There was no line so the skip the line/premium pass was a complete waste of money.
The observatory doesn't seem super popular and was pretty sparsely populated when we went. The facility obviously cost a lot of money and it is very tall. It has that going for it.
Aside from that, the elevators are surprisingly small and the ride is so fast you can't really appreciate the work that went into the graphical display shown on the walls. They should have slowed it down a bit on days when crowds are not very big so you can actually take time to enjoy the ride. The high speed also hides the fact you are going up so high so it kind of ruins that part of the experience.
Once you arrive at the top, you are shuffled into a kind of long, narrow theater type waiting area where you see a quick video presentation projected onto a wall that sort of looks like a bunch of flat, grey skyscraper-ish shapes which then retract into the ceiling providing you your first view of the city below you, extending out into the distance. Unfortunately the glass is a bit dirty and then you are shuffled out of that area before you can really see anything...
And you go down, around, into somewhere else. I can't remember much, it was around a few bends and then to the spot where you get an ipad handed to you and some instructions on how to try to use it as an augmented reality type display that can show you some information on the various buildings you might see on the West side of Manhattan. I tried it out, it works, sort of. Basically it tells you the name of the buildings that people have paid to have listed in the app. The New Jersey side seems to not exist in the minds of the people who made the app. That was weird. Basically it's a heavy, awkward thing you have to carry around as you look out the windows and it doesn't work all that well and when it does, it doesn't really do much that I saw.
On to the cafe and junk store.
The premium tickets seemed like a decent deal, you get to skip the lines (which didn't exist) and you get a $15 credit to use in the cafe or gift shop area. Unfortunately that is basically a scam. You have to use the entire $15 credit on a single purchase, you can't get something from the cafe and then use the rest in the gift shop and there is no money back if you don't spend it all.
The staff of the cafe was near hostile. They were obviously unhappy to be there, they couldn't have displayed a more negative attitude toward the customers there if they tried to do so. I wonder if they were told to do so? It almost seemed intentional, like it was meant to give the 'Rude New Yorker Cliche Experience' or something? Anyway, they were brusque and rude, impatient and unhelpful. The most helpful person we encountered was someone who just seemed to have arrived and told my wife she couldn't just buy a banana and a coke at the cafe unless she wanted to waste the rest of the $15 credit. Once that whole thing was explained more completely he told us he could bill us for a brownie too and that would use up most of it. So a can of coke, a banana and a brownie for $15. I'm used to tourist trap pricing but that is just a slap in the face.
In the gift shop, which they could call the 'One World Junk Shop' and at least elicit a smile, you'll find painfully overpriced T-Shirts of a quality Walmart would hesitate to put on their racks, cheap junk puzzles and other trinkets, nothing attractive or interesting. We ended up getting a bear keychain that was something like $12 but I would value around $3. So out of the $30 worth of credit we were supposed to get back we actually spent about $25 or so and got about $8 of actual value.
As for the views (the reason you came!): Not that great.
Yes, you're high up. That is true, and there is a value to that in itself. Being high up over a city is pretty cool, and the One World Observatory is really high up there. This is kind of the heart of the problem. Initially impressive, you quickly realize that being so high up turns the rest of the Manhattan view into a series of empty rooftops and a few non-descript towers. From the ground, you can look up at towers designed to be beautiful and impressive to the viewer but from above, you don't get the same impression. Things becomes a bit bland and forgettable.
I've been to the top of the Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo Tower, and they suffer a bit of the same problem but they have a much more interesting presentation and especially the Skytree has a wonderful underground mall supporting it, full of charming shops and cafes. One World has a connection with the nearby Oculus mall which would be kind of the same but is so empty and bland it feels a bit dystopian and like having a shopping mall inside the movie 2001.
Anyway, TLDR, it's not worth the money. See Manhattan from the ground, walk the streets, see the impressive 9/11 Memorial, and take a ferry or other boat ride around the East river and Hudson river and see the New Jersey and Manhattan shores. Much better than seeing a bunch of roof tops and ugly angles on the same buildings.