First off, in defense of Red Lobster: cheddar bay biscuits. That is all.
I have been to WDW nine times and our tenth trip is coming up fast. If you read my ticker, you know that I have been going through chemo. We went to DL just after I found out about my cancer--two weeks. We were going to escape for a little while. We had some great moments: Minnie's breakfast our first morning, Goofy's Kitchen, Blue Bayou, the Haunted Mansion, the Halloween Party (although I was sad that it didn't have the Headless Horseman like they do at WDW), the theming at Carsland (absolutely beautiful!!!!!) and a few others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.
However, I didn't feel like the CMs engaged the visitors like they do at WDW. We were celebrating five years since we first met. I don't know that anyone outside of the restaurant CMs said anything to us, whereas, in Florida, we would get it even from other guests. Also, I had heard it described as a local's park and I got that feeling, though I can't really do it justice by trying to describe it. I just felt like I was intruding on their special place. Try though we might, we made efforts to ride the classic rides, but no FP for Peter Pan and an almost hour and a half wait even on a Monday meant we didn't get a chance to ride it. IASW also had extremely long lines--stretched near to where the princesses were--and then they closed it down for the Christmas overlay. Over at DCA, it was the same thing. No FP for TSMM, multiple hour waits for both rides in Carsland; in the end, because I cannot do thrill rides, I think we only rode the Little Mermaid ride at DCA, but, boy, was it beautiful.
I read this board, I read books, I did my research and I still felt unprepared. In spite of the differences in our experiences between the two parks, DH and I are talking about going during February in 2015 during a quieter time (who knew that October was going to be so stinking busy?) in order to try it again. I want to like it--I love Disney. I love meeting the characters, we have Disney trinkets every where in our house, I make sure we buy all the movies. Heck, we don't even have kids and we braved the crowds for "Monsters U" on opening night, when we normally would have waited until Sunday morning while everyone else was at church. I hope to some day visit the other Disney parks in other countries so that I can say I've been to all of them.