In the end, Parvati Shallow defeated fellow Favorite Amanda Kimmel by a vote of 5–3 to become the Sole Survivor.

The viewers' favorite contestants, as named on the reunion show, were James Clement, Kimmel and Oscar "Ozzy" Lusth.

The season has been considered one of the show's best, with the blindside elimination of fifth-place contestant Erik Reichenbach by the four remaining female survivors – Parvati, Amanda, Cirie Fields and Natalie Bolton – as the series' best event.

Stephenie LaGrossa and Bobby Jon Drinkard's appearances in both Palau and Guatemala combined with Palau winner, Tom Westman declining an offer to compete due to him not wanting to ruin his reputation amongst the fans of the show, excluded all contestants from those seasons to return.

Confirmed contestants who were considered, but eventually cut were Coby Archa and Janu Tornell from Palau, Terry Deitz, Danielle DiLorenzo and Shane Powers from Panama, and Yul Kwon from Cook Islands.

The merged tribe was named Dabu by contestant Erik Reichenbach, who falsely claimed it to mean "good" in Micronesian.

[8] Eliza Orlins competed in The Amazing Race 31 alongside two-time Survivor contestant Corinne Kaplan.

[further explanation needed] On both tribes, the majority of the Favorites worked to eliminate the Fans, who continued to succumb to infighting.

Jeff Probst originally ranked it as his second-favorite season of all time (behind Borneo), stating that "The Parvati-led women's alliance produced some of the most memorable moments in the history of the show.

(Yes, Borneo now seems dated and tame by comparison, but it’s the biggest game changer in the past 20 years of television.)

[23] Slant magazine gave the season a 3.5-star rating out of 4, saying "Never in Survivor history has there been such a string of shocking tribal councils one right after the next.

[31] In 2015, in a poll held on the website of former Survivor contestant Rob Cesternino, Micronesia was ranked as the fourth-greatest season of the series by the website's users, while Cesternino himself personally ranked it as the second-best season, behind Survivor: Heroes vs.

[35] In the official CBS Watch issue commemorating Survivor's 15th anniversary, Micronesia was voted by viewers as the third-greatest season of the series, behind Heroes vs. Villains and Pearl Islands.

[36] Three of the top ten contestants voted by viewers as the greatest were in this season (Lusth, Fields, and Shallow).

[37] Another poll in the same magazine, asking viewers to vote for the most memorable moment in the series, saw Ozzy's elimination in episode ten come in second, behind Sandra Diaz-Twine burning Russell Hantz's hat in Heroes vs.

In the official issue of CBS Watch commemorating the 15th anniversary of Survivor, Shallow was voted by viewers as the fourth greatest contestant in the history of the series (only behind Rob Cesternino, Russell Hantz, and Rob Mariano), and was the highest-ranking female contestant.