Yes. No. Maybe? Long ago, we were planning on a WDW trip until Radiator Springs was announced, and a friend also cautioned us that the more-compact DLR would be better for our then young family of three sons. I really wanted my eldest son, a "Cars" maniac, to get to go to Cars Land while still young enough to be wowed and immersed, to find it magical. So we went in 2012, when he was almost 8yo and his brothers were 5 and 2.5. We loved it! We did a long trip, buying APs, bridging the gap from Halloween to start of Christmas season, enjoying both holidays in the park over two weeks. We split our stay, staying mainly at the Residence Inn (now Clementine Inn), but ending with a park-view room at Paradise Pier.
(Because you mentioned other parks, I will say that we took a break in the middle to go to Carlsbad for Legoland, and liked it, but really loved the Legoland Hotel, which is still my favorite hotel ever. All family-centered, from the all-suites rooms to all the fun surprises to the kid-friendly but still yummy and reasonably nutritious breakfast buffet.)
We went back for a week in 2013 before our APs expired. We split our stay (with a side trip to SF) between Residence Inn, the Tropicana (gotta love being across the street!), and DLH. Fun!
Then in December 2016, with a 2.5yo DD who had not existed for the DLR trips, we switched it up and went to WDW with a Free Dining promotion. As a family of six, our choices were Art of Animation of Ft. Wilderness, and so we stayed in a cabin, as FW is near Magic Kingdom, our main park of choice. We had a great time, but were firmly decided that we preferred DLR, if only for the walkability of it all! Add in the lack of spontaneity and a feeling of always watching the clock for FP and dining reservations to all that transportation time (more watching the clock to catch buses from our resort!), and we decided DLR was the real vacation spot.
(We also went to Universal Orlando for Wizarding World, loved the express passes, but were not overly wowed by much except Harry Potter, although the Seuss area was fun. We are major SHOW people, loving the non-ride entertainment, and Disney wins hands down in that department.)
So, earlier this year I started planning for a grand return, and have had several rude awakenings. Five years is a long time in park time, I guess, and we have lost a lot of things that made our previous DLR trips special.
-NO Jedi Training (WHAT?! The whole reason for our timing was to get DS2 one last Jedi experience before he ages out!),
-NO Ariel's Grotto (by far, our favorite character meal, because all the princesses are "marquee" names unlike some of the smaller "stars" at Goofy's or Plaza Inn) and instead we're supposed to shell out $160 (after tax and tip) per person to eat at Napa Rose, and
-NO rooms for us under $200/night as prices everywhere have jumped, even though the hotels' quality has not. Oh, and now, to get any real use out of the FP system, we need to pay $15 per person per day ($90 for six), adding $450 to five park days--an amount that could get us another day of vacation, including (good) food! Oh, and the APs are now priced so that you'd need to spend 15 days in the park to make them worthwhile, instead of 10, but meanwhile, the regular tickets are still geared at the "locals' park" label with a cap of five days. So we either limit ourselves to five days, not knowing at all what SWGE is going to do to life in the parks, or buy two full five-day tickets.
Is California weather really that much better to outweigh what feels like downgrades in our experience?
WDW, and its
-multiple options (and price points) for princess meals to take a 5yo DD,
-on-site hotels that give WAY more bang for the buck,
-a M&G with a MERMAID Ariel, not a human one (not on most people's radars, I know! LOL),
-EMM at MK that we LOVED in 2016 and now includes more rides!,
-FP system that is included as part of our stay, and
-a dining plan that is now two CS meals and two snacks a day, so we don't feel like we "have" to do a dining reservation every day,
are much more attractive to us than we originally thought, esp with reports that DLR now has no low season like the early November one we enjoyed in 2012, so that FPs are more of a must. Being spontaneous is nice, but so is *knowing* that you will get to ride the rides you most want long before you arrive at the park that day. SWGE is so vital, essential, and pivotal to our next Disney trip, no matter which park we choose, that I really need a system in place where I know we will get to visit SWGE. Nobody seems to know what is going to happen, but the WDW culture seems more likely to provide something closer to a guarantee--BEFORE we leave home to trek thousands of miles to the park. Once again, DLR is acting like they only care about locals, not people who come from thousands of miles away and can't change their plans or come back again if SWGE is at capacity.
Depending on how SWGE things shake out, we could still end up at DLR (esp if they reinstated Jedi Training...which looks very unlikely), and I know I will shake my fist some day at the rain (and a missed bus!) if we go to WDW. But it is nowhere near as clear cut as it was a couple of years ago. YMMV