(Yes, the boxer shorts on the avatar are hilarious, but Disney couldn't show any big blue willies - and you know that everyone would have been trying to look)
You can get really close to the Pandoran plants, close enough to touch some of them, but surprisingly I didn't see anyone trying to touch anything they weren't supposed to - there are several things like the giant Flaska Reclinata (4 metres tall!) that you are encouraged to touch. When you tap or pound on the side of the Flaska Reclinata, parts of it start to glow, it releases spores (steam) out of its top side, and if you keep tapping it, it shoots a stream of poison (water) out the end of the flask onto people walking down the path.
Disney did such a good job with the plants that they not only look completely realistic, but they've blended them in seamlessly with real plants (some very exotic and almost alien looking real plants that I've never seen before). They have even hung Pandoran "extentions" onto the real living trees and blended those so that they look like they are a part of the actual trees. It is absolutely astonishing the amount of detail and work that they put into Pandora. And at night, there are those Na'vi "lamps" with the little glowing bugs flying around in them that look like they actually have little glowing bugs flying around in them.
Yes, there are 100's of humans walking around, but they have designed everything in such a way that you never feel like you're on a big walkway full of people. The paths split and merge and twist and turn throughout the landscape so that you feel more like you're exploring, rather than just following a pathway. And there is so much to look at and everything is so beautiful that we didn't really notice the crowds. When I say that there is a lot to look at... that's an understatement. There are really 3 attractions at Pandora; the Flight of Passage ride, the Na'vi River Boat Ride, and Pandora itself. You can walk around for hours, then come back another day and walk around again, and keep seeing new things. The park staff say that they keep noticing things each day that they didn't notice before, like the Stingbats hanging in the floating mountains or the overgrown RDA vehicles in the forest - we didn't notice them, we read about them after we got home. We'll be sure to look closer the next time we go. We plan on going back every February for the Super Bowl weekend. The Super Bowl is like a religious holiday to Americans, and the parks are almost empty because of it, so if you're like us and don't give a crap about American football, that's the day to hit up Pandora (or Universal Studios for the Harry Potter Parks, which are almost as amazing as Pandora!)
I'll post some better pictures of the plants and mountains this week. They use forced perspective really well to make it look like the mountains float way off into the distance.



