasn't as blended as people have been saying. Everything was well placed and it's very detailed, but that's disney when the money stops being in the way so it's disney getting back to doing what they do best. The biggest difference is stuff over your heads and because of the height, water features you don't find elsewhere on proerty... It was nice but the rest of animal kingdom is just as nice, just different (well maybe not dinoland, what happened there?).
Food, it was nice and fresh.. best counter service on property but it's not the high end signatures. I would give the land about a 6 and this place about a 7. to compare I give pretty much all of MK a 4 and HS a 5. some of the small stands around AK I would give a 7 also but their portion size is not on par with what you got here so 7 on taste, 5 on portion/price. I would eat here again and I would come in specifically to eat here before heading to something else if I dont' stop at the lounge heading into pandora.
There is some stuff you can tell is going to be for performances. For example a large drum in the drum area. my really high up camera happened to be able to peak in and it looks like an animatronic will be popping up to play drums with you... the animatronic itself was not there, but you can tell it wasn't meant for a person to stand in. So I guess we will be getting some navi aroudn the outside areas
EDIT TO ADD: I also want to point out that my favorite things in life are music followed by fireworks. I just came off an amazing week of lots of fireworks so take some of this with a grain of salt. To a small degree, some of my opinions are probably influenced that this is not fireworks and I just saw some amazing fireworks, multiple days in a row.